Thursday, December 19, 2013

Continuing Double Standards

Yesterday was the 69th anniversary of  the Korematsu decision upholding Executive Order 9066 regarding the US internment of people of  Japanese ancestry. Now while all "progressive" academics admit that this was an act of racial discrimination there are many of these very same people completely unwilling to admit that there ever was any racism involved what so ever with the Soviet deportations of ethnic Koreans, Germans, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks. Instead there is a militant defense of the USSR from any charges of racial discrimination against these groups. Their thinking goes that racism is the most horrible thing in the world, the US is guilty of racism, and the Soviet Union not, therefore the USSR is morally superior to the US. This logic falls down on the basic empirical fact that their claim that there was never any racism by the Soviet government under Stalin against people like Germans and Crimean Tatars is clearly untrue. Only by adopting a definition of racial discrimination completely at odds with international law and scholars like John Rex, George Fredrickson, and others can one come to such a conclusion. So there remains a blatant double standard with many US scholars completely exonerating the Stalin regime of any and all charges of racial discrimination against the deported peoples for actions which they clearly describe as racist when committed by other governments.

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