Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The racism of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings...

This month 71 years ago, the US cropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9 respectively.

‘Racism’ is probably not the first word that springs to mind as we reflect on these terrible events, and their immediate and ongoign aftermath.

But according to a fascinating book by Vincent J. Intondi, published last year and entitled African Americans Against the Bomb, it was the recognition of those bombings as an act of racism that drew African Americans into the nuclear disarmament movement and future wars that kept them there.

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The debate about whether the US was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki persists today. The most widely accepted – but ferociously challenged – argument in favor is that it was necessary to force the surrender of Japan and thus end World War II.

But the underpinnings of racism are glaringly obvious. Intondi quotes poet Langston Hughes asking the question voiced by many others; why did the United States not drop the atomic bomb on Germany or Italy?

The answer can be found in the appalling and vitriolic anti-Japanese sentiment Intondi cites, whipped up to dehumanize an entire population. This includes the illustrious Time magazine which declared that “The ordinary unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing … indicates it.” Full story...

Related posts:
  1. US will never apologize for Hiroshima, Nagasaki ...
  2. Hiroshima: the true account of hell on earth...
  3. Hiroshima: 70 years on, one survivor remembers the horror of the world's
  4. The Hiroshima myth. Unaccountable war crimes and the lies of US military
  5. Journey to Hiroshima...
  6. The real reason America dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and...
  7. The Great Hiroshima Cover-Up...
  8. August 6, 1945, the day Hiroshima turned into hell... 
  9. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the U.S. Terror State... 
  10. 65 years ago, the bomb fell on Nagasaki... 
  11. Aug. 9th. 1945, the bomb drops on Nagasaki...

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