On Feb. 12, 1942, just one year after Japanese planes blew up Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order making it legal for the United States to extract Japanese-American families from their homes, often with only a few belongings, and confine them to one of several internment camps in the western United States.
While the horrific events of last Tuesday have been repeatedly compared with the devastating attack of 1941, there have been notably fewer parallels drawn between the equally deplorable decision that followed shortly after. In the wake of Sept. 11’s terrorist attack and the proceeding instances of prejudice and harassment directed toward Arab-Americans in this country, we feel this issue must be addressed.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced it has received more than 300 reports of harassment and abuse from Tuesday through Thursday of last week, nearly half the number it received last year. Similarly, student newspapers at college campuses throughout the country have reported repeated harassment of foreign students and Arab-Americans. These misguided acts of hate are intolerable. Reacting to one instance of malice and destruction by perpetrating similar acts against others, against fellow Americans, against students, is beyond reproach.
We have a unique and critical role to play here at Ohio State and at other colleges and universities as well. At institutions such as this one, devoted to teaching, to learning and to experiencing a variety of ideas from a variety of viewpoints, we should especially watch out for behavior that is both narrow-minded and cruel. Our campus is home to so many and it should be a place where people feel safe and secure. Safe enough to walk around alone and secure enough to come together with others during difficult times such as this.
We applaud President Bush’s decision to speak out against these destructive occurrences. As well as similar comments made by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who only recently said, “Hatred, prejudice and anger is what caused this. We should act bravely and in a tolerant way.”
We encourage more national, state and community leaders to join in and push for Americans to come together in order to work through this terrible time. During this lowest hour we must cling to our highest principles of tolerance and decency and demonstrate to those who seek to destroy our way of life that we are stronger than their cowardly acts. We will survive and we will do so as one nation, united.
