Propaganda of Hate
When studying US History in college, one of the chapters was on the subject of propaganda. Defined as information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause, we learned that after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the US Government used propaganda in the form of cartoons and other messaging to demonize the Germans and Japanese in order to inspire our citizens to support the war effort. Young men were needed to enlist in the armed services and the government needed to sell war bonds to pay for the war effort.
Cartoons depicting the German soldiers as hulking giants and the Japanese soldiers as slant-eyed devils showed up in posters and newspapers across the country. It was not difficult for citizens to stand by while the government rounded up Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps, confiscating their property. After the war ended, the images from the cartoons still burned in the memories of US citizens and it was difficult for many to get past thinking of our former enemies as allies, especially the Japanese because their kinsmen did not live among most of us, unlike the Germans who had become part of many of our communities before the war.
While we like to think of Americans as heroes in our fight against fascism in World War II and the liberation of people from concentration camps, many of Jewish descent, we forget that we turned away many Jews who fled to this country prior to our involvement in the war.
Going back further, depictions of the Irish as red-haired drunks and the Polish as stupid and gullible were common. So, too, were depictions of people of African descent as lazy and unable to make decisions for themselves, worthy of nothing more than a brutish existence as slaves guided by “loving and stern” masters. How many of us still picture members of the First Nations (known as Indians) as savage, uncivilized, easily duped, drunk and in need of outside guidance?
Once propaganda is disseminated, it takes on a life of its own and all too often the damage is done and becomes difficult to erase in the culture. The effort to demonize a group of people is deliberate and wide-spread. Afterward, there is not an equal effort to turn the images around.
Whom did it serve to create this propaganda, and whose responsibility is it to spread the word that we are now to think of people of German, Japanese, Irish, Polish, African, or Indigenous descent as Americans worthy of our respectful treatment? Who benefitted?
After the Iranian hostage crisis and more recently 9/11, we came to regard those of Persian and Arab descent as enemies. During COVID, many people started blaming those of Asian descent for the hardships most of us endured, and we saw attacks upon random people who appear to be Asian as a result.
Good and bad behavior knows no color, creed, ethnicity or national origin. All major world religions have a version of the Golden Rule. Christians will find it in the Bible Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31: do to others as you would have them do to you. Sadly, all too often, it comes down to that other version of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
I urge all of you to recognize the remnants of propaganda in our thinking about people who don’t look like us, pray like us, or form families like us. It takes a conscious effort to eradicate negative stereotypes from our thinking and be more loving, more welcoming, of others.
