I saw Michelle Malkin speak the other night at Hopkins. I’d seen and heard her on CSPAN a couple times, and wasn’t captivated. But I was primed by the prospect of “blood”, so to speak. I wanted to see if raucous demonstration might ensue against her, as was the case at UC Berkeley, about a week or two ago. Moreover, her talk at AU (American University in DC), 2 nights earlier, had been cancelled due to pressure from the Bush campaign and possibly the university’s administration and the Bush administration as well.
Malkin is a conservative columnist who’s been publicizing her book, In Defense of Internment: the case for ‘racial profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror.
Her talk, which was mostly devoted to making the case for Japanese American internment, seemed like one big WWII history lesson. It was also peppered with remarks about the current need for profiling.
Coincidentally, today I received an email job announcement for director of a program that gives grants for JA-experience-in-WWII projects. Would Malkin oppose this program? I’m not sure. In her speech, she did acknowledge the suffering of JA’s during the war, but said it was unavoidable.
Her talk tried to overturn 2 alleged myths – 1) that there was no security threat posed by Japan and 2) no disloyalty and subversion by people of Japanese descent.
When I review my notes and try to reconstruct her arguments, I sense that she didn’t seem to sufficiently differentiate between Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans, between those who acted subversively and those who did not.
Even if she did make a distinction in her book, the Japanese American Citizens League notes that a federally-mandated commission found that “not a single documented act of espionage, sabotage or fifth column activity on the mainland was committed by an American citizen of Japanese ancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on the West Coast” (Personal Justice Denied, 1982). The JACL adds that his view has been “consistently substantiated by independent scholars and researchers for almost half a century since World War II.” (Tateishi, August 24, 2004)
In the current situation, Malkin said she is not “advocating rounding up people and tossing them into camps.” I suppose that shows that she is able to scale her sense of security to fit the scope of the threat. She added, “In times of war, unfortunately, racial profiling is justified.”
Is it really?... Perhaps… I would venture to say that it depends on how it is done.
Meanwhile, the casual observer would probably find it odd for someone like her to be arguing this, given the fact that she’s a visible minority (to borrow a Canadian term). She’s of Filipino descent.
Indeed, during the Q&A period, immediately after her address, one questioner suggested that people might pay less attention to her if she were a white, wealthy man. To which she replied that “she didn’t know if her ethnicity helped. If so, so what!?”
This disingenuousness about her racial visibility is typical of minority conservatives. This is something that they tend to downplay, despite the fact that we all know that their appearance attracts attention to their commentary, especially in matters of race.
(Now, I wouldn’t want to deny leftists their due. I find the way they deal with war, other than to oppose it, is short-sighted.)
Well, enough about politics.
What are my impressions of the evening?
Well, not many fireworks ensued, though there were some students standing outside, at the entrance to the auditorium, handing out small anti-Malkin leaflets.
The campus Republican club hosted the event, which was attended by about 60 or less folks (mostly students).
And how does she look? Her appearance can be a bit stunning if caught from the best angle. She’s about 5’2” or 5’3”in her 2” heels. Slim physique. Long, slightly wavy hair. Very full lips.
She doesn’t come off as combative or shrill. Rather, quite the opposite. Almost subdued. Quite a contrast to her sometimes inflammatory rhetoric.
Most of those challenging her during the Q&A, didn’t know enough about WWII, Japanese intelligence in the U.S., and the domestic situation in 1941 to seriously puncture her main points.
The most serious challenge came from a JA woman (nonstudent, Sansei (3rd generation)) who invoked the experiences of her parents’ internment, and the service of her uncle in military intelligence in the Pacific campaign.. She also brought up an interesting fact about orphans of Japanese descent being placed in the internment camps.