Tom Hanks has set off a firestorm over racism that is impacting the new HBO miniseries, “The Pacific.” Listen to both videos:
Not smart, Tom. not smart. Maybe in 30 years he could say that but there are far too many people from that era still alive to say WWII was racist. I thought we were at war with Japan because they bombed Pearl Harbor. I think most Americans thought the same. Was there racism, if you want to call it that, because we were at war with Japan? Of course. Caricatures developed immediately of our enemies in both war theatres. Terms were used like Kraut, Japs, zipperheads, etc. I don’t know if you can actually call it racism when you are at war with someone. I think it might take on a different term. War words?
Much of WWII involved racism. Racism is easy. When one has difficulty verbalizing why they hate another human being, racism is far easier than rational thought. And let’s face it, it is pretty difficult to kill someone, a lot of someones without a little hate being brought into the mix. However, WWII did not start because Americans hate the Japanese for racial reasons. Racial stereotyping certainly developed. However, in a world where the Chinese and Koreans were being killed and tortured it is pretty difficult to evoke racism.
It is also very difficult to paint Americans as racist when 6 million Jews were being annihilated across the Atlantic for racist reasons, even though they were the same race as their executioner. Go figure. Perhaps racism is definitely the wrong word.
Tom Hanks needs to reword his remarks. The “Greatest Generation” doesn’t need to go out of this world being called racist. The was lots of racism back then. I have my father’s letters lamenting that an Indian soldier could not go into a bar and buy a drink in 1945. There was no mention that our troops were segregated. I questioned my mother who didn’t have an answer. We have races of people being herded into concentration camps and killed then incinerated because they were ethnically different in the eyes of their captors. We have political enemies facing the same fate. We have women of similar racial background being pressed into prostitution because of their national difference. The world was turned upside down. Some of that same hatred lives on. Getting into whether something is or is not racist really helps nothing. The best thing to do is simply move on. Hanks has put his foot in it. He also discusses terrorism. He doesn’t want to go there either.
Tom Hanks has been a wonderful spokes person for the ‘Greatest Generation.’ I hope they don’t fire him and that he alters his message just a little bit since he has so many people upset.
I love Hanks, but dang dude – open mouth, insert foot, leg, and hip!
I have to wonder whether his words were just poorly chosen or if they represent what he really believes. If it’s what he really believes then he needs to spend a bit more time researching history and not making movies about history.
Well, Hanks wouldn’t be the first one to say something (or someone) was racist when it wasn’t! However, it may just have been a very poor choice of words on his part. Maybe he’ll realize the error of his ways and clairify what he was trying to say.
He’ll score a pass on this. I don’t think he really realized what he said and how it would be interpreted.
I think he was playing up to the camera and the interviewer… 🙁
Did you watch both videos? I put up both videos in hopes of seeing inconsistency. I didn’t see what I was looking for.
I tried to give him a pass. I think he really put his foot in his mouth. I am hoping that is the case.
I have said this many times before, but my mother hated the Japanese until the day she died. She didn’t hate them because they were Asian. She didn’t feel that way about Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese…she felt that way about ‘the Japs.’
She was courteous (I didn’t say she fell all over him) to her friend’s Japanese-American son in law only because he was connected to her friend and because American was in Japanese-American. The man had been raised in America and was very western.
People of her generation had very strong feelings because of how our ‘boys’ were treated in battle and when they were captured and how they were treated as POWs. It wasn’t just my anti-Japanese mother.
I’m with you MH. Esecpailly with how brutal the war was fought on both sides. I can’t watch the video from this network (I’m in training all week) but I did see a video and commentary about it.
I don’t like it when people throw out the ‘R’ word because for what we’ve seen here in the US.. Nothing beats how racist foreign countries are to there own people or neighboring countries.
Tax-person, I guess I am the liberal media pass person. You know, I don’t know Tom Hanks’ politics. I don’t look at celebrity’s politics unless thay are horribly over with them…like Streisand.
I do know that Tom Hanks has done a great deal with the World War II Memorial and other World War II things …he has done much to preserve the past. I was hoping he had misspoken. He was given every chance to explain himself a little better than he did. He didnt chose to take the opportunity. If that is giving someone a pass…gladly. but I don’t characterize it on a political spectrum. Unlike some people, I don’t see everything as liberal or conservative.
So you really do not see the dicotomy between your gut / viseral reaction to the AG and your reaction to Hanks and want me to believe that it is unrelated to any knowledge of the politics of either one? That is a hard sell.
Hanks is just another pampered and out-of-touch Hollywood elitist who wouldn’t understand sacrifice unless it meant foregoing caviar at the next post-Oscar party. I’m sick to death of these spoiled brats telling the rest of us how we need to conserve energy, take light rail, and to apologize for the evils of American history.
It’s unfortunate that so many people think that stars who create and/or act in make-believe worlds are also subject-matter experts on real life.
I don’t know. I don’t look to Hanks for political or even social commentary. I look to him for entertainment. And racist? I don’t even know what that means anymore. It’s been used by the left to describe everything and everyone. The word means something close to “sentient being” now.
Personally, I never met a nip I didn’t like! Japanese women? Yes, please!
Doggone, Moonhowler, that’s one of the best threads you have done. Excellent tactic to focus in precisely on the specific enemy of the time and admit that racist terms often surface in the heat of battle. I can imagine what the Japanese called us! I never personally saw much of an anti-Japanese attitude while growing up after the war, with the exception of joking remarks about “shoddy” and “cheap” Japanese manufactured goods and an occasional use of the term “Jap.” Our quick entry into the Cold War and especially the Korean War made the Japanese into a valuable support ally so fast that, in my opinion, the continuation of most leftover racial feelings had little chance — beyond those veterans who had seen or suffered the worst excesses of the Japanese imperial armed forces.
But I did see this phenomenon arise again in Vietnam, where the term “gook” was a common GI deprecation for the Viet Cong particularly. Don’t hear that much anymore either, except maybe an occasional slip of the tongue from an old vet. The contemporary downside is the modern use of the term “raghead.” The unfortunate thing here is that this term is used by people who have never been and probably will never be face to face with the enemy on an actual battlefield. Even given allowances for the deep and bitter national feelings after 9/11, it is still to me a stupid way to express one’s anger. We have no excuse for such an insult. Good way to lose any friends you may already have.
One point about Hanks’ reference to killing everybody. The fact is that the Japanese, unlike many German soldiers, were often not at all inclined to surrender in battle. You will also notice that it was the Japanese and not the Germans who had kamikaze pilots willing to commit suicide for the Emperor. So, I think Hanks’ statement on that was misplaced. I can recall a Japanese soldier who hid out in the hills of Guam for 30 years, I think, not knowing the war was long over and not wishing to surrender. Never heard of any Wermacht soldiers who did that — minus those in the SS who may have managed to go into hiding to escape post-war retributions.
I also think that Hanks focused a bit too much on the comparative racial features. Although there are certainly some racial differences between the Japanese and the Chinese, we had many, many of our people who fought side by side with the Chinese against the Japanese Imperial Army. Those I have known who did this (relatives, elderly colleagues) never showed me any previous or lingering racial animosity toward their Chinese comrades. They were apparently surprised and sometimes even shocked by the cultural differences in the China of that time, but I never heared one of them deprecate the Chinese in racial terms. However, they certainly did hate the Japanese, even after the war— mostly for what they had seen the Japanese do to the Chinese people. That’s my own experience. Others may have seen something different.
I agree that Tom Hanks put his foot in it on this one. But, what the hey, I think you really had to have been there or at least be a bit closer in age to those who were there to really understand the feelings of that era. I don’t expect that the old vets will throw Tom out of the fan club on his behind over this. Tom already obtained a lifetime membership with “Saving Private Ryan.” I just won’t go into the Iraq-Afghanistan angle because I think Tom is a bit confused on that one.
Definitely, the term racist is way overused and has lost meaning in recent times. It’s seems to be something used to label someone you don’t agree with – when you can’t think of anything else to call them.
Taxpayer, I really do not like the AG. I have never liked him. His politics offend me. He is a politician.
I like Tom Hanks as an actor. I don’t know his politics. I like what he has done with the WWII stuff. I like him as a producer. I don’t like what he said about racism as it relates to WWII. I think it existed but I think he is off the mark on it.
There isn’t any relationship to how I feel about an actor, his causes and that narrow-minded AG. You are aware that it wasn’t my post? (the AG one)
Don’t send a bill when you finish psychoanalyzing me. Actually I have no idea what you are talking about. If you have something to say, spit it out.
Wolverine, As a near contemporary, nothing you said seemed alien at all to me. The kids I grew up with also didn’t hate the Japanese like our parents did. We did laugh about cheap Japanese stuff. Remember the transistors? Actually we all thought they were pretty neat but we had to say they were ‘cheap.’
I was upset when McCain was attacked for saying ‘gook.’ That was definitely a situation where someone needed to walk a mile in his shoes. People have monikers for their enemies. How else can we dehumanize them enough to kill them?
I was particularly taken by the marine who put the Japanese soldier out of his misery. He would not die. They kept shooting him and he simply would not die. The Marine teared up. I know he acted out of kindness.
I remember reading about that guy who was holed up on Guam. Amazing. And that is a lot different than those old Nazis living in Argentina, for sure.
I really hope that Hanks thinks about what he has said. He has done a great deal of good honoring veterans from WWII. He has put a great deal of himself into that effort. I respect him for it. I don’t quite see him as the elite, like Emma does. Hanks actually has some soul.
Wolverine, thanks for listening to my rant. I have strong feelings about WWII. I think it was a gift from my parents. Well, perhaps ‘gift’ is the wrong word. 😉
MH and Wolverine – my grandfather still uses certain terms from WWII (mainly “Jap”). We’ve talked with him about the “correct” terms to use.
But, after he told me about what he went through in Japan during WWII, I can understand why he feels the way he does and why he uses that term. And he only uses it when he’s talking about WWII – I’ve never seen him use it directed at someone who he was talking to or had seen . . .
Hanks is a Hollywood class high priest of the Church of America is Always Wrong. He’s not calling the Japanese racists, he’s talking about our ability to kill them being racist – right up to the bomb.
HH, Is your grandfather Japanese? No Americans were in actual Japan until after the war. Help me understand what you are saying.
Tax, you are apparently not aware of the good work Tom Hanks has done with the WWII Memorial. Quite the opposite is true actually. Put away the broad brush. Hanks has donated time, money and support to WWII issues.
He wasn’t Japanese – I’ll have to double check where he was fighting the Japanese. He talks about how they didn’t follow the rules of the Geneva Convention and fought pretty dirty (if there is such a thing during a war).
He probably was fighting on one of the islands like Iwo Jima or Guam? Maybe there.
That is pretty much what my mother always said.