Kevin Marshall's America
According to some, she deserves this agony.
Reader GenWar linked me to one of many articles I’ve seen lately that I’ve found disturbing and, as an American, a bit embarrassing. It concerns the reaction some have had to the disaster in Japan, this time coming from WNBA guard Cappie Pondexter:
“What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes,” the guard, now with the WNBA’s New York Liberty, tweeted on her account, cappa23.
“u just never knw!” she Tweeted later on. “They did pearl harbor so u can’t expect anything less.”
It’s not a sentiment that Pondexter is alone in. A glance on many Facebook walls and Twitter feeds will show the same sentiment being expressed ad nauseam, some of which have been collected on various websites for posterity.
There’s also Gilbert Gottfried, whose tweeted joke about the disaster resulted in his dismissal as the voice of the AFLAC duck, which was the one thing keeping him in the limelight (since it clearly wasn’t his material).
The amazement I have with this reaction is two-fold: that people whose parents weren’t even alive when Pearl Harbor happened still harbor resentment towards them for it, and also that they’d be stupid enough to share this with anyone – let alone on a public forum – while the body count continues to climb.
So what exactly for these people are the statute of limitations? What’s the statute of limitations? Will we refuse help for England because of the revolution? Do we look past a disaster in our own soil because it’s in the South, which once seceded from our Union?
It was sixty years ago. It was another time. It was a completely different world.
There can’t be an excuse for this behavior. It’s ugly, wrong-headed, and monstrous, and anyone harboring those sentiments at this time needs to do some very deep soul-searching.
Well, let me be your Catholic Priest, except instead of advising you to recite thirteen Hail Marys, I’m asking you to give $20 (or whatever you can afford) to any of the following organizations helping out with the relief:
Your conscience requires it.
And if you’re not one of those select few, why not donate anyway to show the world that Americans are better than that?
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26 Responses to Reaction by some to Japanese tsunami nothing short of monstrous
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Well, I think people like Cappie Pondexter are in the minority.
Tom – Obviously, but that’s not the point. She’s far from alone, as the link to that one (of many) article shows.
Yea I’m going to link to On The Edge with Kristi Gustafson here, but only because I shared something I overheard yesterday there:
http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/36818/ara-people-were-apologizing-to-the-restaurant-staff-for-the-earthquake/#comment-156069
Truly sickening…
I guess I am lucky enough (or selective enough) not to have facebook friends who say anything but sympathetic things about the tragedy in Japan. When I clicked on the title of the article I really had no idea where you were going with it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised any more. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where we can count the number of war/terrorist attacks on our hands (one could argue on one hand). Time to be grateful for that and give back to others.
KQ – I wish I could say that none of it showed up on my wall or feed, but sadly there was at least one instance that I saw.
I would love to ask these individuals if they feel that we as American’s deserved 911 and if it was God’s way because of our society? It is sad to see how ignorant some people can be but I thought your request for donations was very fitting!
By the same (pseudo)logic, we deserve Katrina & the terrorist attacks because of our slaughter of the Native Americans…
I know this is probably a little bit off track but, you mentioned that many negative comments are coming from people whose parents weren’t alive when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
My father served in WWII (in Europe not in the Pacific)and never once did I hear him speak negatively of either the Germans or Japanese. He didn’t harbor any ill will toward any group of people that I ever heard. He probably could have too because he lost a lot of friends in the war. I remember him telling me that the guys he was shooting at were guys that were probably no different than he was. Same age, same likes and dislikes, etc. They were just normal kids fighting for what they believed in. That didn’t make them much different than he was. He used to say, “You’ll do alright in this life if you don’t act as if you’re better than the next guy.”
And that, phoneguy, is why they were called The Greatest Generation. Your father sounds like he was one heck of a guy.
Kevin, I speak as the daughter of WWII-era parents. My father was next in line to go to Japan if Truman hadn’t dropped the bomb. My mother’s class ring and wedding ring both have “V’s” carved into them for Victory. I listened to all of their wartime stories and studied plenty about that time period on my own. My father knew plenty of guys who fought (and died) in the Pacific Theater and one of my uncles fought bravely at Guadalcanal.
From my perspective, you are completely right and then some. Since that time, Japan has been our ally. Sure, they have been a fierce economic competitor, but that’s our problem if we can’t keep up, not theirs. I say God Bless them and you bet that I’ll be donating to the Red Cross as well as praying for the Japanese people. I have a lot of faith in them and their ability to persevere.
The Pearl Harbor justification is horrible too, since we dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan, the first one to ensure victory, the second one for spite.
Although I don’t condone Mr. Gottfried’s jokes nor anyone else’s inappropriate comments about such a horrible event. There isn’t a person in this entire world who at some point in their lives who hasn’t done/made a comment that someone else would see as racist/clear bigotry. Kevin, you’ve never been sorrounded by someone in your private life who has told a “off the cuff joke” or made a racist comment and laughed?! I’m not saying you share the same views as these people/nor I, but these types of innappropriate comments are said all the time, and generally speaking “no one has issues with it until something drastic/terrible happens. Tenativly speaking racism/bigotry/superiority views of ones race is constant thing in this world and will never go away. You bring up the fact that people hold resenment towards others who shouldn’t have resentment, because their parents weren’t alive during a certain time period, but it doesn’t matter. Resentment/racism/bigotry are like the sands of time “a constant problem”. Resentment/racism/bigotry is taught to younger generations and its up to the individual to see pass this “wrong-headedness.” I don’t know you and maybe I’m wrong for saying this, but like I said before, there isn’t a human-being in this world who hasn’t had a laugh at the expense of someone’s/ethnic group’s miss fortunes.
Yeah, even in ignorant dumbass land, you’d think nuking them twice would make us squaresies. You know what? It’s all just nationalistic hipsterism. It’s this messed up desire by people of today who want to live in the 1940s and 50s because things seemed so ideologically uncomplicated back then. So we tried to bring back the “evil axis” talk and the new threats of “communism” to get into the me-too! spirit. People basically tried to make intolerance the new retro-cool. But you know what? 1950’s jingoism is more like Crystal Pepsi than vintage cars. The mentality of those days is an outdated failure and an embarrassment to the people who created it.
I don’t like Gilbert Gottfried and I don’t think he’s funny, but I don’t think he should be bashed for trying to find the humor in major disasters. His jokes, while not particularly funny, were not racist and didn’t put down Japan as a country or the Japanese as a people. At worst, he’s joking about the sheer amount of water that they’re dealing with.
Humor is something that humans use as a coping mechanism. If you can’t acknowledge the absurdity of life, you’re missing out. Being mired in negativity and “Oh, those poor people” is about as helpful as not taking it seriously at all. There is, however, a middle ground where people can still laugh, even if only so they don’t have to cry anymore.
Jes - Sorry, but there’s always a line and such a thing as “too soon.” Gottfried’s been around long enough, he knows better.
Comedians push the envelope. It’s their job. Yes, sometimes they start joking “too soon”, but who determines when it’s appropriate? Should people wait to make flood jokes until the flooding is over?
Gottfried isn’t mocking the Japanese and he’s not putting them down. I just find lumping comedy in with racist reactions and blame for natural disasters to be inappropriate.
Their job as comedians is comedy, which sometimes involves pushing the envelope. It’s not their job to jump on top of every tragedy and make a joke about it.
I didn’t hear the Gottfried joke, but I’m willing to bet it is too soon! I’m hoping that most of the people who did joke feel bad about it.
Over 2,000 people are dead! Not soldiers. People, babies, children, mothers, grandparents, and the toll is rising!I can hardly imagine the horror of seeing those dark waves crashing over roads and buildings!
I guess some people are incapable of thinking about anything other than that which concerns them and their loved ones.
Jes, you hit the nail right on the head and I totally agree with you! Though Gottfried’s jokes weren’t in the least bit funny, There wasn’t a racist aspect to one of them.
john - It doesn’t matter if it’s racist or not, because that wasn’t even the subject of the post (nor was race mentioned until jes brought it up). The monstrousness comes from the inhumanity of it regardless of their nationality.
I don’t know, what’s worse? Saying they deserved it because God was giving them retribution, or making a joke at the expense of the dead and grieving? Apples and oranges. Both bad. No excuse for either (though one could argue at least in the former that they have the excuse of ignorance; professional comedians who have been doing this for literally decades not so much).
For some more perspective, here’s what James Urbaniak – someone that actually is in the business of comedy and knows what he’s talking about – wrote on a similar situation involving another comic who took heat for a tasteless joke about the devastation:
http://jamesurbaniak.tumblr.com/post/3799944807/they-cant-all-be-gems-i-first-refer-you-to-the
http://jamesurbaniak.tumblr.com/post/3824151133/flailure-in-defense-of-thesulk-the-above
No. You don’t get to lay racism on me in the comments. Your post was about people putting down the Japanese. As a race. A culture. A nation. Pick your word, but it doesn’t change the reality that the only thing he was mocking was water.
Gottfried was doing his job. Yes, comedians are the ones who bring light to serious situations and major tragedies. Maybe it was “too soon”. Maybe that’s just BS political correctness. My point remains that it’s inappropriate to put comedy in the same category as people blaming the Japanese for a natural disaster.
Yes I do, because you’re the one that brought it up! It’s your point, seriously. Own it.
“Your post was about people putting down the Japanese. As a race. A culture. A nation.”
What? No it wasn’t. It was about people saying they deserved the tragedy. Nowhere did I say they were being racist; cruel, yes. Whether race plays into some of the reactions or not I didn’t even get into, because it could come from any number of places.
Which is the whole point.
I think what happened is you read what you wanted to read, which was outrage that I was comparing Gottfried – who was tasteless – with people like Pondexter, who was hateful. Which I did and didn’t do: I said “there’s also Gilbert Gottfried,” acknowledging that there was more ugliness in the reactions, even though the rest of the post specifically addressed the Pondexters of the world.
But again, it’s still ugly, and some would still argue ignorance might be a better excuse than a more conscious choice to make fun of the disaster (in the case of Gottfried).
Also, I can’t stress this enough: GOTTFRIED WAS NOT DOING HIS JOB. He was making a joke on Twitter and being an idiot about it. There are literally thousands of comedians who looked at this situation and said “there’s nothing funny in this and it’d be really d*** of me if I thought otherwise.”
And yes, it is absolutely fair to lump it in with abhorrent reaction to the tragedy in general.
Check two posts above mine for the first use of the word “race”.
But just because you didn’t use that word, doesn’t mean that “they deserved it” is somehow not a racially charged statement.
Jes – It doesn’t mean it IS, either.
And two posts above yours was John’s quote. But you weren’t responding to John’s comment, you were responding to my post.
I hope that somewhere, a Japanese comic’s reaction is this:
“Ha ha, Pearl Harbor. Funny, and topical. Let me give it a try. Did you hear about the potential for the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power plant to fail? The last time the Japanese have been this exposed to radiation was…oh yeah, Hiroshima. @#$K you, America.”
Just did a blog about making jokes about tragic events…I think in some cases, it’s a coping mechanism, and for others it’s just a mean spririted thing…everyone has their own weird idea of what they find funny….I’m against any kind of sensorship, as I think you are too..however just because you CAN say anything, doesn’t mean you SHOULD. I know I have often gone too far for the sake of a laugh, as you have too (and gotten crap because of it).