In describing the ways in regards to ideas about race and how they shaped the American view of the Pacific Theater during World War II are many to explain. For example, according to Dower (1986) talks about the ugly racial aspects of the battle during the Asian theater of World War II. "In Britain and the United States," Dower mentions, "the Japanese were a people that were more hated than the Germans before along with after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On this note, it appears from the readings that there was not any form of argument among modern eyewitnesses. The Americans kept it no secret about how they felt about the Japanese. The Japanese were looked at as a race apart, even a species separately -- and an devastatingly gigantic one at that. According to the reading, there was no Japanese equivalent to what was called the 'good German' in the general awareness of the Allies from the Western hemisphere." (Dower) Meanwhile, the Japanese saw the United States as having had a long-standing determination to gain sovereignty over Asia; having gotten involved with the militarily in Japanese affairs during the past; and then having some kind of a current plan things such as commit brutality with the intention of sending the Japanese back into the class of what was considered to be a "slave state" (Dower 58).
However, these views did affect the Pacific Theater and the way the United States waged war in the Pacific partly because of the stereotypes that they had against the Japanese fueled them because it was racism. For example, Dower also temporarily mentions the Japanese and American racism. “The propagandistic dishonesty frequently lies, not in the false claims of the enemy atrocities, nevertheless in the self-righteous representation of such behavior as odd to the other side.” (Dower 12) He concludes with a hasty revealing of how effortlessly altered these racial disgusts, with both parties, were after the end of the war. Also according to the book, films were released such as “Why We Fight” and at first, the films were meant as orientation films for incoming soldiers, but were later released in movie
Theatres to make civilians and soldiers more furious against the Japanese.
The racial views towards Native Americans, Filipinos, and African Americans compared to and influence the view of the Japanese in many ways. First, Dower associates racism contrary to the Japanese with that compared to the African-Americans and Indians of the United States, identifying that this racism looked at the Japanese (or Asians in overall) as "the yellow flock", organized to conquer American shores (Dower). The "Yellow Danger" was looked at as being all the more dangerous by the quantity' increasing adoption of Western and American technology (Dower utilizes Fu Manchu narratives which starred a mad Asian genius to really drive in this point). Here Dower likewise contains some information about black American compassions for the Asian nations affected by United States racism. The blacks were apple to relate with the discrimination and also the Japanese were able to have some sort of sympathy against the blacks because of their extreme racing they were facing in the United States.
Race shaped the Japanese view of Americans and other groups during World War II differently. The Pure Self-starts by making the point that Japanese racism differs significantly from American racism due in some measure to its cultural and historical background. The chapter makes the point that Japanese racism does not really reside as much on the color of skin, but mostly emphases on the dominant ancestry of the Japanese race. Dower makes the point that the idea of Japanese "purity" was fixed in myth history and religious practice. The Yamato race, Japanese philosophy used, could be traced all the way back to a godly origin. Purification as a lively treatment, Dower also writes that it "was assumed to denote: 1. purging foreign impacts 2. Living plainly and 3. Struggling, and if need be, having your life taken for the emperor" (Dower 228).
Describe the way that the Japanese viewed their own people in comparison to Americans and other Asian people. The Japanese viewed their own people as being superhuman and that they were a pure holy people that had some ancestral bloodline that was perceived to be immortal. During the course of the war, Westerners were seen as beastly or atrocious and other nations like China, Korea and the Philippines were looked at as a group of inferior people.
Race affected Japanese objectives and strategy during the war. The account of the idea of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was an entity proposed to create Asia as a royal holding of Japan. Observing an authorized report which was able to survive the purge of such paperwork after V-J Day, Dower makes the point that the racism which looked at Japan during the middle of this Pan-Asiatic world "echoed Western intelligent influences in addition to Western pressures", and that the "designs of supremacism" entrenched in Japanese writing in regards to other Asian races was "equivalent" to Western discriminations (Dower 265).
Both Japanese and American propaganda utilized the idea of race in promoting racism and hate against one another. Dower used things such as cartoons, authorized advertising, etc., as instances of propaganda. These attached symbols, Dower writes, " hindered seeing the enemy as sensible or even human, and enabled mass murder" (Dower 89). As mentioned earlier, the Americans would use film that showed the Japanese as barbaric people that wanted to take over the world. Dower likewise tells the story of Momotaro, who was this mystical Japanese folk hero who, as a remarkably optimistic and robust young lad, expels numerous demons. This type of propaganda story influenced a lot of Japanese ideas in regards to bravery and military service. Dower makes the point that even though Japanese cartoons did portray Japan as Momotaro and the Allies as the devils to be overpowered, the fact that precise Partners such as (Churchill, Roosevelt) were recognized as adversaries provided them a human identity that was deprived of the Japanese in the similar site (Dower 256).
The two nations became allies following World War II despite the brutality because the renovation of racist ideas about the other took place surprisingly quickly on both sides of the American /Japanese divide. Japanese individuals engaged the other vision of "the stranger" which was more positive. They did this to enforce peace. Americans stopped looking at them as barbaric and started seeing them more children that needed parents to help them. The U.S. took on the parental role to the Japanese.
Works Cited
Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.
