Propaganda In 'Merica, and other stuff

Wow! This is my 4th blog post today!  Take that Doug!

Alright, so here I am again, this time to talk about something in the Takaki reading that I thought was kind of funny/sad.  So in today's reading we read about the Koreans and their immigration to America.  Like the Chinese and the Japanese that we have already talked about, they immigrated to Hawaii, and from there to the mainland.  But what I found kind of striking today was when Takaki mentions how the Koreans were mistaken for Japanese!

Okay, so let me get this straight.  Chinese immigrated to the mainland, and we (whites) didn't like them.  Then the Japanese came to the mainland, and we didn't like them because we mistook them for Chinese, and because (let's be honest) they weren't white.  And now, the Koreans decide to join the party on the mainland... and what do we do? We DON'T LIKE THEM! Why? BECAUSE WE THINK THEY ARE JAPANESE!  Come on America!

So what this epiphony led me to discover was how brain-washed Americans (whites) were, and are, through the things that they see and hear from their government.  It made me laugh at first, but then I realized how sad it really was.  So the Chinese come to America, the government kicks 'em out, and everyone believes that they are stealing jobs from white workers in America.  Then the Japanese come, another group of Asiatic people.   Why don't we (whites) like them? Because we think they are Chinese... here is how I imagine that conversation going.

White: "You Chinese are sneaking into our country! Go back to China chink!"
Japanese: "I'm not from China, I am Japanese."
White: "Oh... well then go back to Japan you dirty Jap."

Just stupid! Then what do the whites do when the Koreans come? They accuse them of being Japanese!!!  This just goes to show how much people blindly follow the things that they see and hear in the news/other media.  And this problem doesn't just apply to back then either! Same kind of thing happens all the time.  I've done it myself, I'll admit it.  I hear something on the news about one thing or another and I automatically think that it is legit just because it was on the news or the Internet.  A good example of this going on today was the "Kony 2012" movement that took place on Facebook.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans bought into this story, when it turns out that both the "charity" and the guy promoting it, were totally phony and in it for the money.

Anyways... just some more food for thought.