This week’s theme, as you’ve noticed from my fellow nerds’ entries, is natural disasters. Considering how topical the disaster in Japan currently is, I’m going to focus on that in my entry.
We all know how horrible natural disasters are. Even though we hadn’t lived through one, we have witnessed one via media and I dare say almost all of us have felt for the people in trouble one way or another. It’s often hard to relate to people you don’t even know, in a situation you’ve not been in yourself, but usually we are still able to spare some empathy, enough not to poke fun at the tragic event. But, then again, some people are just jackasses. And I’m going to talk about them.
Alec Sulkin, a writer for the show Family Guy, posted a comment on twitter on the earth quake in Japan:
"If you wanna feel better about this earthquake in Japan, google 'Pearl Harbor (sic) death toll'."
He did later apologize (as you can see from the article I linked) for it as he had meant it as a joke, but it’s pretty much too little too late.
By now I've seen several places where Americans have loudly proclaimed how the earth quake in Japan is a payback for Pearl Harbor, or God's way of punishing Japanese people for Pearl Harbor (I’m trying not to sound like I’m harping on Americans, but the sad truth seems to be that all the people I’ve seen throwing this comment are Americans). Unlike Sulkin, these people are actually serious.
(Image from a Finnish site where it was appropriately titled "Sorry About Those Nuclear Bombs")
The face I made (and am still making as I think about it):
(yes, that is ze frank)
I have to say I am thoroughly disgusted by these people, disgusted enough to even make an unappealing expression while thinking about it. I'm sure there are trolls throwing these words around in the mix, but I am not the least bit amused. I actually ran into a thread on facebook, about the earth quake, with comments similar to the ones in the image above, comparing the Pearl Harbor bombing of WWII to today’s natural disaster in Japan. I got so angry I just had to throw in a snide comment:
" I find it rather charming how people seriously referring to this being a payback for Pearl Harbor seem to have conveniently forgotten how the US dropped two nuclear bombs in two big cities. Pearl Harbor was a military base. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities with a lot of civilians. 90,000–166,000 people were killed in Hiroshima, 60,000–80,000 were killed in Nagasaki. Far greater numbers than in Pearl Harbor (not to say that the attack on PH wasn't horrible - just saying, you'd think that was enough of a "payback"). Then there are the long term effects of the radiation from those bombs.
Honestly, I find it disgusting how some people seriously raise Pearl Harbor in the context of this event. It has nothing to do with this. What, you'd be happy to see modern day Germans get killed because of what Nazis did, too? "
With this comment I am playing with the thought lines and rhetorics of these jackasses - not encouraging or approving the thought pattern they are using. I essentially ask why is it that these people did not consider dropping two nuclear bombs on hundreds of thousands of people enough of a payback if they so wish to find one? Why is it that they feel it to be necessary to drag Pearl Harbor into a completely irrelevant occurrence? Why is it that they picked this particular earth quake instead of all those past events, events that were actually connected to what took place in Pearl Harbor? Did they suddenly forget what ended the WWII? With their unfortunate education system, I wouldn’t really be shocked, but it’s still rather baffling people are seriously making these comments.
Here, I’d like to quote a blog post of sort on Alec Sulkin's little comment, which says it rather well:
"This world view, that the citizens of a nation are somehow statistics to be tallied in a historical spreadsheet of deaths, and that there’s somehow a desirable, karmic distribution to be had is absolutely disgusting."
I agree with this whole heartedly. This faulty Karmic retribution thought they harbor suggests that people who have nothing to do with the past events are somehow responsible for the horrors committed in the past, before they were even born, and thus deserve to be punished. Your grandfather committed a murder and now you are going to jail for it simply because you are related, or better yet, you lived next to an old man you don't know, he committed a murder, you will go to jail for it because you lived next door – doesn’t feel like justice now does it?
People of today are not responsible for what happened in Pearl Harbor, not in the slightest. People of today did not drop bombs to Pearl Harbor, Nagasaki or Hiroshima for that matter – and even if there was someone alive who was responsible, should the whole country suffer for what one or few people did?
To put things short: Pearl Harbor, Nagasaki and Hiroshima or any of the events of past wars and what-nots have nothing to do with the disaster going on in Japan. We shouldn’t gloat when a whole nation suffers. It’s a natural disaster, not something that occurred to make you feel better about a historical event. It did not happen to make anyone feel less butt-hurt. It happened because of natural reactions going on within our planet.
Then there are people like the UCLA girl (Alexandra Wallace) who decided to rant about Asian people on youtube (see video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg3tIERI-D4 ). I do not consider this to be nearly as bad as the Pearl Harbor comments people have made, but it’s still enough for me to mention her. She is essentially loudly proclaiming that all Asians are annoying. She is annoyed because UCLA has admitted so many people of Asian origin. Then she said this:
[imagine a rather annoying “like ttly whatevurrr”-voice here] “I swear they are going through their whole address book checking on everyone from the....tsunami thing. I mean I know ok that sounds horrible like, I feel bad for all people affected by the tsunami but if you're gonna call your address book you might as well go outside ‘cos if something is wrong you might really freak out if you're in a library and everyone's quiet like seriously you should go outside if you're gonna do that."
I could sum up the video with “wah wah wah Asians are annoying, why are they in my school? Wah wah wah me me me, not you or anyone else, but me me me, wah wah wah!”
This video of hers created enough commotion to force her to release a statement of apology, as quoted on the video annotation: “Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I’d like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand.” – Wallace on Daily Bruin. I’m one of those people who wouldn’t be likely to just up and forgive her after this apology. I feel like she feels sorrier about the fact that her babbling had consequences, about the commotion it caused, rather than she is over what she actually said. I doubt her way of thinking has changed much, but I can’t really tell; I don’t know her. If it has indeed changed, I am truly glad. The UCLA girl is not alone in creating unfortunate Youtube videos that are incredibly insensitive, as an example I will mention TamTamPamela / Sister Pamela (luckily it turns out she was trolling and not serious - though I would still call it being an idiot, unfortunately the comments section was not without people who fully agreed with the horrendous things she said, and not all of them were trolling).
The disaster in Japan is not the only one that has gotten some douchey comments like this, not at all. During Hurricane Katrina and the recent disaster in Haiti many religious fanatics were celebrating it as an act of God, a punishment for being an atheist or not living exactly like the Bible says. I’m pretty sure there were few people saying that stuff even during the tsunami in Thailand few years back. But I don’t remember those events being as prominent with the insensitive and foolish comments as this one, this one certainly broke the camel’s back with me. I’ve been angry enough to rant about this over and over again. I’ve discussed it face to face with people and I’ve commented on it on forums. I still had the energy to squeeze out this blog entry about it too. I’m thinking this will be the last one I will need to write on this. Enough ranting for one subject.
P.S.: Despite all the things going on in Japan, don't forget Haiti etc. They still need help!
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