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I think it's just a Japanese person thing, Yuri Kochiyama was still organizing and writing well into her 80s. Absolutely fascinating individual, she should be
by 999900000999 5y ago
I think it's just a Japanese person thing, Yuri Kochiyama was still organizing and writing well into her 80s.
Absolutely fascinating individual, she should be an essential part of American history.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Kochiyama https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Kochiyama
- oh_sigh 5y agoAmerica, for the most part, isn't too keen on racial separatists who support cop killers. I guess she could be an essential part of American history like David Duke is.
- 999900000999 5y agoThe government sorta did lock her and her family in a camp for 3 years. All for the crime of being Japanese. To ignore her is to ignore one of our most shameful moments. I want our country to be better. We shouldn't be like the Russians who pretend things like the Holodomor didn't happen.
- oh_sigh 5y agoWould you support Jews who went around killing German cops randomly in 1990, because they were locked in a camp in the 1940s?
- themaninthedark 5y agoI have never heard anyone pretend that Japanese internement didn't happen. But just because something bad happened to you and your family, that does not give you the right to attack and hurt others. I see some examples where she was doing a lot of good and held great views: Kochiyama also taught English to immigrant students and volunteered at soup kitchens and homeless shelters in New York City.[13] In Debbie Allen's television series Cool Women (2001), Kochiyama stated, "The legacy I would like to leave is that people try to build bridges and not walls." But she also worked and associated with violent people and had no problem excusing them: Kochiyama and other activists demanded the release of four Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of attempted murder—Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero, and Irving Flores Rodríguez—who in 1954 had opened fire in the House of Representatives, injuring five congressmen. Kochiyama also supported Yū Kikumura, an alleged member of the Japanese Red Army, who was arrested in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam in 1986 when he was found carrying a bomb in his luggage and subsequently convicted of planning to bomb a US Navy recruitment office in the Veteran's Administration building. I don't have time to dig into her entire history and see if all those accused of violent acts were justified or not but if you praise Osama bin Laden with one breath and then claim that "War and weaponry must be abolished" with the next, then you are not working for the abolition of violence, just want it to be controlled by people you like.
- 999900000999 5y agoMost historical figures are very complex. Ronald Reagan supported apartheid South Africa. He accelerated the War on Drugs, ruining the lives of millions. He trivialized HIV, failed to take action, causing untold levels of suffering. He's still one of our most important presidents. It's important to learn why these things happen. You can even celebrate Ronald Reagan, without celebrating the above. History is not, and has never been a comic book. It's not as simple as good vs evil.
- dang 5y agoPlease don't take HN threads into flamewar hell. We're trying for just the opposite here. Edit: you unfortunately have a long history of doing this on HN. We've had to warn you many times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230391 (Nov 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27384626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27384626 (June 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23930525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23930525 (July 2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22030190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22030190 (Jan 2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21660428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21660428 (Nov 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19051626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19051626 (Feb 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18799470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18799470 (Jan 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15655979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15655979 (Nov 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14674597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14674597 (July 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508273 (June 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13742081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13742081 (Feb 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10640146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10640146 (Nov 2015) I appreciate that you're not doing this in most of your comments but you're still doing it often enough that we need you to review the site guidelines and fix this properly. If you'd please do so, we'd appreciate it. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- oh_sigh 5y agoSorry, I have a hard time letting a comment I disagree with alone, and I will generally match the level of effort that the parent comment put in. I could work on my tone, but I find it tough when I hear others politely say horrible things. I guess I live my internet forum life by the standard of the comment I browse past is the comment I accept. No hard feelings if you ban me.
- dang 5y ago> generally match the level of effort that the parent comment put in Ah, that's the problem. Everyone overestimates how much badness the other person is adding and underestimates how much they themselves are adding. We all do this— objects in the mirror are closer than they appear, etc. But because this bias is so strong and so universal, if you gauge by other people's behavior you're going to badly miscalculate; and since the other person is probably doing the same, this is the way we get a downward spiral. The solution is to stick to the guidelines regardless of what other people are doing. That's not easy, of course, but it gets easier with practice, and it's the only way to avoid flamewar hell. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- themaninthedark 5y agoWith quotes like this, I don't think she will be considered essential in America: >Interviewed in 2003, she said, "I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire.
- OtomotO 5y agoOsama bin Laden was an ally of the US. As was Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi and many others. Never forget that.
- bennysomething 5y agoAm I missing something here? "Her" genuine question, did he transition!?!
- kergonath 5y agoSeveral things to keep in mind: - you can admire some people you consider enemies; - you can admire some people and still wish that they fail, or consider some of their actions bad; - you can admire some people that are despised by other people in your country; - America put her in a camp for years during the war; - people are more complicated than black and white heroes and vilains. Also, you cannot judge someone based on a sentence taken out of context.
- stevenwoo 5y agoThe full quote/wikipedia article is a bit more subtle indictment of the USA's foreign military interventions though the name dropping of bin Laden is a provocation - it feels close to paraphrasing Chomsky's the way to stop terrorism is to stop participating in terrorism.
- dang 5y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29498499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29498499 and marked it offtopic.
- ahoka 5y agoShe looks more like a crazy anarchist.