Consider if you will some of the following quotes:
There are Koreans, Chinese, and Hindoos numbering over one billion. Allow them to secure a foothold in the United States, and they will, within a few generations, sweep like an avalanche of death from the Himalayas around the globe
or
It is essential that the blood of the American-Europeans of this country, who together with their ancestors developed civilization to its present state, should be kept pure and free from the taint of the decadent Orientalism of China, Japan and India. We have no quarrel with those people. We wish them well in their own countries, but we do not want them in ours.
or
“[Indian religions are] debauched with deeds of lust and blood…Many of the Indian deities, given to lustful amours, are especially worshipped by the people….It is not surprising that religion in India is not only divorced from morality but married to vice…much indecency exists in India under the guise of religion, many of the temple dancing girls are merely consecrated prostitutes, and in many cases respectable women are led to lives of shame.”
Do you get angry when you read this? Or perhaps it sounds vaguely familiar to you? When compared to the transcript of the Jersey Guys radio show that I posted a few days ago the above quotes aren’t that radically different. Well what if I told you the quotes above are all about a century old? Indolink.com has a very educational article titled, Fear and Loathing: Hinduphobia in America .
Francis Assisi writes:
Fear and loathing towards Asians, towards people of Indian origin, towards Hindus — this is a substratum of Indian American or Asian American history that has yet to find its way into American classrooms.
I am, of course, referring to a period in American history when a Hindu, or any person of Asian origin in America, was condemned as an undesirable alien, as a lesser breed, or a benighted heathen.
No doubt things have gotten much better over the years. I was just struck by how little the language of bigotry evolves over time. You can use the same language and sentence a century apart, and without context a historian would not be able to figure out from which period the quote originated. Let us hope that the following quote will not be repeated a century from now:
The Asiatic race and the Caucasian race never could and never can exist in the same territory. Their morals, their philosophy, their religion, their education, their standard of living are reversed, and as far apart as the two poles. They can never blend, harmonize, commingle or live together in peace. The welfare of both races will be best served and their happiness effectively advanced if they confine their operations and efforts to that portion of the earth given them as a home by God.
