Republican Peter King Uses Racial Slur on Air

Another Republican…Another racist asshole.

Really? Congressman Peter King Uses Anti-Asian Slur On TV

King used a derogatory term for Japanese-Americans on “Morning Joe” and refused to apologize.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), appearing on live television Friday, dredged up a racial slur from the annals of wartime history.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” King used the term “Japs” in a criticism of likely Republican nominee Donald Trump’s approach to national security. King compared the candidate to a hypothetical trigger-happy “guy at the end of the bar” who is oblivious to the consequences of actions like dropping a nuclear bomb.

“There’s real issues with him, real problems with his views,” King said of Trump. “I don’t know if he’s thought them through, or if it’s just like the guy at the end of the bar that says, ‘Oh screw them, bomb them, kill them, pull out, bring them home. You know, why pay for the Japs, why pay for the Koreans?’”

The derogatory term was used for Japanese people and Japanese-Americans during and after World War II, particularly after the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Speaking with The Hill on Friday, King refused to apologize.

“I stand by the merits of what I said. I was quoting the guy at the end of the bar who needlessly offends, who makes snaps decisions and doesn’t care, who suddenly says, ‘The hell with them, the Japs and Koreans,’” King told the outlet.

 

Japanese Americans Push Back Against Republican Jim Crow

One of the ugly episodes in our history was the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII. America operated concentration camps, where Japanse-American citizens, guilty of nothing but their Japanese ancestry were imprisoned for the duration of WWII. Whole familes were carted off to be locked away…

So it is no surprise Japanese would be sensitive to the virulent calls to racism by Tea Bagged Republicans – this time against another group, Muslims. They have seen this slide show before…

Japanese Americans decry Rep. King’s Muslim hearings as ‘sinister’

During the chaotic days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Basim Elkarra was passing by an Islamic school in Sacramento when he did a double-take: The windows were covered with thousands of origami paper cranes – peace symbols that had been folded and donated by Japanese Americans.

Amid the anger and suspicions being aimed at Muslims at that time, the show of support “was a powerful symbol that no one will ever forget,” said Elkarra, a Muslim American community leader in California.

It was also the beginning of an unlikely bond between the two groups that has intensified as House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.)prepares to launch a series of controversial hearings Thursday on radical Islam in the United States.

Spurred by memories of the World War II-era roundup and internment of 110,000 of their own people, Japanese Americans, especially on the West Coast, have been among the most vocal and passionate supporters of embattled Muslims. They’ve rallied public support against hate crimes at mosques, signed on to legal briefs opposing the indefinite detention of Muslims by the government, organized cross-cultural trips to the Manzanar internment camp memorial in California and held “Bridging Communities” workshops in Islamic schools and on college campuses.