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TI: So Grant, the issue I wanted to go in terms of following up on the redress and reparations --

GU: Yeah.

TI: -- was, Japanese Americans who were interned each got twenty thousand dollars. And an issue that has come up often, or is starting to come up now, is the issue about other ethnic groups, and they, looking back, historically at the wrongs that, that were committed against, essentially their ancestors, and feeling that they also deserve reparations. What's your view on this?

GU: Well, I have a couple thoughts on it. Number one, American slavery was pretty bad. I think it, if you compare American slavery, let's say in Alabama, with British slavery in Jamaica or the Greek enslavements of "the barbarians" to the north of Athens, or even the Roman slaves, American slavery was a particularly brutal form of slavery in which American agricultural capitalism was unleashed and the black slave of the American South was really a piece of property. Was, was livestock. There was no -- as there was in Brazil -- slavery being mitigated by the Catholic church saying no, no, you can't to that because this slave, the Brazilian slave, like all other human beings, says the Pope, has an immortal soul. So it was very bad stuff, comparatively bad.

But I -- for practical reasons, I very, very carefully made the argument to people inside the Reagan administration, (that) Japanese American redress was not, as they feared and stated publicly many times, a "Pandora's box." So there was a fellow named John Bolton in the Justice Department, I think he's now the number three person in the Bush 2 State Department, and some others whose names I now forget. I'm getting so old. And they say, "Well, you know, it was awful, but what about 'Pandora's box'? And next year we're gonna have the Hispanics, and the year after that we're gonna have the American Indians and then of course we've got the blacks. We can't do this for you because we're gonna have to do it for them." So as a practical matter, I said, "No, no, it sets no precedent." And they said, "What do you mean it sets no precedent?" And I said, "Because if you read the bill, the bill says the direct victims of U.S. federal government discrimination, specifically 9066." This is not some white country club in Anniston, Alabama keeping blacks out, nor is it the fifth generation descendant of a slave, or even the first generation descendent of a slave, because you had to be directly touched. In other words, to put it another way, if you were a Japanese American and unfortunately died on August 9, 1988, you were out of luck. So by our definition, that poor person who died on August 9, 1988 can be compared to all the slaves now dead. Not a single slave alive. No direct victim of the -- no, I guess it was federal law that under (Dred Scott v. Sandford) said the black is a piece of property, (1857). So, the answer is, there is no precedent. "Okay," they said, "We'll buy that. We'll buy that." Well, as a practical matter, doesn't matter what John Bolton, Assistant Attorney General in the first Reagan administration says, we'll buy that, because if you're a black and you see this then you say, "What about us?" And that began quite soon.

As a personal matter I have considerable sympathy to this because I view the American form of slavery as especially destructive and pernicious, and indeed responsible for many of the "social problems" that we see today. You don't see so much of (this) in Jamaica or in Brazil. They have some, but not as (much as we do). So, I'll leave it at that.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.