Mark Small

“Racism” “1. The belief that some races are inherently superior to other races. 2. Unfair treatment of people, often including violence against them, because they belong to a different race from one’s own.” Black’s Law Dictionary, 10th ed., 2014, p. 1448. 5/19

America’s history is many-hued and has been coated with broad strokes of racism. To ignore shortcomings in our history dooms us to repeat them. Brizzi’s is an old playbook. Others have targeted people of supposed inferior races to benefit at the polls. 6/19

They were “criminals” whose persecution was viewed, by a future President, as “a good thing.” They were depicted as actively corrupting elected officials here. Disgusting racist nicknames were ascribed to them. 7/19

I write not of people from China - although our racism unforgivably targeted them - but Italians. Brizzi’s surname is Italian. A few years ago it was said he would be Indiana campaign manager for Rudy Guiliani - another Italian-American. 8/19

Our history has taught us: racism has no place - none, zero, zip - in politics. Yet here is a person who has derived a paycheck from elected office - i.e., not a political “outsider” - from two terms as Marion County Prosecutor - who now blames the Chinese for COVID. 9/19

In WWII Japanese-Americans - naturalized or of one or two generations’ descent - were rounded up and placed in camps. American citizens of German descent did not face similar acts of discrimination in such numbers. 10/19

Numbers interned WWII: German-Americans, 11,507; Japanese-Americans, estimates run between 110K & 120K. Kashima, Tetsuden, “Judgment without trial: Japanese American imprisonment during World War II,” 2003, p. 124. Italian-Americans: hundreds. 11/19

Differences betw German- and Japanese-Americans. German-Americans were 1) white and 2) found to have committed treason in service to the Third Reich in many cases more than Japanese-Americans acted on behalf of The Emperor. 12/19