To Admit A Wrong

There is much ado, and in my opinion, rightly so, about the Trump Administration’s new policy of separating children from their immigrant parents as a means of deterring (according to Mr. Sessions) the flow of future immigrants.  It is a sad policy and its intent doesn’t seem very logical to me—and it certainly doesn’t represent our “better angels.”

In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, made a similar boo-boo.  It was his greatest failure as president and a grave mistake.  He forced the internment of 117,000 Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps for the duration of World War II.  It was “fear,” writes Jon Meacham, “run amok.”  The conditions in those concentration camps were despicable.  “It was a decision,” writes Meacham, “of a nation in panic, of a government that had lost its bearings, of a president who had chosen to forsake his duty to the spirit and to the letter of the Constitution.”  It was supported by the attorney general of California, supported by the majority of the Congress, and by the majority of the Supreme Court—and by a majority of American citizens. Majorities aren’t always right!

Four decades later, Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988—which authorized compensation for the detained families and an apology from the United States of America to the victims of that disaster.  It was far too late for compensation and for an apology.  “For here,” Reagan said as he signed the act, “we admit a wrong, here we reaffirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law.”  If you ever have opportunity, be sure to visit the Japanese American museum in San Jose, California.

We have created a myth around our American goodness and our American rightness. The myth is fallacious.  Nations are as fallible as people—and “a government of the people, by the people, for the people” cannot help but make mistakes and renege on promises of “equal justice under the law.” It took us 46 years to “admit a wrong” and to apologize to the victims of Roosevelt’s blunder.  

Are we again making decisions as a nation in fear, of a government that has lost its bearings, of a president who had chosen to forsake his duty to the spirit and to the letter of the Constitution?  Are we wrong again?  We were wrong when we closed our eyes to what was happening to the Jews in Hitler’s Germany.  We were wrong in the way we dealt with and still deal with Native Americans.  We were wrong when we ignored Jim Crow and ignored the numerous lynchings of African-Americans by whites in the early decades of the twentieth century.  We were wrong to prohibit women from voting. We have been wrong innumerable times.  Our health and future as a nation depends upon our confessing our “sin” rather than proclaiming ourselves a people “without sin.”