They Called Us Enemy Innate Bias

People are innately biased, and this bias thus justifies them to discriminate against groups of people as a result. This is illustrated in George Takei’s book, “They Called Us Enemy”, in which he explores the life of Japanese Americans living in the internment camps during World War II. During this time, they were seen as a “collective body”—each considered an enemy to the nation due to their race. This highlights the innate bias within people because although a majority of these Japanese Americans have lived most of their lives in America, the nation that they love and support, they are treated with disdain by white American citizens solely based on their race as Japanese. This bias further motivated Americans to justify the actions of locking …show more content…
Though these Japanese Americans never did anything wrong, the Americans’ strong bias caused them to be mistreated and ultimately punished for wrongdoings not even done by them. Furthermore, not only were the Japanese Americans victims of this innate bias and immoral behavior, but Native Americans were as well. In the book, “Killers of the Flower Moon”, Osage Indians were murdered as a result of increasing desires by white Americans for their riches. This further demonstrates the innate bias humans have towards other groups of people because these Native Americans were perceived as inferior and undeserving of their riches. Since natives are often thought of as “savages”, then these white Americans believed that it was justifiable for them to take from them and commit such murders. They held prejudice against the natives, compelling them to single natives out from the rest of society as a result. Thus, this discrimination against natives exemplifies the idea that people are naturally biased and use this to their own advantage to justify immoral