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WDMSO, you are assuming that racism fueled our ill will towards the Japanese in WWII. If that's true, why were we so committed to helping those most victimized by Japanese acts, like the Chinese and the Phillipinos? If there was widespread racism towards Asians, why did we care so much about helping those people?
We despised the Japanese because (1) they attacked us, and (2) their behavior was impossible for Americans to fathom. On the German side, while the Nazis were atrocious, the average German soldiers performed honorably (with a small number of exceptions like Malmady). Not so with the Japanese - their barbaric savagery toward everyone else, their fanatical refusal to surrender, their willingness to engage in mass suicide - they might as well have come from another planet.
Now...if you can find a nation of caucasians that behaved like the Japanese, whom we didn't despise the way we despised the Japanese, then you might be on to something with your claims of racism.
We were at war. And back then, political correctness wasn't at the forefront of everyone's minds, so yes, there was an effort to portray them as less than human. I say we did that because of the way they were acting. You say we did it because of racism. Well, we didn't set out to destroy the people of any of the other Asian nations, in fact, many Americans dies trying to protect the citizens of Asian nations. So I don't see hwo you can conclude that we had ill will towards anyone other than the ones who helped start and perpetuate the worst war this planet has ever seen.
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