Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 July 21

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July 21

Did anyone die from heat on 8 July 2003 in Dhahran?

On 8 July 2003 Dhahran experienced the highest dew point since we have been recording them. It had a 95F dew point and a temperature of 108F. This gave the city a heat index of 174F. Combined with a 3 MPH wind, this must have been awful. I have been able to find all sorts of stats on the weather for that day, but I haven't been able to find out if anybody died. Does anyone here have access to newspapers from the area or some other way to determine the death count (if there is any).

Sources: Ask Tom why: What is the highest dew point ever recorded?; Extreme Weather and Climate By C. Donald Ahrens, Perry Samson; Weather History for OEDR Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Zell Faze (talk) 00:27, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Absent someone turning up a real archive, you could use google to search the websites of Saudi newspapers on that date and shortly thereafter. For example, here are the results for the English-language Arab News for 9 July 2003 (their date format) [1].

One other note - even if the heat that day did kill, this fact might not be recorded. [2] and [3] say many deaths due to heat aren't identified as such; that it's only after some time has passed and authorities notice the average death rate is elevated that the heat can be blamed. Sorry I haven't been able to find if the Dhahran record was part of a heatwave. 184.147.131.217 (talk) 12:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Living to age 100 or more

Are there any data or statistics that would answer a question such as this: "A person born in the year _____ has a _____ percent chance of living to age 100 or more"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The first link when I google "likelihood of living one hundred" is this: "How likely are you to live to 100? Get the full data", which seems to be estimates for people born in the United Kingdom over the last one hundred years. Gabbe (talk) 04:48, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The general concept you're looking for is an actuarial table. -Elmer Clark (talk) 10:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. It is safe to assume that statistics for the UK would be somewhat similar to that of the USA? Or not, for some reason? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:01, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+life+expectancy+20+year+old Wolfram|Alpha query will get you going. In general, the US life expectancy is slightly lower than that for Western Europe. You can also add "male" or "female" after the country, if you are interested in a specific gender. LongHairedFop (talk) 18:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting website. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:53, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:33, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

to find correct reference Mkalburge (talk) 06:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello,

I read about Francois Bernier on your website. URL - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Bernier

On that page a paper written by Bernier is mentioned and that is 'A New Division of the Earth'.

In the References section it is given that 'François Bernier, "A New Division of the Earth", in Journal des sçavans (April 24, 1684). Translated by T. Bendyphe in "Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London" Vol 1, 1863–64, pp 360–64.'

I found the 1st volume of the 'Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London', but in it could not find the paper.

Can you please help me to find this paper? Where can I find it ? It is important.

Please reply.

@User:Mkalburge

Bernier, François (2001-04-01). "A New Division of the Earth". History Workshop Journal (51): 247–250. ISSN 1363-3554. JSTOR 4289731.

"Register & Read".. Free individual registration, offering free read-only access (no printing or saving) to three articles every two weeks (seventy-eight per year).

Your local public or academic library may also offer free institutional access to JSTOR.

If you've tried both of the above and they don't work for you, try re-posting to Resource Request

I've added the source as an external link to the François_Bernier article. Please use it as a reference if you can improve the article.

-- Paulscrawl (talk) 07:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

P.S. - sorry for delay; got distracted with another author's article, "On the Phallic Worship of India", in source book found on the Internet Archive - here is the direct link to page 360:

Bernier, François (1864). "A New Division of the Earth". Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London. Vol 1. 1863–64. London: Trübner and Co. pp. 360–364. Retrieved 21 July 2015.

Now hyperlinked in article References. Please use to improve article - and welcome to Wikipedia!

-- Paulscrawl (talk) 08:30, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

dames & knights

my query is in regard to British royal titles. When a man is knighted he is thereafter known as Sir .... and his wife is know as Lady..... When a woman is given a Damehood, what title, if any, is given to her husband? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Janinsane (talk contribs) 10:04, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

None.
121.211.12.111 (talk) 10:11, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed - see TITLES AND STYLES OF KNIGHTS AND DAMES. An attempt in 2012 to address this issue and that of same-sex partners (Civil partners of knights and peers should get honorary title just like wives do, MP argues) seems to have come to nothing. Reform can be a slow business in the UK. Alansplodge (talk) 10:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Can the British parliament change the New Zealand rulebook like that? Or would that only fly in their realm? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:23, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Females on slave ships.

Were females on trans-atlantic slave ships wearing shackles and manacles like the men? Secondly, how did they look after their children on the slave ships? --Constiniolp (talk) 14:30, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

According to this, "Women and children were kept in separate quarters, sometimes on deck, allowing them limited freedom of movement, but this also exposed them to violence and sexual abuse from the crew." AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:26, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Two sources most any library will likely have:

All the European nations lodged the two sexes of their slaves apart, as usual following Portuguese practice, ordinarily “by means of a strong partition at the main mast, the forepart is for men, the other behind the mast for the women. If it be in large ships carrying five or six hundred slaves, the deck in such ships ought to be at least five and a half or six feet high [being] the more airy and convenient for such a considerable number of human creatures; and consequently far the more healthy for them.” Female slaves were treated better than the men, not being chained. The reason for these arrangements was not only to prevent the male slaves from seducing the women but also that black women were often said to do what they could to urge the men to assert themselves and attack the crew.

Thomas, Hugh (1997). The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440 - 1870. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-81063-8. His quoted source in first sentence is (apparently, not clearly noted): Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols., Washington,DC: Carnegie Institute, 1935, vol. I, p. 272. All four volumes of primary source material online here

The Middle Passage was exceptionally hard for women. They were often kept on deck and at proximity to the ship crew, who would routinely rape and abuse them. The crew would often make them sing and dance as a mode of humiliation and entertainment. This was a practice called ‘‘dancing the slaves,’’ which occurred regularly during the passage. The suicide rates during the Middle Passage were higher for enslaved women, because they chose to jump ship rather than endure the horrors of slavery.

Deetz, Kelley (2007). "Women". In Falola, Toyin; Warnock, Amanda (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 405. ISBN 978-0-313-33480-1.. Other articles listed in the analytic table of contents under "Middle Passage Experience" include "Children", "Families and Family Separations", "Rape and Sexual Abuse", and others relevant to your questions. Many public and academic libraries offer online access to the e-book edition.

Paulscrawl (talk) 20:00, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

English-speaking Buddhists

How do English-speaking Buddhists meditate on the Buddhist prayer beads (aka Buddhist rosary)? Do they chant in, for example, the name of the Amitabha Buddha in a non-English language or use an English translation? 140.254.226.190 (talk) 14:40, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Most I've encountered or read (who bother with mantras) use the language most closely associated with the tradition they belong to, or just Sanskrit.

(There are some English-speakers who call themselves Buddhists, who really mean they're just atheists who don't want to appear anti-religious. Some of them will admit this, the ones that won't will still try to get out of saying mantras.) Ian.thomson (talk) 15:17, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

How strange. Anglophones say the Roman Catholic rosary in English. Everything is recited too straight from memory. I think they use the vernacular language, because they want to understand what they are saying. I wonder if the atheists that you met would bother with saying the Catholic rosary, which is explicitly theistic, but they chant in Latin so they don't even know what they're saying. 140.254.226.190 (talk) 15:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Catholics use the vernacular since the Second Vatican Council, but it used to be common for many Catholics to use Latin (or what they could make of it) -- see Patter. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:01, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Why can't celibate Catholic priests castrate themselves?

What is the justification against castration and becoming an eunuch? I read it on the clerical celibacy page. 140.254.226.190 (talk) 14:50, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

See Castration#Christianity: the First Council of Nicea forbade voluntary castration except for health reasons, probably because most surgery just wasn't safe until the late 1800s. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:11, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

But since surgery is relatively safe now, why can't eunuchs become priests? 140.254.226.190 (talk) 15:16, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I doubt safety was the only concern for the bishops at Nicea, but in any case, according to Roman Catholic dogma, the decisions of the Ecumenical councils are infallible, and therefore it is not possible to revise them. - Lindert (talk) 15:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Btw, eunuchs can become priests if they were castrated against their will. One argument against willful castration by the church father John Chrysostom is that it is an insult to God's creation, because it implies that the sin is caused by our bodies, rather than our personal choices: "For to cut off our members has been from the beginning a work of demoniacal agency, and satanic device, that they may bring up a bad report upon the work of God, that they may mar this living creature, that imputing all not to the choice, but to the nature of our members, the more part of them may sin in security, as being irresponsible; and doubly harm this living creature, both by mutilating the members, and by impeding the forwardness of the free choice in behalf of good deeds." (source). - Lindert (talk) 15:49, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• There's also the obvious point that Catholics without testicles can't bless themselves. μηδείς (talk) 16:58, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I thought Testicles was a Greek philosopher. Or was he a playwright? I tend to get them confused. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:29, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

You're obviously confusing him with the impresario, Spectacles. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 12:22, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a Biblical proscription against castration (Deuteronomy 23:1); "No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD" {New International Version), or the King James Bible which puts it rather more graphically; "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD". However, Christians don't always treat the injunctions of Deuteronomy as binding. In the Byzantine Empire, parents would have their sons castrated in childhood to give them a chance of a lucrative career as an official in the Imperial court, and priesthood was open to eunuchs too (see The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society). One example was Theophylact of Constantinople who "...was considered old enough to discharge his duties as patriarch (still he was still only sixteen years old). At this time or before he was castrated to help his career in the church." Not mentioned in our article, but Methodios I of Constantinople was also a eunuch; he displayed the evidence in court when appearing on a charge of seduction of a woman. In order to avoid the ban on castration by the Council of Nicea mentioned by User:Ian.thomson above, Methodios claimed that it had happened miraculously. [4] God moves in a mysterious way. This is perhaps the oddest subject I've ever researched for the Reference Desk; one never knows what will appear next. Alansplodge (talk) 18:47, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Homosexual slavery in the United States

Resolved

How common was homosexual slavery in the American South before 1860? Are there any works of fiction (say, films) on the subject? --217.118.86.102 (talk) 15:55, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Sources to help answer your historical question are cited in:

Foster, Thomas A. (September 2011). "The Sexual Abuse of Black Men under American Slavery". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 20 (3): 445–464. JSTOR 41305880.. Libraries and institutions offering access or simply Register & Read for free read-only access (no printing or saving) to three articles every two weeks (seventy-eight per year).

Foster also edited a collection with a few relevant articles and a much larger bibliography:

Foster, Thomas A. (2007). Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America. New York: New York Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-2750-8..

Paulscrawl (talk) 20:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

For works of fiction on the subject, including film adaptations, see:

Bibler, Michael P. (2009). Cotton's Queer Relations: Same-Sex Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813927923.. Available in academic libraries via Project Muse: http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780813929842?auth=0

The author's introduction states the case of current scholarship:

We simply do not know how many homoerotic or homosexual relationships might have flourished between men and women living and working on a plantation before or after the Civil War.¹ Unfortunately, studies of same-sex relations in southern literature are similarly scarce, with only a few articles devoted to homoeroticism in works of plantation literature.² (p 2)

Both sentences are footnoted, indicating references for both your historical and your literary question are readily available.

Paulscrawl (talk) 22:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your information. Good to know that the subject is no longer taboo in the US. --217.118.86.102 (talk) 07:46, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Glad to know this information was helpful. Thanks to an editor on Wikipedia's Resource Exchange, I can now access the two footnotes cited following each of the two sentences just above, documenting the scholarly research on the historical and literary aspects respectively.

¹. Most of the research into same-sex relationships in the South has paid attention to the twentieth century, as indicated in Sears, Growing Up Gay in the South and Lonely Hunters; Dews and Law, eds., Out in the South; Howard, Men Like That; and Howard, ed., Carryin’ On. Somerville’s Queering the Color Line discusses the connections between racial segregation and the ideological construction of homosexual bodies at the end of the nineteenth century but does not examine those connections in relation to the postbellum plantation. Carryin’ On contains a few articles about the nineteenth-century South, including Martin Duberman’s essay “‘Writhing Bedfellows’ in Antebellum South Carolina: Historical Interpretation and the Politics of Evidence” (153–68). Yet this inclusion supports my claim about the paucity of queer southern historical research, for Duberman’s essay was first published in Journal of Homosexuality in 1980–81, and reprinted again in Duberman, Vicinus, and Chauncey, eds., Hidden from History. While this essay is certainly important and insightful, the fact that it keeps getting republished in anthologies that intend to introduce something new to the study of sexuality exposes the absence of much else written about the South. In a provocative footnote to a recent essay, Noel Polk and Richard Godden briefly address the scant instances in historical records when white masters appeared to have sexually exploited their male slaves (“Reading the Ledgers,” 308 n. 7). But perhaps the best-known description of an antebellum sexual encounter between two people of the same sex appears at the end of Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, where she describes the humiliating sexual domination experienced by Luke at the hands of his corrupt master (192). For an interesting reading that situates this narrative with the history of homosexuality, see Abdur-Rahman, “The Strangest Freaks of Despotism.”

². The only book-length study devoted to queer readings of southern texts is Richards’s Lovers and Beloveds, although Gwin’s The Woman in the Red Dress also discusses queerness in some southern works. Articles that consider plantation literature within a queer framework include Gebhard, “Reconstructing Southern Manhood”; and Forman, “This Promiscuous Housekeeping.”

Paulscrawl (talk) 14:49, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Slavery and US currency

Which of the men currently shown on US currency owned slaves? Edison (talk) 15:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• All of them, except Lincoln and Grant. --217.118.86.102 (talk) 15:59, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Are you sure about Grant? Edison (talk) 16:13, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Born and raised in Ohio; father was associated with abolitionists' party; US Grant went into military academy as soon as he was of age, then began a military career. By the time he was retired from the military, slavery was illegal throughout the land. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
      • Maybe an asterisk for Ben Franklin, who freed his few slaves prior to the American Revolution and as time went on became opposed to slavery. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
        • And if you include coins, only Washington and Jefferson. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)And except McKinley, but good luck getting one of those.

If we're counting coins, then we still have Jefferson on the nickel and Washington on the quarter for common use coins. Roosevelt and Lincoln are the two that didn't own slaves (so half and half for common use coins). Half and half there.

Of coins that don't see common use but are still circulated, we've got only non-owners: Kennedy, Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony (who actually wrote antislavery petitions), and Sacagawea.

For the Presidential $1 Coin Program (can't say that it has caught on), most of the ones before Lincoln were slave owners except James Buchanan (who was still pro-slavery despite apparently not having any), Franklin Pierce (who was personally opposed to slavery but legally on the fence), Millard Fillmore (again personally anti-slave but wanted southern votes), John Quincy Adams, and John Adams. Of the presidents after Lincoln, none were slave owners except Andrew Johnson (who was generally a dick to former slaves afterward) and Ulysses S. Grant (technically his father-in-law's, and he didn't actively try to screw former slaves over, but still). Overall, 12 slave owners and 24 non-owners.

Overall, 14 slave-owners on circulating coins, 30 non-owners on circulating coins; though the non-owners are on less common coins. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Cents and dimes are pretty common. Also, if Grant's father-in-law had slaves, that doesn't make Grant a slave owner. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:47, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Re cents and dimes: true, but that's 2/30 of the non-owners.

Re Grant: It's iffy, though. He attempted to profit directly from slavery, using his father-in-law's slaves. If we're going to put an asterisk next to Franklin because he freed his slaves and became an abolitionist, we need to put an asterisk next to Grant if we're going to count him as a non-owner because he probably would have been if it wasn't for outside factors. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Grant apparently acquired at least one slave. As regards cents and dimes, you said "the non-owners are on less common coins." Cents and dimes are very common coins. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:01, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

If we're doing all circulating coins, there are also the state quarters to take into account. The slave owners on those are: Caesar Rodney (Delaware); Washington (also on other currency), James Monroe, Edward Hand and possibly others depicted in Washington Crossing the Delaware (New Jersey); and William Clark and Meriwether Lewis (Missouri; although I'm not sure whether Lewis ever owned slaves personally, he supervised his mother's plantation) - the non-slaveowners are the Wright Brothers (North Carolina); Neil Armstrong (Ohio); Lincoln (Illinois); Helen Keller (Alabama); John Muir (California); and Duke Ellington (DC). York, also depicted on the Missouri coin, was a slave. Kamehameha I, depicted on the Hawaiian coin, did not own slaves in the continental US sense, but the Kingdom of Hawaii had a strict feudal caste system with Kamehameha at the tip and a class of untouchables forced to work for chiefs - whether or not that counts as slaveowning for the purposes of the question is debatable. The South Dakota coin shows Mount Rushmore, which depicts Theodore Roosevelt (not a slaveowner) plus three presidents who appear on other currency. Smurrayinchester 09:29, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

(There are also some generic individuals on state quarters. The Massachusetts Minuteman could theoretically have been a slave owner (slavery was common in the state until the 1780s) - all the other images seem to postdate the abolition of slavery in their state.) Smurrayinchester 09:49, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Looking over at the Alexander Hamilton article, I can't actually find anything saying he owned slaves. Some historians said he was an abolitionist, and he argued that the Brits were going to arm the slaves because the slaves are just as cunning as white people. Hamilton also suggested that they use this strategy against the Brits: buy their freedom and arm them.

That means 5 of 7 on banknotes were slave owners. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think Woodrow Wilson owned slaves. He's on the $100000 bill. --Trovatore (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

That's not in circulation, though. Non-circulating currency is a can of worms. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Recounted them off just figures (removing duplicates like Washington or Jefferson), 13 slave owners and 27 non-owners on circulating currency. With duplicates, 17 slave owners, 28 non-owners on circulating currency. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:10, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

If we're splitting hairs, Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony weren't men. And Susan B. Anthony Man wasn't on any currency. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Hamilton did not own slaves, technically, but his mother left him a slave when she died. A court ruled that he was not her legitimate offspring, since her divorce from her first husband was not recognized as legitimate, so boy Hamilton did not get his bequeathed slave. He married into money, and profitted from the labor of his wife's slaves. Edison (talk) 19:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Shackles and leg irons.

How long can female prisoners in the US be legally restrained in leg irons and/or handcuffs? --Constiniolp (talk) 19:40, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Presuming there are laws governing such things, it is likely the laws vary from state to state. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:12, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Germans

During ww2 Japanese Americans were interned but German Americans left alone even though German Americans were a larger community. Why did they detain the smaller community, but remained unconcerned about the larger community? 84.13.153.27 (talk) 20:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

As noted in Internment of German Americans, they were not "left alone", but they were interned out of proportion to the Japanese internment, as you suggest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:15, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

See also racism. --Jayron32 01:27, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Do also note that the German American population was largely integrated in (White) American society. Today (according to Wikipedia...) 15.2% of U.S. population has German ancestry. That percentage was probably higher at the time of WWII. Apart from being unjust, systematic incarceration of German Americans would have been practically impossible to carry out. --Soman (talk) 10:47, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

That there were less people with Japanese ancestors who were inside the U.S. than those with German ancestors doesn't make the internment of those people any more tolerable... --Jayron32 21:27, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

As a good illustration of this, Dwight Eisenhower was ethnically German. "Eisenhower" is an Anglicized form of the German name "Eisenhauer". --108.38.204.15 (talk) 12:34, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Also, it is worth noting that some of the assimilation was a result of earlier anti-immigrant sentiment. There was a notable amount of anti-German sentiment in the U.S. during World War I, even before the U.S. entered the war. People speaking Germanic languages (who were often more recent immigrants) were pressured to stop, German-derived names of places and things were changed, etc. --108.38.204.15 (talk) 12:45, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Not to split hairs, but English is a Germanic language, as are Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:46, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Without splitting Herrs again - also Icelandic, Danish and others (noting "Norwegian" is more than one language). Collect (talk) 15:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Or, as I've heard, there is only one Norse language, but the Danes don't know how to pronounce it, and the Swedes don't know how to spell it ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

majority ethnicity by county, 2000

• Just anecdotal, but according to my father there was blackballing of people with germanic sounding accents or names in the Philadelphia shipyards during the war, and his grandmother's restaurant went out of business due he believes in part to the mistaken perception that her last name was German. But as has been noted above, the largest proportion of American ethnicity has long been of German descent. μηδείς (talk) 19:30, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I think you are looking for the adjective "German", not "Germanic". See above. English sounds Germanic. --Stephan Schulz (talk)

No, I said exactly what I meant, everyone in my family except my mother studied German in school, my father knows the difference between Danes, Dutch, and Germans (although a lot of Americans don't, nor the difference between Swiss and Swedes), and he meant exactly what I reported; there was some prejudice against the non-Deutsch when their names or accents were Germanic. μηδείς (talk) 02:19, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, in this case you have me confused. English is a Germanic language, so English sounds Germanic. Do you mean to say that there would be prejudice against, say, Mr. Miller? Or do you want to restrict this to Non-English Germanic languages? Or only to languages which sound more-or-less like German or share e.g. Umlauts with it? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:15, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Stephan, you seem to be expecting me to go to the length of saying compared to "non-English Germanic accents" when that is already implied in the question. I can see that this might be a justified pet peeve, but you really don't need to project it on the English ref desk. Also, to say that English, which is quite a phonetic outlier among the Germanic languages, with its diphthongs, th's, r's, w's, loss of desinences, and so forth, "sounds Germanic" is about as true as saying that French "sounds" like a Latin (i.e., Romance) language. It's true by definition, perhaps, but not very informative (Old Prussian is a lot more "Germanic" sounding than English to my ears), and not a point it really seemed necessary to make. μηδείς (talk) 21:36, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

The reason was more pragmatics than racism. Japanese were despised back then, and so were Germans. There were treated differently for a variety of reasons. At Internment of Japanese Americans you see the full rationale for the decision, which has not much to do with the previous contributions above mine. --Scicurious (talk) 05:21, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I imagine two factors were that the Germans hadn't attacked the United States directly at that time, nor were Americans afraid of invasion by them. The bombardment of Ellwood (by a Japanese submarine) article claims "Though damage was minimal, the event was key in triggering the West Coast invasion scare and influenced the decision to intern Japanese-Americans." Clarityfiend (talk) 08:24, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

During WW2 the US did not have a policy of interning German-American US citizens,, but they interned German nationals. In some reported cases, US citizens voluntarily joined their non-citizen family members in the internment. It would have made no sense to do otherwise than round up loyal subjects of an enemy power; how could a country at war allow citizens of the warring country to travel around and go where they wished to do what they saw fit, possibly including sabotage and espionage? Of course some enemy civilians would have been given special status as refugees, and some famous artists or religious people might have been given special privileges, like older and more genteel times when "paroles" were granted to captured enemy soldiers who promised not to fight any more. The US citizens of German descent were not thought of as disloyal, although accounts of actual spy rings show that it was often possible to recruit them as spies, on the basis of "loyalty to the fatherland" or through threats of harm to their family in the "old country." In fact there were thousands of Bund members who marched around in militaristic uniforms displaying their devotion to Germany and Hitler up until the outbreak of war, at which time they gave up outward displays of disloyalty to America. after the outbreak of war there was for some reason greater suspicion of those of Japanese ancestry having loyalty to the home country and the Emperor. The American Bund Germans marched around in the 1930's until America's entry in the war, but did Japanese-American US citizens similarly march round declaring their support of Tojo and Japanese militarism, or their loyalty to the Emperor? Did they display divided loyalty by posting signs in their communities saying "We Stand With Japan?" Edison (talk) 18:59, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Can I point out that support for Hitler, Nazism, or the Reich before the US declaration of war was not necessarily disloyalty? μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 25 July 2015 (UTC)