During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

Somewhat relevant: http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/findians__the_story_of_fin...

"There are many reasons for the common understanding forged by Finns and Native Americans, but above all they were united by their intimate relationship with the forest. Just like the Ojibwa Finns hunted, fished and foraged. The locals also valued Finns’ handiwork skills: the ability to build a boat or carve skis. Finns learned how to cultivate maize and use medicinal herbs, among other things. In return they lent their expertise in building log cabins and weaving shoes out of birch bark."

Whether or not you might call this a lynching could be a quibble, but here's a racially motivated massacre with at least 28 casualties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre#Names_of...

And just for spice, so we remember this stuff is in living memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_massacre

The last time I looked, the perpetrators of mass casualty incidents in the US were at best only 40-50% immigrants. Even for most of the immigrants, I suspect they were radicalized subsequent to entry in the US.

The number of terrorists that the travel ban would have stopped is at best in the low single digits. It is not at all clear that the number will exceed the number of people in the US who will become radicalized due to this policy (which I would also estimate at low single digits).

And even then, there were still a number of high-profile terrorist groups around the world connected to the Cold War/anti-colonialism. The Red Army Faction, the Japanese Red Army, various PLO factions, the IRA, etc. In the U.S. alone there a bunch of different groups (Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Liberation Army, Puerto Rican nationalists etc.).

There was also a lot of violent groups on the Right, but for whatever reason they didn't get labelled as terrorists as much and didn't seem to have the same kind of view of ideological solidarity. So the Sabra and Shatila massacre doesn't tend to get labelled a terrorist attack even though it dwarfed the actions of most of the above groups in brutality and death toll, and as far as I know there wasn't much solidarity between the Phalange and the KKK (even though they were both violent right-wing Christian groups).

> First, the article doesn't discuss 'whiteness', so your comment is something of an irrelevant narrative imposition.

It discusses "outsider" status, and WW2 represented a massive debate about who was "trustworthy." Historians have pointed out that in many cases these camp approaches were in part appeasement tactics for the rather large fascist movements growing in America. Hell, WW2 was the mark of the last unsuccessful kleptocrat-fascist coup against America lead by the leadership of Chase Manhattan bank in concert with the actual German nazis. It nearly happened, too!

"Whiteness" is A Word for it that fascists don't like, in part because it speaks to their "white homeland" ideology. I rather enjoy using it to point out the other side of what they're polishing is in fact a turd.

> Second, it's intellectually dishonest to imply that this had anything to do with a malleable concept of race. Italy and the US were at war during WW2,

AND YET! Mysteriously! Japanese were specifically targeted for the harshest treatment, Italians the second most, and the fewest German Americans ended up in concentration camps. What's more, it "wasn't about race" but the principle tie for many of these people to these camps was their heritage and if their looks conformed to a stereotype!

Like you yourself said:

> and the additional scrutiny was very clearly based upon ancestral nationality, rather than ethnic, lines.

Honestly, what the hell do YOU think this means? If someone looked the part, as defined by their "ancestral heritage" they had their property seized and their entire families put into war-crime level imprisonment.

And you're going to say, "This isn't about race, it's about ancestral heritage." This just in: That's one of the primary components of race and the racist discourse in America. How many times did we see the Trump campaign supporters point out that if only 3rd greater generation Americans voted, the RNC would win the presidency every time?

You are eager to call it "intellectually dishonest" and maybe that'll work in your christian-sponsored micro-targetted facebook ads and now-banned subreddits. For everyone not looking for an enemy to blame it's the observable and objective facts. None of the concentration camps America set up were fun places, but the ones for the least white-looking people were objectively horrifying, and the seizure of property against that class of people was much more widespread and damaging. More asian-looking people were dissipated than every other category combined.