Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"It didn't matter, back then, that most of us were US citizens and had never even been to Japan. We were presumed guilty, and held without charge for four years, simply because we happened to look like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor. For that crime, we lost our homes, our livelihoods and our freedoms.

[...]

"I cannot help but hear in [talk of a Muslim registry today] terrible echoes from the past. The internment happened because of three things: fear, prejudice and a failure of political leadership. When the administration targets groups today, whether for exclusion from travel here on the basis of religion and national origin, or for deportation based on their undocumented status, I know from personal experience that these are not done, as they claim, truly in the name of national security.

"No, instead they are intended to strike fear into communities, to show the muscle and 'toughness' of a new president, and to divide the citizenry against itself. These are the acts of a despot, not an elected leader.

"I have dedicated my life to standing against our nation's impulse toward demagoguery and tyranny by the whipped-up masses. The answer lies not just in education, but in empathy. The false narrative -- that there are those who belong here and those who do not -- is designed precisely to divorce us from the truth that we are all here and in this together."

-- George Takei (b. 1937-04-20) "On this Remembrance Day, I hear terrible echoes of the past", 2017-02-18 [bold emphasis added]