Today’s Google Doodle Sends A Message To Donald Trump About The Muslim Ban

by Erika W. Smith

On Friday, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States, as well as suspending the US’s refugee system. On Saturday, after protesters filled airports across the country, the ACLU won a temporary stay on the ban. But the fight is far from over.

And today, Google is weighing in.

Today’s Google Doodle shows Fred Korematsu, a civil rights activist who fought against the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. When FDR issued Executive Order 9066, sending all people with Japanese ancestry to internment camps, Korematsu resisted, working with the ACLU to challenge the legality of the internment camps. He took his case to the Supreme Court with Korematsu V. United States, but the Court sided with the government in favor of the legality of internment camps — and sent Korematsu to one.

Korematsu spent the rest of his life fighting racism — and not only against Japanese Americans. After 9/11, he urged the US government not to take action against people with Middle Eastern ancestry.

Fred Korematsu 2010Fred Korematsu wearing the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, via Wikimedia Commons

Korematsu died in 2005 at the age of 86, but you can bet that if he were alive today he would have strong words to say and legal action to take against Trump’s Muslim ban. Oh wait, his words after 9/11 seem pretty damn applicable right now:

“No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy.”

(To which we’ll add, most terrorists in the US are white, right-wing, American men — not Muslim immigrants. In fact, fewer Americans are killed by Muslim terrorists per year than are killed by lightning, lawnmowers, or by falling out of bed.)

2016 09 01 1472759565 493250 extreme extreme vetting thumb

People are calling the Google Doodle a subtweet or “sub-doodle,” but thankfully Google execs are also openly taking action Trump’s racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic policies. Over the weekend, Google created a $4 million crisis fund to fight the Muslim ban — the largest sum it’s ever given to a humanitarian cause. In a statement, Google said:

“We’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the US. We’ll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere.”

From Google Doodles to ACLU donations to calling your representatives to protests in the airports and the streets, we need to fight this Muslim ban any and every way we can.

Top photo: Google

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