On Thursday, the homepage of Google featured one of the search engine’s doodles honoring the birthday of Yuri Kochiyama, a “civil rights” activist who died two years ago at age 93. After Google drew attention to Kochiyama’s life, the Smithsonian highlighted the museum’s “digital exhibit” honoring her. Kochiyama was one of the thousands of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, and she spent the rest of her life speaking out against what she saw as injustice. Aside from supporting various civil rights causes, she was a big advocate for the Civil Liberties Act, legislation signed by President Reagan that approved $20,000 in reparations to the thousands of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II.

However, it’s also fair to say that, her unjust internment notwithstanding, Kochiyama harbored an unacceptable degree of contempt for her country. It is appalling that Google would choose to honor her, and even more appalling the Smithsonian would spend taxpayer dollars paying tribute to her. Just to give you a flavor of how bad she was, consider this interview from 2003: