Japan and the issue of racial profiling

boing
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Which I did not say, but that you almost entirely dismissed out of hand. :woman_shrugging: Japan did far worse than Germany with regards to coming to terms with their war crimes. There is much more acceptance of those crimes as a national responsibility in Germany for their crimes than in Japan. Because those crimes in both places have deeply shaped the current geopolitical world, they actually do matter. Many focus more on the nuclear bombs as opposed to the Rape of Nanjing or the occupation of Korea.

So it matters in current affairs, far more than say, Operation Barbarosa does in Russian-German relations. In this analogy, the relations between Germany and Israel is more apt, in fact.

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Then, if I may, what is it that you are saying?

I am not saying that it does not matter in current affairs. I am saying that it is not the ONLY thing that matters in terms of current affairs. I am not saying that Japan is all good or that Korea is all bad. I am saying that it is very complicated.

As for Germany doing better, are you aware of this?

Or this?

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Pointing out that the social construct of ‘race’ is bullshit is not, in and of itself, pretending otherwise or being willfully ignorant. For some of us it is an attempt at a social deconstruction.

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See, the fact that there’s a name applied to people in that manner is a real slippery slope. Racism is full of examples like this, and it stems from “othering,” that need for some in the majority culture to label those who aren’t considered to be members of their group.

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That Japan has serious issues with prejudice that includes against people of other Asian ethnicities, that is very much related to the war era, and that it shapes relations today. The Japanese government and voting public most certainly bears some responsibility for that, much like the American public bears responsibility for our own forms of bigotry and racism.

Which I never said. However, it can be deflecting to say “well, Koreans just hate the Japanese and protest against them all the time for apparently no reason” when in fact there are many reasons for that happening. Like many other countries, Japan seems to be having a rightward turn that wishes to sanitize it’s history. That’s never a great idea, because it just lets the problem fester.

I am aware of that… But if Germany started to back off it’s commitments to properly teaching the Holocaust, there would be an international outcry…

In addition, there is this, which has been a serious sore spot for good reason:

Additionally, there are serious problems with teaching the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during the war, another sore spot:

A more recent discussion, which includes how the Chinese governments also attempted to cover Nanjing up to some degree:

As here in the states, some of us very much understand that ignoring atrocities in the past can lead down a very dangerous path and the same is absolutely true elsewhere. A country that just out right refuses to come to terms with a messy and complicated history in a holistic way is setting itself up for continuing to accept forms of bigotry that can lead to more atrocities in the future. :woman_shrugging:

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I invite you to read my very first comment on this thread, in which I said the exact same thing.

I invite you to read my first comment on this subject, in which I said that the Koreans do have good reason for their anger.

Other than that, I fully agree with you that Japanese students should be taught about Japanese atrocities committed during World War II in an appropriate manner, and that would go a long way toward easing tensions. But as I also said at the beginning, there are a lot of far-right politicians and news outlets in Korea who would not be the least bit satisfied with that because the Japan cudgel serves their purposes.

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And so, if it weren’t for those far-right nasties, Koreans would be more likely to STFU about Japan’s general, ongoing refusal to acknowledge its xenophobic, superior attitudes and behavior, and the extent of its historical denial?

Wrong. You yourself are denying the longstanding reality of justified Korean resentment of and protest of Japan’s official stances towards its own historical atrocities and towards other peoples. You clearly don’t realize it, but your comments display the same blithe Japanese bothsiderism that has long frustrated, for starters, many other people in Asia.

Has it occurred to you that a 16-year immersion in Japanese society just might make you at least a tad bit accepting of blinkered Japanese attitudes and beliefs about all this? I really do think you’d be less of a Japan-apologist if you’d split that time between say, Korea and Japan.

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“There is a lot of racism in Japan.”

A full stop there and then just starting with “Most of it is directed towards Chinese people…”

That would do a lot to make it sound less dismissive and defensive of Japanese racism. To me that’s where the perception probably starts YMMV.

Take it from a white southerner who has lived with and loved people who are just… fucking racist.

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My intention was to say that Americans in Japan probably don’t have anything to worry about, but I should have made that clear.

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Ah, so there’s supposedly no racial profiling by authorities in Japan. Got it. :roll_eyes:

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I would refer you to my comment above:

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Then why would you contradict yourself by saying Americans probably have nothing to worry about?

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Because America is not in South Asia? Yes, there are people of South Asian descent in America, so I should have said “most Americans.”

I am not denying it. I am saying that there are politicians in Korea who use this resentment for their own purposes and in a way that impedes any kind of resolution. The same is true of Japanese politicians, of course.

ETA: Quite frankly, I am tired of having to reiterate things that I clearly said in previous posts and being accused of saying things that I have not. If you can show me any comment here where I say something to the effect that “racial profiling does not exist in Japan (twice you have accused me of saying this, and twice I have shown you that I did indeed say the opposite),” “Japan has done nothing wrong,” “only Korea is to blame” or anything to the effect that racism is not a problem in Japan or anything to that effect, please bring that to my attention with actual quotes of my actual words. You will find none; in fact, you will find in my earlier posts on this thread that I said quite the opposite.

When you accuse me of denying the longstanding reality of justified Korean resentment when one of the first things that I said on the subject was:

I can only assume that you are not interested in what I am saying, but are instead arguing against the very people who are writing those history textbooks that do not detail Japan’s atrocities, and I am not such a person, nor do I care for such people.

And while we’re on the subject of history textbooks:

Like I said, it’s complicated.

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burakamin

For those that didn’t recognize this term:

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Also… no one has mentioned the erasure of the Ainu people until very recently…

:woman_shrugging:

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Whoo boy. Japan is totally racist. And xenophobic. (Always “no foreigners” signs to be found in various businesses.) There are ethnic minorities that live in Japan, and Japan treats them terribly. (And, to some degree, the whole idea of Japan being cultural homogeneous is part of a racist myth.) Obviously racism in Japan is different from racism in the US or Europe because… Japan. It’s also a completely unexamined racism, so Japanese people deny it even exists.

And the indigenous ethnic minorities, such as the Ainu. I.e. all the traditional minority groups in Japan.

Right, and since “race” is purely a social construct, the Japanese notion of “race” is, by definition, not going to be the same as e.g. the US. So if one looks for US-style racism in Japan, one won’t find it, even though there’s tons of racism in Japan.

What’s the difference? (If by “ethnicity” we include genetic ancestry, as the Japanese do.) People of e.g. Korean descent in Japan, despite their families having lived there for generations, are seen as “not Japanese.” Japanese people of partial non-Japanese ancestry get treated like foreigners.

European, is what the idea is. “Race” is a social construct - just because the Japanese don’t share the social constructs of Europe (because Japanese), doesn’t mean they don’t have their own. And obviously they’re not going to create a grouping that includes themselves to be racist against.

Although there’s also historic discrimination against indigenous peoples, colorism exists, there’s blood type discrimination, etc. The Japanese discriminate against particular groups that Americans don’t even conceive of as groups.

Part of it, anyways.

Yeah, hell, read British literature of previous eras, and you see people talking about the “English race,” the “Welsh race”…

They still don’t recognize the indigenous people of Okinawa, apparently.

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The premise of the post is totally bizarre. He keeps referring to the ethnically homogenous state of Japan, ignoring the Koreans that live there, let alone the native peoples. Heck, there’s this post from a blog the author should be familiar with showing some nice racial profiling going on right in the bloody video:

Get a load of that… “people in Okinawa don’t work hard because it’s a cultural thing”. I shouted “fuck off” at my screen when he said that.

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Yes. His rant about how Japan isn’t racist was pretty racist.

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I mean, I don’t think the OP is ignoring them, per se. Even with some immigrant and indigenous populations, it is one of the most ethnically homogeneous nations. So I think that is a more than fair description.

(Sort by Ethnic Fractionalization, after a bunch of mostly really small island nations, it is 28th, just under North Korea.)

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Money is a social construct too but that knowledge is of little help to anyone living in crushing poverty.

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