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> Extreme fasciation with the Japanese way of life has always struck me as roundabout white supremacy or misogyny cloaked in a cosmopolitan facade. You're not

by piazz 4y ago

> Extreme fasciation with the Japanese way of life has always struck me as roundabout white supremacy or misogyny cloaked in a cosmopolitan facade. You're not wrong about the xenophobic tendencies and obvious monoculture, but the situation is far more complicated and nuanced that you're allowing. An example: I have a black American friend who's lived in Tokyo for 30 years and plans to be buried in Japan. He lives in Japan because he never has to fear for his physical safety due to the color of his skin, like he does in America. While he will never be seen as "Japanese", for him your xenophobia is more typically represented as wariness or caution around foreigners, people not sitting next to him on the train because he is tall and looks different, versus in America having to contend with actual white supremacy, racist police, and hate crimes. His story is far from unique. (As an aside, I think this is part of why these discussions about upsides/downsides of Japan are so interesting - it defies any simple explanation and the closer you look the more nuanced it becomes)

prottog 4y ago
I'm a visibly nonwhite minority here in the deep south of America with friends of every skin tone, including those who are black. Not once has anyone younger than 40 been afraid of his physical safety due to the color of his skin, other than being in places where physical safety was questionable to begin with. Perhaps the true point here is that in Japan it is very rare that anyone has to fear for his physical safety for any reason. I'd much rather live someplace where "actual white supremacy", to the degree it exists, is denounced by polite company, than a place where it is accepted in polite company that you're avoided for looking physically different and "no foreigners allowed" in businesses are common. As one who only came to the States as an adult, it's really confounding to me the degree to which it's understood that America is a racist and white supremacist country. I just don't get it at all.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  I'm not american so I have no experience with it myself. But I thought for example the birth of black lives matter movement was directly linked to black people feeling physically unsafe.
  - parker_mountain 4y ago
    Yes, from the police and police interactions. American police are unusually brutal anyways. Per capita, American police kill 3x more than Canada's police, and 60x times more than England's police.
    - rowanG077 4y ago
      Right. So doesn't it make sense for someone to move to a different country where you don't have to fear the police?
      - krapp 4y ago
        Aren't Japanese police just as likely to target "the foreigner" in the neighborhood anyway? They're not going to shoot on sight the way an American cop would but their ability (and legal leeway) to extract confessions is infamous.
        rowanG077 4y ago
        Maybe, but that's an irrelevant metric. I'd still expect the absolute percentage chance of becoming a police victim to be much, much smaller.
      - hungryforcodes 4y ago
        Everytime I talk with other non-Americans about traveling in the US one of the main fears that comes up all the time is fear of the police. So I can't imagine the Japanese police being nearly as much a cause of concern and or fear.
        ryan_lane 4y ago
        I think people should have a rational fear of police everywhere, including Japan. Police have a state given power over you, and that can be abused no matter where you are. Japan isn't perfect here. Your rights when dealing with the police here are different (and not in a better way). You do not have the right to remain silent, and your silence can be used against you. They can keep you in jail for ~30 days without charges. It's an open secret that the police can and do beat prisoners to get confessions out of them. That said, if I had to chose an interaction between the Japanese police and the US police, I'd take the Japanese police every single time.
- odessacubbage 4y ago
  reflexive shame towards the nation is the only cultural practice americans are still taught. in contrast to japan who have pretty much eroded their past atrocities from the public consciousness, the intelligentsia seem fixated on wallowing in ours. i leave it to you to decide which strategy has created a more cohesive public.
- ryan_lane 4y ago
  > Not once has anyone younger than 40 been afraid of his physical safety due to the color of his skin, other than being in places where physical safety was questionable to begin with. It's hard to take you seriously here. I've met very few black folks who would agree with you on this. Have you directly asked a black person how they feel about encounters with the police? > I'd much rather live someplace where "actual white supremacy", to the degree it exists, is denounced by polite company It's not denounced by polite company. I was recently in Louisiana where someone was talking about why they don't go into New Orleans anymore (because of black people), and about how we have an incorrect history of the civil war because "winners write the history" ("it wasn't due to slavery"). > than a place where it is accepted in polite company that you're avoided for looking physically different I'm not saying this doesn't happen at all, but I think it's often mistaken for "I don't want to sit next to a gaijin", when it's really "I don't want to sit next to someone really tall because I'll have no room" or "I don't want to sit next to the gaijin who smells like they haven't showered in a week". I know this is one of the more common complaints on japanlife reddit, so I won't discount it completely, but even there it's a pretty controversial take. > "no foreigners allowed" in businesses are common. I've been living in Tokyo for the past 3 years (and have traveled around Japan a lot) and haven't seen a single "no foreigners allowed" sign. I have never been rejected for being foreign. I'm sure you may run into this on rare occasion in the countryside, but this isn't anywhere near the norm, even there. I've heard this is still the norm at places like soaplands, oppai bars, and such, but that it's not enforced for folks who can speak enough Japanese to clearly state they understand the rules. I haven't gone to any so can't personally verify that (and my spoken Japanese isn't good enough anyway). These places have strict legal requirements to keep their licenses, so this is a case where I at least understand their rationale. I'm sure there's some xenophobia baked into this as well, as it's a common (stupid) stereotype that foreigners bring STDs into Japan. > As one who only came to the States as an adult, it's really confounding to me the degree to which it's understood that America is a racist and white supremacist country. I just don't get it at all. As someone who grew up in the south, and who has mostly conservative friends and family, I absolutely get it. There's degrees of racism, but I've heard the phrase "we should turn the middle east into glass" more times than I'd prefer. I know lots of folks who moved away from the New Orleans area so that their kids wouldn't go to school with black children. I've been in situations at work where people would be in a 1-1 with me and be complaining about black people being hired, and how they don't allow that on their team. I know property managers that only do word-of-mouth advertising for rental openings so that they can only rent to white people. All of those things are just direct experiences I've personally witnessed. It doesn't take into account the historical racism that continues to affect the black community today, like redlining, white-flight, systematic police targeting and imprisonment, the war on drugs, etc. I'm glad you haven't personally had that experience, but you shouldn't downplay the situation that others less fortunate than you experience often.
vt85 4y ago
[dead]
linguae 4y ago
I’m also a black American who lived in Japan and who frequents Japan for business and vacation; in fact, I just returned from my eighth trip a few days ago. I feel an indescribable feeling of freedom and even acceptance in Japan that have eluded me in America. By “acceptance” I don’t mean being accepted as a Japanese person; I mean being accepted as a person. I gladly prefer the treatment of being a “gaijin” to the treatment of being black in America.
- imbnwa 4y ago
  That's great that it worked out for you but ask mixed-race Japanese folk like Ariana Miyamoto what it was like growing up (or Naomi Osaka what her Japanese grandparents had to say about her mother loving a Black man), they will tell you eerily similar tales and are quite the opposite of being treated as a person despite the fact they were born there, are culturally Japanese, and have spoken Japanese their entire life. You can also check out Yuya From Japan's channel on Youtube where he interviews mixed-race Japanese folk. Foreigners likely don't realize they're participating in the same near/far dialectic that informs the way Black American comedians since the 90s have noted that white folk in America treat people from Africa better than they do the people of African-descent who's ancestors were already here well before the the ancestors of most whites in America.
  - jterrys 4y ago
    I think OPs and parent posts are more content with the fact they will never be Japanese, and feel comfort in that they still get treated with more dignity and respect than in America. Your examples are of mixed race people who strive to be Japanese, but are denied due to their mixed heritage. Apples and Oranges. One group cares about integration, the other doesn't.

by piazz 4y ago

prottog 4y ago

I'm a visibly nonwhite minority here in the deep south of America with friends of every skin tone, including those who are black. Not once has anyone younger than 40 been afraid of his physical safety due to the color of his skin, other than being in places where physical safety was questionable to begin with. Perhaps the true point here is that in Japan it is very rare that anyone has to fear for his physical safety for any reason. I'd much rather live someplace where "actual white supremacy", to the degree it exists, is denounced by polite company, than a place where it is accepted in polite company that you're avoided for looking physically different and "no foreigners allowed" in businesses are common. As one who only came to the States as an adult, it's really confounding to me the degree to which it's understood that America is a racist and white supremacist country. I just don't get it at all.

rowanG077 4y ago
I'm not american so I have no experience with it myself. But I thought for example the birth of black lives matter movement was directly linked to black people feeling physically unsafe.
- parker_mountain 4y ago
  Yes, from the police and police interactions. American police are unusually brutal anyways. Per capita, American police kill 3x more than Canada's police, and 60x times more than England's police.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    Right. So doesn't it make sense for someone to move to a different country where you don't have to fear the police?
    - krapp 4y ago
      Aren't Japanese police just as likely to target "the foreigner" in the neighborhood anyway? They're not going to shoot on sight the way an American cop would but their ability (and legal leeway) to extract confessions is infamous.
      - rowanG077 4y ago
        Maybe, but that's an irrelevant metric. I'd still expect the absolute percentage chance of becoming a police victim to be much, much smaller.
    - hungryforcodes 4y ago
      Everytime I talk with other non-Americans about traveling in the US one of the main fears that comes up all the time is fear of the police. So I can't imagine the Japanese police being nearly as much a cause of concern and or fear.
      - ryan_lane 4y ago
        I think people should have a rational fear of police everywhere, including Japan. Police have a state given power over you, and that can be abused no matter where you are. Japan isn't perfect here. Your rights when dealing with the police here are different (and not in a better way). You do not have the right to remain silent, and your silence can be used against you. They can keep you in jail for ~30 days without charges. It's an open secret that the police can and do beat prisoners to get confessions out of them. That said, if I had to chose an interaction between the Japanese police and the US police, I'd take the Japanese police every single time.
odessacubbage 4y ago
reflexive shame towards the nation is the only cultural practice americans are still taught. in contrast to japan who have pretty much eroded their past atrocities from the public consciousness, the intelligentsia seem fixated on wallowing in ours. i leave it to you to decide which strategy has created a more cohesive public.
ryan_lane 4y ago
> Not once has anyone younger than 40 been afraid of his physical safety due to the color of his skin, other than being in places where physical safety was questionable to begin with. It's hard to take you seriously here. I've met very few black folks who would agree with you on this. Have you directly asked a black person how they feel about encounters with the police? > I'd much rather live someplace where "actual white supremacy", to the degree it exists, is denounced by polite company It's not denounced by polite company. I was recently in Louisiana where someone was talking about why they don't go into New Orleans anymore (because of black people), and about how we have an incorrect history of the civil war because "winners write the history" ("it wasn't due to slavery"). > than a place where it is accepted in polite company that you're avoided for looking physically different I'm not saying this doesn't happen at all, but I think it's often mistaken for "I don't want to sit next to a gaijin", when it's really "I don't want to sit next to someone really tall because I'll have no room" or "I don't want to sit next to the gaijin who smells like they haven't showered in a week". I know this is one of the more common complaints on japanlife reddit, so I won't discount it completely, but even there it's a pretty controversial take. > "no foreigners allowed" in businesses are common. I've been living in Tokyo for the past 3 years (and have traveled around Japan a lot) and haven't seen a single "no foreigners allowed" sign. I have never been rejected for being foreign. I'm sure you may run into this on rare occasion in the countryside, but this isn't anywhere near the norm, even there. I've heard this is still the norm at places like soaplands, oppai bars, and such, but that it's not enforced for folks who can speak enough Japanese to clearly state they understand the rules. I haven't gone to any so can't personally verify that (and my spoken Japanese isn't good enough anyway). These places have strict legal requirements to keep their licenses, so this is a case where I at least understand their rationale. I'm sure there's some xenophobia baked into this as well, as it's a common (stupid) stereotype that foreigners bring STDs into Japan. > As one who only came to the States as an adult, it's really confounding to me the degree to which it's understood that America is a racist and white supremacist country. I just don't get it at all. As someone who grew up in the south, and who has mostly conservative friends and family, I absolutely get it. There's degrees of racism, but I've heard the phrase "we should turn the middle east into glass" more times than I'd prefer. I know lots of folks who moved away from the New Orleans area so that their kids wouldn't go to school with black children. I've been in situations at work where people would be in a 1-1 with me and be complaining about black people being hired, and how they don't allow that on their team. I know property managers that only do word-of-mouth advertising for rental openings so that they can only rent to white people. All of those things are just direct experiences I've personally witnessed. It doesn't take into account the historical racism that continues to affect the black community today, like redlining, white-flight, systematic police targeting and imprisonment, the war on drugs, etc. I'm glad you haven't personally had that experience, but you shouldn't downplay the situation that others less fortunate than you experience often.

vt85 4y ago

[dead]

linguae 4y ago

I’m also a black American who lived in Japan and who frequents Japan for business and vacation; in fact, I just returned from my eighth trip a few days ago. I feel an indescribable feeling of freedom and even acceptance in Japan that have eluded me in America. By “acceptance” I don’t mean being accepted as a Japanese person; I mean being accepted as a person. I gladly prefer the treatment of being a “gaijin” to the treatment of being black in America.

imbnwa 4y ago
That's great that it worked out for you but ask mixed-race Japanese folk like Ariana Miyamoto what it was like growing up (or Naomi Osaka what her Japanese grandparents had to say about her mother loving a Black man), they will tell you eerily similar tales and are quite the opposite of being treated as a person despite the fact they were born there, are culturally Japanese, and have spoken Japanese their entire life. You can also check out Yuya From Japan's channel on Youtube where he interviews mixed-race Japanese folk. Foreigners likely don't realize they're participating in the same near/far dialectic that informs the way Black American comedians since the 90s have noted that white folk in America treat people from Africa better than they do the people of African-descent who's ancestors were already here well before the the ancestors of most whites in America.
- jterrys 4y ago
  I think OPs and parent posts are more content with the fact they will never be Japanese, and feel comfort in that they still get treated with more dignity and respect than in America. Your examples are of mixed race people who strive to be Japanese, but are denied due to their mixed heritage. Apples and Oranges. One group cares about integration, the other doesn't.