From: dcroz@twics.co.jp
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Not a Myth at All
Date: 22 Dec 92 15:30:17 GMT
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan

write
 
David Luke (luke@wombat.ee.byu.edu) writes
 
>>Right.  Like a "bunch of Navy guys" have spent enough time in Japan and
>>understand enough of what's going on to be able to tell racism from the
>>Japanese version of Ed McMann offering them a $1M sweepstakes prize.
 
     Hey, yo, dude, "Navy guys" represent a pretty good cross-section of the
population at large.  Some of them are clueless and determined to stay that
way, sure.  But another poster stated here that he figured out what was up in
Japan in just a short while, and there are Navy guys that do that as well. 
Then too, sometimes their girlfriends clue them in.  Another factor is that a
lot of Navy guys stay here for a long time.  Some just roll in for a three-year
tour and then out again, sure, but some stay six years, nine, even longer.
 
    Besides, you don't have to be Einstein to spot the racism in Yokosuka; not
with "Japanese only" and "no g**j*n" signs dotting the landscape, and not when
you're being turned away from every bar in town except those in a small ghetto
and a lot of the restaurants besides, and not when there are regular incidents
of gangs of Japanese assaulting solitary Americans (which you don't and won't
read about in the media), not when the first words of Japanese you learn are
"g**j*n dame" and you hear them every day.
 
     What--you think if you were plonked down in a town full of people who
regarded you as an unwelcome racial inferior you couldn't figure it out?  You
think it would take you more than a couple of years to tumble?  Or are you just
presuming that "Navy guys" are inferior in intelligence and comprehension?
 
>>Most military people spend 99% of their time on base associating with other
>>military people.  Excursions out are usually limited to hittin a  close bar
>>or the Hard Rock Cafe.  There are exceptions to the rule, but most could
>>spend years in Japan and still know essentially nothing about the language,
>>the culture, and the people.
 
     Maybe it was that way once, and there are still those who resemble your
description, but I don't think that the word "most" is accurate any longer.
 
>>People who do stupid things like shoplift in Akihabara or steal train rides
>>because they think they're bigger and stronger than the Japanese so they can
>>darn well do anything they please are the ones who create and perpetrate
>>slanted attitudes about foreigners among the Japanese people.
 
     Without wanting to defend thieves in any way:  these people probably serve
in some way to give the perpetuation of racist attitudes a boost, but no way do
they create them.  They are created by the culture itself and all its
manifestations:  the family, the play group, TV, textbooks and teachers, and
all the rest.
 
>>They have no right to complain about any kind of racism
 
     No right?  My, what a novel concept:  a person can forfeit his human right
to be free from racism because of unrelated obnoxious or criminal behavior.  A
startling insight.  I wonder where it will lead us?
 
     Fer starters, Rodney King was guilty of speeding before the cops whomped
him, so he has "no right to complain about any kind of racism."
 
     Then, the Los Angeles rioters engaged in criminal behavior and therefore
forfeited any right to complain about racism from here on out--so shut up out
there on the coast, hear?
 
     And prisons!  Yes!  Everybody in a prison is a criminal, and probably
obnoxious too, so we can just forget about any allegations of racial
discrimination by inmates, or any need to ensure that this human right is
protected.  They have no right!
 
     And what about me?  Jeez, I was *really* obnoxious to the second (or was
it the third?) bigot who gratuitously insulted me while I was minding my own
business on the way to work this morning, so I guess I "have no right to
complain about any kind of racism" from here on out.
 
     And you.  I find your declaration regarding who does and doesn't have a
right to be free from racism to be offensive, so there goes your right to
complain!
 
     I'm sure everybody can come up with their own labor-saving examples now
that the general principle is known.  Think of the money we'll save, the
reduction in the federal court case-load.  What a blessing!
 
     Ya know what?  I think I detect some real bias and hostility against the
military, and possibly America in general coming from you <douiiinnng>.
 
     I mean, really!  Saying that one group of humans has forfeited a human
right and are by virtue of their occupation too stupid to comprehend their
situation!  Is this evenhanded?  Is this compassionate?  Is this. . .dare I say

it. . .moderate?
 
>>Unfavorable attitudes towards people like this are not racism, they're just
>>considering and treating a first class jerk like a first class jerk.
 
     These are two different phenomena, sure.
 
>>If you act like that, you get treated like that.
 
     And if you don't act like that, you get treated like that.  That's what
makes it racism and not just "treating a first class jerk like a first class
jerk."
 
>>If you act like a normal, respectable, law-abiding individual, they treat you
>>like one.
 
     Not supported by the evidence.  Do you have any argument or evidence to
offer as proof for this outlandish allegation?
 
>>I'm sure there are exceptions, where even working hard to fit in gets you
>>nowhere
 
     These cases are the rule.  The exceptions are those you describe in which
"they give you significant work to do."  And forget about real decision-making
responsibility.
 
>>in the overwhelming majority of cases that I know about
 
     You talk like that's a statistically significant sample.  Got any
approximate numbers?
 
>>people have been treated like they deserved to be
 
     Considering that you seem to think they deserve to be insulted and
discriminated against ("They have no right to complain about any kind of
racism."), I don't doubt that.
 
     I'd really like to find something out.  Can anyone, anywhere, document a
case in which a non-Japanese employee of a Japanese company has male Japanese
seishain subordinates?  I'm not talking about figurehead shachos of overseas
subsidiaries where they have parallel chains of command, with all the power
retained by the Japanese.  I'm talking about a dirty stinking stupid dishonest
AIDS-ridden g**j*n (sorry for the redundancy) who *actually and in fact* has
*real* authority over male Japanese seishain.
 
     Hearsay don't get it.  To count, I have to be able to make an appointment,
go over and see the guy, and verify for myself.