From: hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga)
Subject: Re: Is this offensive?
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 10:56:28 GMT

I'm not sure whether there's still a place for me in this,
but nevertheless I feel obliged and entitled to a reply...

In article <RHB.93Jan23140321@world.std.com> rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner) writes:
>In article <1993Jan23.074019.11958@Csli.Stanford.EDU> hiraga@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Yuzuru Hiraga) writes:
>
>   In article <RHB.93Jan22222015@world.std.com> rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner) writes:
>   >Well, you don't have to be Japanese-American to get thrown up against
>   >a locker in high school. Actually, all you have to be is smarter,
>   >shorter, weaker, or not a football player. So you're not being singled
>   >out, believe me, except that you are different.
>
>   That's "one hell of" a compassion.
>
>I'm not trying to be compassionate here, I'm simply pointing out that
>being different is a red flag to certain Neanderthals who inhabit
>American high schools. That they are racists is almost incidental to
>the fact that they are bullies who seek an excuse to torment anyone.
>Chill out, dude.
>
>   >But let's compare
>   >treatment here, just for the hell of it, with that of anomalous people
>   >in Japan. Owada-san, the future empress, herself was victimized in
>   >this way, probably much more cruelly and relentlessly than any
>   >football player ever would have done it, merely because she had been
>   >abroad.
>
>   Again, why can you be so bold in making such statements
>   of things you don't understand or have little knowledge of?
>   I, being one of the earlier Kikoku-shijo (returnee), as well as my
>   brother and sister, my wife, and a number of friends in a similar situation,
>   will testify that such is not the case.
>   Of course, there do exist such cases, but that doesn't warrant making
>   such blanketed, ungrounded guesses.
>
>   (BTW: Kiko, the wife of the other prince, is also a returnee.)
>
>What do I need to understand here? That you, being kikoku-shijo,
>accept such treatment as part of your national identity? Are you
>denying that such treatment exists and that I have no right to say it
>because I have merely been informed about it second-hand (by other
>kikoku-shijo) and not experienced it myself? Your case, if it is as
>benign as you say, may be anomalous. But I have read otherwise about
>Owada-san, and not in the tabloids, either. Obviously you admit that
>"there do exist such cases" but what I was making was not a
>"blanketed, ungrounded" guess. It was a statement based on facts
>(which, admittedly, I did not witness firsthand) and I challenge you
>to refute it with facts of your own before accusing me of ignorance
>and generalization (which are themselves "blanketed, ungrounded
>guesses). Adducing your own personal story does not refute my
>argument, since my argument was not that ALL returnees are persecuted,
>merely that some are. Perhaps I did not make that clear enough, in
>which case I apologize, but the persecution does exist and for the
>reasons we have all become too familiar: Japan is racist and
>xenophobic to a large degree, and fearful of outsiders even if they be
>racially and politically identical with themselves.

OK, so I was a bit carried away.
Even though you haven't provided what the actual charges were about
the Owada case (including whether it included her own account, which
is crucial in these cases),
I can still retract the "ungrounded" and "little knowledge" above
and apologize about it --
but that with a reservation.
You still have to make your case about
  >>probably much more cruelly and relentlessly than any
  >>football player ever would have done it,
which with all the posts going back and forth, you still haven't answered.
Remember, the original poster (NISHIYAMA Tetsuto) described his case as:
 TN>getting
 TN>thrown against a locker at school with some high school football jock
 TN>about a foot taller than you growling "Remember Perl Harbor, JAP!" and
 TN>then get thrown in a trash can...

Your argument, however, makes your point ever the more puzzling.
First, Mr.Nishiyama was presenting his own experience, as an explanation
of why he considers "jap" as derogatory.  Your particular response was
totally off-beat of his point.
Before saying "read the rest of the article", think over why those
particular lines were necessary in the first place.
What is this about "comparison"?
If you meant appeasement, then fine, perfectly understandable.
But you say you weren't compassionate.
Consider the following:
  "I got run over by a drunk driver."
  "There are those bigots in the US/Japan.
   But there are more reckless ones in Japan/the US."
What sort of argument is this?
If you're saying that there are bigots in the US as in Japan, again, fine.
But what's the point in saying that?

>Your case, if it is as benign as you say, may be anomalous.

May be anomalous?  This, how do you know?

>Adducing your own personal story does not refute my argument,

But it does add a new perspective, doesn't it?

>since my argument was not that ALL returnees are persecuted,
>merely that some are.

Make up your mind.
You said the other side was anomalous.

And don't we realize a curious asymmetry in the below lines:
>I'm simply pointing out that
>being different is a red flag to certain Neanderthals who inhabit
>American high schools. That they are racists is almost incidental to
>the fact that they are bullies who seek an excuse to torment anyone.
  vs.
>but the persecution does exist and for the
>reasons we have all become too familiar: Japan is racist and
>xenophobic to a large degree, and fearful of outsiders even if they be
>racially and politically identical with themselves.

"That [certain Neanderthals] are racists is almost incidental",
while "Japan" [not Japanese Cro-Magnons] being racist is brought up even
in the context involving those that are "racially identical".
Geez.

To put two things into one,
I have nothing much against your "ijime" article (albeit a week-old story)
although it goes one further step off-beat.

However, starting with:
In <RHB.93Jan24091050@world.std.com>:
>I was criticized by Yuzuru Hiraga for being ignorant about the
>persecution of kikoku-shijo (returnees) in Japan,

How can this lead to the following:
>Now, admittedly this boy was
>not a returnee, but the point is that he was different, the "deru
>kugi," but it strikes me that the abuse Mr. Hiraga denies is still
>very much in evidence.

Mr.Hiraga denies what?

>But it insults my intelligence when
>certain apologists for Japan try to pretend that nothing bad ever
>happens there. It seems to me that Mr. Hiraga is attempting to wish
>something away that is very real.

It batters my intelligence (if there is any) that someone can be
so imaginative about my wishes of something I did not say, nor suggest,
nor even mention of.

>We Americans just spent a month or
>two being pilloried for Yoshi Hattori's (accidental) death.  It seems
>Japan has problems of her own as well, and they're not necessarily
>accidental.

If you're going to accuse anyone of being an apologist,
why not check out your own words as a good starter?

-Yuzuru Hiraga
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan