From: keis@psy.uwa.oz.au (Keis Ohtsuka)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Date: 5 Jan 1993 14:09:44 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: wapsy.psy.uwa.oz.au

masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:

>   As the system at our site seems to have falied to receive message for the
>last three days, I don't know if my last posting in this thread was 
>successfully posted or what kind of response (or flame) I received. However,
>a few lines of the posting above makes me suspect that I was not able to make
>my point understood.

Please do not worry. Mike Fester's comments indeed sums up what I
consider the root cause of similar arguments between a Mike and a
Michiaki on various Japanese/American/non-Japanese issues. I was not
responding to the specific points of your earlier posts.

>>Furthermore, a degree of bigotry should be used as an effective
>>defence for the perpetrators (i.e., the posters of "Foreigners 
>>Only" signs) of basic human rights?

>   I'm not sure if this is just a Freudian slip, but Ohtsuka-san probably
>meant to say, "Japanese Only." (If I missed some conversation on "Foreigners
>Only" signs, I'm sorry.)

I meant "Gaijin Okotowari (No Foreigners Allowed)" sign in the Japanese
language when I was writing my post. As you pointed out, a literal
translation should be, gasp!, NO FOREIGNERS ALLOWED. A full-fledged
apartheit statement on a door step near you!

>>Japanese defendants
>>so blatantly violated the basic human rights of aliens by
>>posting a racist message, "Foreigners Only." 

>   The "Foreigners Only" policy that I mentioned above was used to make
>the place look like popular among gaijin. Gaijin customers sitting close
>to the window were highly visible from the street and gave an exotic 
>atmosphere to the place. Although I don't know if it violated the basic
>human rights or not, I don't think that using gaijin customers as free
>advertisement (or "hito-yose panda" in Japanese) only because of their 
>race was the best thing to do. 

Stereo-typing. A tendency to perceive individuals as representatives
of ethnic groups based on their appearance. It is tantamount to deny
individualities of foreigners.

>>In my opinion, any messages excluding people
>>based on ethnic origin is racist and should be dealt with such.

>  Can't agree more. Neither can most Japanese, probably.

I sincerely hope so as one of them. 

>>  When it happens in
>>South Africa, we called it Apartheit and vigorously oppesed it.
>>Why should we let it pass when it happens in Japan?  

>  If someone starts to equalize the "gaijin okotowari" policy to Apartheit,
>the owner of the bar might start "Japanese language only" policy and
>exclude those who do not have a sufficient command of Japanese (remember
>the literacy test in the US). It IS possible to maintain their policy
>in a way that doesn't look like based on race. They might say to a foreigner,
>"All the vacant seats are already reserved" (as one restaurant in our town is
>said to do to non-white customers).

>  As I mentioned in my previous posting, "gaijin okotowari" would not be
>regarded as racism by Japanese in Japan and it might not be an expression
>of inherently racist attitude of the shopowner (he might be using that
>policy just to protect his business and be an enthusiastic fan of, say, 
>Cindy Crawford at the same time). If you try to persuade him that it is
>wrong because it is racism ("jinshu sabetsu") same as the one the US 
>and South Africa has, he might not understand your logic and would not
>see the reason why he should abondon that policy. Instead if you tell him 
>that it is wrong to discriminate all the people in a certain group due to
>the misbehavior or bad reputation of only a part of the group, chances 
>would be higher that he understands your point and finally realizes that
>there are other form of racism than the one he has had in mind.

Here I beg to disagree precisely because of my stronger "Revisionist"
tendency. In a nut shell, the very reason I was very harshly criticizing
a "gentler and kinder" racism, or a strong tendency for stereo-typing
among the Japanese (some japanese, if you don't like it) is that
I believe that the Japanese deserve better than a smoke screen of cultural
"uniqueness." If they (or we) are serious about the business of 
taking initiative in the internationa arena so that the country attain
the respect that commensulates her economic might, the Japanese got to
think about what kind of visions Japan would like to offer to other 
countries and people.  What's in it for other people to be friendly
with the Japanese other than earning a bit of money by trading??
When the Japanese learn to answer the Revisionsits right and square
without resorting to another double-standard, they probably will\
be able to articulate on it more precisely.  In short, we should
"educate" people unaware of their "inadvertent" racism but with
the universal values not by local rules.  

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