From: cmr@WORLD.STD.COM
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.nihongo
Subject: Re: racism in Japan
Date: 29 Jul 92 01:55:01 GMT
Distribution: fj

The mix of physically distinct types is much more ancient than your posting
supposes. In Europe the migrations of the Indo-Europeans displaced earlier
peoples who were physically and culturally distinct. The process often
involved enslavement and one can hypothesize that the process involved the
most direct and primitive forms of ethnocentrism. One can examine the
behavior of the more recent and thus better documented examples such as the
Normans vs the Saxons, the Saxons vs the Celts, the Germans vs the Celts,
the Romans vs the Persians/Medes , the Turkic peoples vs the Aryan and
the Semitic peoples, the Semitic vs the various races/nationalities of
Africa. Some of these examples are stretching back 4 thousand years.
The upper classes of Sumer are uniformly represented in sculpture as
round headed yet the skeletal remains show that the majority of the
inhabitants were heavy boned , short , with long and narrow heads. We
date the migration of the Sumerians about the middle of the 5th millenium BC.
In fact the migration of physically distinct "races" and their subjugation
of those races already present is a constant in all known history and
is extrapolated from all that is known about prehistory. There maybe an
exception in the Bushmen of Australia , but I am more likely  to believe
that I just don't know enough of the history of that region to find an
example. We might also remember that almost all primitive societies call
themselves "the people" and that many of them use the same word for outsider
and enemy or at least carry the connotation; the word "enemy" means anyone
who is not a friend. "Barbarous" first meant those who were not Hellenic
and then (after the Romans conquered) meant those who were not Greek or
Roman, much as "ethnos" (from which comes "ethnic") originally meant those
who were not Jews and then grew to mean those who were not Jews or
Christians. It is pertinent to our discussion to see that both "barbarous"
and "ethnic" are used to denigrate other *primitive* cultures, as in
"ethnic dress" or "barbaric eating habits". The word "denigrate" itself is
a 14th century word that may (it is not known) have been derived from
racial slurs. Those who might want to object to my assertion that the use
of "ethnic' is derogatory might consider that it is used often as a
synonym for quaint.

One can not study ethnocentrism and racism without paying attention to
the roots and the pervasiveness of this behavior, nor should one allow
the latest fads in social science to over rule observational evidence.
It is too easy to allow idealism and "political" views to strain the
facts to fit the theory.

Charlie

P.S. What is the historical derivation, the meaning , and the connotations
     of the word "gaijin"



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*  Charles Richmond 	Integrated International Systems Corporation        *
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