From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:46:45 GMT

In article <C0CnFM.4uD@ncifcrf.gov> masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:

[Much deleted]

>   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. 

I agree. Sounds racist. Racist in my favor, in this case, but racist 
nonetheless. Also, it doesn't make much sense; if it is done to make the
place look more exotic, and thus use foreigners as free advertising, doesn't
the exclusion of Japanese mean the business cannot take advantage of a much
LARGER potential customer base? Or did the "Gaijin Only" signs apply only
to the choice window seats?

>  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.

Please explain how this is racist. The test you referred to in your previous 
post was the TOEFL. It is given to those who attempt to enter American 
universities, who come from foreign nations where English is NOT the national
language. This has nothing to do with race, as it is not a requirement for
those who wish to attempt their entry based on their performance on the tests
given to Americans (ie, SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, etc). In fact, most of the 
African students I knew did NOT take the TOEFL, as they came from English
speaking nations (Nigeria, Liberia, etc). Students from Singapore likewise
do not take the test, (unless they bomb the language portion of the other
above-mentioned tests, in which case it's a nice option to have.)

No place I know of requires a language test to be a customer. It is illegal.

> 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).

Happened to me a couple times in Japan. Both instances sound racist to me.

>  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.

None of which changes the fact that what s/he was doing was racist. And
BTW, the same "logic" as above might equally apply in the US; a shopowner
might say "I'm not racist. I love jazz/the blues/rap music/whatever". Again,
the only difference is that for some reason, you seem to think the Japanese
case is somehow more reasonable. 

Mike
-- 
Disclaimer - These opinions are not so much opinions, as pearls of wisdom. Any-
one disagreeing is obviously either a) a snivelling, whining, mentally-
deficient, weak-willed, inconsequential, namby-pamby tool of some vague but
conveniently defined conspiracy, or b) my wife.