From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 16:09:39 GMT

In article <C0GE9q.7JM@ncifcrf.gov> masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.174645.3491@island.COM> fester@island.COM (Mike Fester) writes:
>   It is likely that the owner of the bar does not think that his
>"gaijin okotowari" policy is equatable to Apartheid or something that
>should be called "jinshu sabetsu" because his intention is not to
>segregate or humiliate a certain "race". If someone calims strongly
>enough that his policy is discrimination based on "race," he

I see. So the owner doesn't think it's racist, therefore it' not 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,
>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>   This is exactly the answer that I was expecting.

Very good.

>If TOEFL is not a racist exam, how a discrimination by Japanese basaed on
>language difference is racist?

Since when does anyone have to take a language test to enter a store? A bar?
Any store? (Except of course, in Japan, where this is not at all racist, as
you are assuring us.)

>>No place I know of requires a language test to be a customer. It is illegal.
>
>   Japan does not require a foreign language test to be a shopowner, either.

Non sequitor. You are claiming that it is OK to require a language test of
a customer (and BTW, the US does not require language tests of shop owners,
either).

>>> 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.
>
>   If only you could have proved it.....

If only you could prove any racism...

>>None of which changes the fact that what s/he was doing was racist.
>
>  I don't have any problem with your calling it "racism" in the same sense
>with which you might call Arartheid and KKK. If you want to try to correct the
>Japanese situation by the same strategy that you would use for ther other
>two, that's your choice.

???

>  BTW, what would you think about the "irezumi okotowari" (No tattooed person
>allowed) policy that you might have seen just below "gaijin okotowari"?

Never saw those signs; I'm told they are more common in Kansai.

>> Again,
>>the only difference is that for some reason, you seem to think the Japanese
>>case is somehow more reasonable. 
>
>  Then, you are still taking me wrong. I am not saying that one is more
>reasonable than the other. What I'm trying to say is that it is possible
>that the Japanese "racism" has different reasons compared with the American
>or South African racism.

Sure you are. You're going to great lengths to show how it is not really racism,
but nationalism, the natural reaction to being conquored, or almost anything 
else BUT racism. You then go on to try to claim that any such discrimination 
is cannot be proven to be racist.

>>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.
>
>Or c)

Nope. It's a binary system.

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.