Meet the man who gets frisked by the Tokyo police five times a year

Meet the man who gets frisked by the Tokyo police five times a year
By Baye McNeil, Special to the Japan Times
“Am I the only one who gets frisked five times a year?” was a question posed on Facebook by a black man living in Tokyo late last year, as he related the systematic and apparently racially motivated harassment he’s received at the hands of Tokyo’s finest over the course of his 10 years here.
The post distressed me. Though I haven’t found myself on the business end of undue police attention anywhere near the frequency he has, I felt his humiliation vicariously. I also happen to know the gentleman personally, and if his isn’t the name on top of the Metropolitan Police Department’s list of Foreign Citizens Beyond Reproach, it ought to be.
By any profile aside from a racialized one, it would be unlikely that Jesse Freeman would ever find himself in the cross-hairs of law enforcement. He’s a 32-year-old native of Baltimore who has spent his time here tirelessly putting his mind and talents to creative use. In addition to being a filmmaker who has held numerous standing-room-only screenings of short films he’s directed and produced, he’s an extortionate fee away from becoming an ikebana shihan (Japanese artistic flower-arranging instructor). He has even fashioned his own style of minimalistic ikebana, which he has displayed in exhibits in Tokyo.
Freeman’s an upstanding citizen: smart, funny, easygoing, more apt to comply than complain — basically a role model for foreigners of any color living here is what I’m saying. So when he shared his account of what took place that day, and takes place regularly, it was difficult to retain impartiality.
“My first incident with the police here was back in 2008,” he recalled. “Back in my eikaiwa (English conversation school) days. I was working in Kameari, which is ironically home of that famous manga, ‘Kochira Katsushika-ku Kamearikoen-mae Hashutsujo’ (‘This is the Police Box in Front of Kameari Park, Katsushika Ward’), about a police officer. There’s even a statue of the character in the town.
“That day, I was coming out of Matsuya when two cops rolled up on me,” he continued, referring to a popular Japanese fast-food chain. “They asked could I speak Japanese. At the time my Japanese was piss poor, so I said no. Then they said they wanted to see my ID, and I asked why. They said they’d been having a problem with Africans and I said, ‘Well, I’m African-American.’ I gave them the ID and they asked could they search my briefcase for dangerous items. I told them I don’t get why. I let them do it so I could get on my way, cause I was in a hurry. Then when I tried to leave they started being all apologetic, saying stuff like they like the Yankees and whatnot. I told them that this is very embarrassing and I have to get to work!
“This first time wasn’t so bad,” Freeman said. “But it got to be annoying cause this wasn’t a onetime thing. They were doing some kind of crackdown at the time. They kept saying they were looking for Africans and for dangerous items, but they wouldn’t specify. It happened three or four times … and each time I was wearing a suit.”
I was curious why he thought his attire would be pertinent here.
“It’s a huge part of it back in the States,” Freeman explained. “So I tried not to wear hoodies or even wear black, cause I’m black and they might get scared. I tried to look less aggressive, you know? So coming here, and wearing suits every day, I wasn’t expecting to have this happen. But I don’t wear suits anymore ’cause I’m more of an artist these days. My fashion is more self-expressive.”
----
All told, since 2008, Freeman says he’s been stopped over 30 times by police in Tokyo.
The incident I read about on Facebook occurred on a Friday night, Sept. 27, 2016, in Shinsen, Tokyo. Freeman was walking home from work and stopped along the way to text a friend when he noticed a patrol car drive by, occupied by four police officers.
“They were eyeing me and I just knew they were gonna stop. And sure enough, they did.”
The four officers approached him politely with greetings and such, but their intent was clear, Freeman says, from the way they fanned out to encircle him: They weren’t going to allow him to go about his business.
“Right off the bat, they hit me with, ‘We wanna check your bag because we believe you might have something dangerous in it.’ I asked why. I was trying not to speak Japanese but I couldn’t hold back and wound up speaking it. ‘I’m just standing here. I don’t get it. There are a lot of people standing around here. Why me?’ I looked around and I was the only black person in the vicinity.”
Many Japanese-speaking foreigners I’ve spoken to over the years have told me they’d sooner not speak Japanese, or speak it poorly on purpose, than divulge their capacity in such situations, usually as a ploy to get out of the predicament. Freeman’s reasoning was a little different, though.
“Because I’m not confident in my ability,” he said. “I can catch some of the things they say, but if at a certain point I don’t understand, and I’m like ‘Hai, hai, wakannai, hai,’ it seems they just run with it like they know I understand. It’s easier to just speak English, smile and nonaggressively inch away.”
Having repeatedly found himself the target of police harassment, I figured Freeman must have done a little research into his rights in these circumstances, what police can and cannot do and so forth. And following a particularly upsetting incident in Takao, Tokyo, when the police were rude and aggressive, he had indeed done a little investigating of his own.
“The police can’t detain you without evidence of a crime, and certainly can’t search you,” he said. “So, I was really staunch about not being searched during the incident in September. I told them, ‘Nah, I’m not gonna consent to that because this is really embarrassing. Enough is enough!’ ”
For the sake of expedience though, Freeman relented and handed them his residence card, but when he requested it back they tightened the circle around him and refused to return it. Two of the officers were very shaky and jittery and the other was condescending, he recalled.
“So then I reached out to retrieve my card.”
When he said this, I cringed. A residual survival instinct embedded in me from growing up in a community where any movement that even approached anything resembling an aggressive action might have you slurping your meals through a straw till your dentures were ready, your last meal with your natural teeth being a cop’s blackjack. Or worse, leave you pushing up daisies.
“Damn,” I said, knowing personally the kind of righteous frustration that could lead an upstanding law-abiding citizen to fall into a culpability trap in a deliberately escalated situation.
“Immediately, one of the cops started frisking me roughly and another grabbed my bag and started searching it. They claimed to be looking for something dangerous but they were obviously not looking for weapons or bombs or anything. The way they looked in every nook and cranny of the bag it was clear they were looking for drugs. Naturally, they didn’t find what they were looking for.
“Anyway, it turns out that I hadn’t registered my new apartment’s address, even though I had a month to comply and it had only been three weeks. And I’d told them I’d just moved. They gave me my stuff and let me go finally but threatened me as I was walking away, telling me that I need to register it or else, ’cause these are the rules here and I better be careful or else — stuff like that. In a Japanese way, though, not with malice like in America, but authoritative, you know?
“I was humiliated. There were lots of Japanese people around, club kids and couples walking by. Why me out of all these people? With the frequency of these incidents, it was pretty obvious to me that it was racial profiling. That was the last straw for me.”
----
I was surprised to learn that being targeted so often hadn’t had a detrimental effect on his perception of Japan as a whole, being that law enforcement is a community-oriented service and often a reflection of that community’s values and ideals to an extent. But Freeman hasn’t let these incidents sour him on Japan. He doesn’t hold Japanese people responsible. Only the police.
“I’ve gone back to that American mentality where I feel guilty, or rather I feel more aware that they may be perceiving me as guilty, and I have to take extra precautions,” Freeman said. “Like if a cop car goes by, I take off my hood, even if it’s cold. And I won’t engage with them at all! Before I used to speak Japanese to them. Now I won’t.
“And certain areas I just won’t go to now. And if I have a beer, I won’t drink it in public. Anything that would make me look sketchy or stand out any more than I already do, I won’t do. I feel like really little stuff like that can make a big difference. I never thought I’d have to do that kinda stuff here, though.”
“Why did you think that?” I asked.
“Just because, you know, I don’t know … I really don’t,” he said, and laughed.
“Seriously, though …”
“I mean, here it’s like, you’re Japanese or you’re not,” he said. “And that’s kind of the end of it. But, after I gave them my ID card, which says that I’m not a dangerous person, that I’m legit, I’m employed, I’m a taxpayer, and they saw everything was in order, I thought that would be enough. But it wasn’t.
“The worst thing for me, though, is the humiliation,” Freeman adds. “I’m here trying to break whatever preconception America has given them of us, trying hard to do some good here, and these random stupid little incidents undermine that. They always seem to happen close to my job, or close to my home, where people know my face. And when Japanese people see a black person with a cop, I know they’re thinking ‘Yappari!’ (‘Just as I thought!’), because a stereotype is being reinforced.
“Then when they see me with my ikebana, I get asked am I lost or something. And I have to explain that this is my art. And you can see their eyes opening. But every time they see me get stopped by a cop, their eyes close.”
Black Eye appears in print on the third Monday Community Page of every month. Baye McNeil is the author of two books on life in Japan. See www.bayemcneil.com. Comments: community@japantimes.co.jp.
== Comments ==
* J.F: Every foreigner has a story like this, but damn... 30 times? For some reason I thought Tokyo was better than Osaka about this kind of thing.
** T.S. (at J.F.): No, not "every foreigner has a story like this." Over nearly two decades I have been teaching courses to both visible and invisible foreign students in Japan. In a lecture about the foreign population in Japan, I specifically ask students if they have ever been questioned by police. Out of hundreds of students in my classes over the years, only a couple have reported being questioned.(Invisible here means primarily Koreans and Chinese.)
*** B.I.T. (at T.S.): Not every foreigner, but too many for it to be dismissed. And it's far more likely you'll be stopped if you fit their profile, students generally don't, being young and what, 50% female? Just a guess. But young, female, and white means you won't get profiled in the same way as older, black, male.In 25 years,I've been stopped three times.
*** C. (at B.I.T.): "Not every foreigner, but too many for it to be dismissed."Exactly.Random police ID checks, like cancer, can strike anyone.However, just as cancer is more likely to strike people who smoke or live in a polluted city or don't exercise, random police ID checks tend to strike people with certain risk factors:- Visibly foreign (black, brown, or Caucasian/Caucasoid, not light-skinned Northeast Asian)--hair color matters, too. Even if you're white, if you have black/dark brown hair, they will think maybe you're a haafu and leave you alone.- Gender (I'm going to guess based on anecdotes only that men get IDed more than women)- Casually-dressed (J-cops rarely stop a gaijin in a suit)- Walking or biking instead of driving (much harder to pull someone over than it is to stop a pedestrian)- Spending lots of time outside (some anime/video game nerd holed up in his apartment 23 hours a day is only 1/12 as likely to get IDed as someone who spends half the day outside)- Being in certain areas of the country (I think they check IDs more in Northern/Eastern Japan than they do in the Nagoya area, for example)People without any of the above risk factors are likely to skate by for several years with no gaijin card checks.If you're a casually-dressed black man who has a hobby of walking and biking all around suburban Northeastern Japan, you're probably going to get stopped multiple times per year.If you're a formally-dressed Korean woman who spends most of her time at home and drives everywhere else, and lives in Nagoya, then your chances of getting IDed in any given year are near-zero.People need to understand that just because they haven't been IDed doesn't mean others don't get IDed for no reason. This whole "it hasn't happened to me so everyone else who says it happened to them is a liar" thing should be left behind in kindergarten. SHOULD be.Imagine if the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, who eats an organic vegan diet and exercises twice a day, said "I've never had cancer, so all people who have cancer are liars or caused their own cancer, so our company will not manufacture any chemotherapy or other cancer-fighting drugs."That would be absurd.Yet a very similar thing happens in gaijin circles all the time.
*** S.T. (at C.): What was that? Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force's step-by-step guide? No need to offer it - they've already got the damned thing and are applying it with typical superb Japanese critical thinking skills.
*** S.T. (at B.I.T.): Three times. Do you mean, as I hope you do mean, that that is an outrageous number? Or are you falling into the pathetic subservient notion that it's ok to be checked out even once?
*** S.J. (at T.S.): T.S., according to your prior posts, you are Japanese yourself (and quite a nationalist one at that, if I may say so). This and the fact that almost 100 percent of your other posts here always defend Japan, regardless of the topic being discussed, makes me doubt the accuracy of your comment.
*** S.T. (at T.S.): How do the invisible students make contact with you? A nudge here and there. Must be occasionally disconcerting.
*** S.T. (at T.S.): Poor show. Take a look at the excellent S____'s words below. And try cutting the crap.
*** S.J. (at T.S.): T.S., did it ever occur to you that your survey is deeply flawed and meaningless? I'm sure being stopped by the police for no reason is a very humiliating and dehumanizing experience for most people. There can be also feelings of guilt associated with an experience like this.As such, most students would feel too embarrassed and are not likely to admit in front of their professor or a group of their peers that they've been stopped for ID checks and have being frisked by the police. On top of this, I'm sure they're well aware of your nationalist leanings, so I can understand why they would feel uncomfortable discussing such personal experiences with you.
*** J.F. (at T.S.): Mhmm. Sure, sure. If that's true, which I doubt, maybe they just don't want to tell you.
*** C. (at J.F.): Agreed. Most extreme apologists are impossible to reason with, so it's easier to say "I've never been stopped" than it is to explain "I've been stopped, yes" and proceed to have to argue with someone who doesn't understand basic logic.There are two types of apologists: naive apologists and extreme apologists. Naive apologists are still in their "honeymoon phase" and will eventually see reality if they continue to live in Japan. Most of us start out as naive apologists, but we grow out of it the same way children eventually stop believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.Extreme apologists, however, will probably not see reason no matter how long they live here. It's difficult for me to understand how someone can deny basic logic and observations for two or three decades, but I guess it's psychologically possible if you're not a deep thinker/if you have many vested interests in Japan. Most extreme apologists are also married to a Japanese/have a spousal visa/permanent residence, too, which helps cushion them from the harsh realities that single gaijin in Japan have to deal with everyday.A typical conversation with an extreme apologist goes like this:Me: "I got stopped by the police."Apologist: "Okay, what were you doing wrong?"Me: "Nothing. I was literally just biking to the gym."Apologist: "Riiight. Well, maybe you were dressed in a suspicious manner. Your bicycle helmet looks like something a gangster would wear."Me: "No, I have an ordinary helmet I bought at some store in Utsunomiya."Apologist: "Well, the police have to protect Japanese from dangerous gaijin. Just last year, a gaijin in this city was busted for growing marijuana."Me: "Okay, but Japanese people commit crimes, too, and some of those crimes are much more serious than growing marijuana. Why not ID Japanese people?"Apologist: "Well, I think it was good that you got IDed. Now you can understand what happens to black people in your own country. In America, cops don't ID black people, they just shoot them!"Me: "I don't think that's usually what happens in most cases. And besides, if cops are IDing black people in America for no reason (or shooting them), that is _also_ a problem and that is something that should _also_ be fought. The existence of an injustice in America doesn't excuse the injustice when it happens in Japan (Why are we talking about America, again? Aren't we in Japan?)."Apologist: "Well, anyway, it was your choice to come to Japan. So you can't complain."Me: "Actually, I can. Almost everything we experience in life is a result of the choices we made at one point or another, so to say something like that is basically to say 'You can't complain about anything, ever.' Besides, free speech (of which complaining is one type) is guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution, Article 21."Apologist: "But you don't have any rights. You're a guest here."Me: "The Japanese Constitution disagrees with you. So does the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination."Apologist: "Well, countries sign treaties all the time. It doesn't mean they always adhere to them."Me: "Well, they should."Apologist: "Well, life isn't fair."Me: "That's a cop-out. Part of what makes us human beings and not animals is that we don't always have to use 'law of the jungle'--we can make things fairer. Maybe not 100% of the time, but many times, yes, we can correct unfair things or injustices. That's what differentiates humans from other animals."(and it goes on and on and on)Obviously, rather than going through an asinine exchange like that, it's easier to simply say "No, I haven't been IDed randomly by Japanese cops."
*** J.F. (at C.): That's exactly like every coversation I've ever had with a big Japanophile about issues in Japan. Pretty funny.If the individual in question is even half as ridiculous in his classes as he is on this forum, I guarantee you his students don't bother to argue. I do it all the time with older Japanese people. "You know Japanese people never used to be late for anything. But now with America's influence Kintetsu is running late all the time. And our products used to be better too." "Hm. I see." It's just not worth the brain damage.
** T.L.G. (at J.F.): One of my American friends(white) live in Japan for over 15 years. One day, he was stopped by the same cops-- 4 times(!)--at Tokyo Station for an ID. Police are selective in catching anyone who looks fishy--and thus, needs to stop and frisk--based on their prejudice toward physical appearances.
*** Guest: This comment was deleted.
*** T.L.G. (at Guest): That's the problem with those who push contrarianism over empathy. You're a classic example of them.
*** J.F. (at Guest): Maybe he misremembered and it was actually worse. That's the problem with anecdotal stories.
*** Guest: This comment was deleted.
*** T.L.G. (at Guest): That's the problem with those who cannot tell the difference between journalistic new reports and opinion columns. Newspapers contain both.
** T. (at J.F.): I've never been stopped by police once in the over 5 years I've lived in Japan.
*** C. (at T.): If your avatar picture is a real photo of you, then I can see why.Japanese police don't bother with anyone who looks 1) Japanese or 2) half Japanese. With your black/dark brown hair, you look at least half Japanese, meaning you look like there's a chance you're a Japanese citizen. Japanese police can't randomly ID Japanese citizens without cause. Unlike most foreigners, Japanese citizens also have much more power to fight back.If I dyed my hair dark brown or black, I'm pretty sure I could greatly reduce the number of gaijin card checks I go through every so often. I wouldn't do that, though, because that would be an insult to my genes and my ancestors, to hide my race like that. I'm proud of what I am and I'm not going to change my appearance just to appease some racist cops who have a problem with my appearance.
*** T. (at C.): It's not my picture. I'm a 6 ft 100 kg white American man with brown hair. There's no way in hell I would ever be mistaken for a Japanese. My profile picture comes from the box art of a board game (Google "Slime Monster Game"--they won't let me post a link).
*** S.J. (at T.): "I'm a 6 ft 100 kg". T____, this right here may explain why you've never been stopped. In my experience, 100 percent of the Japanese police are much much smaller than you, so they'd be pretty intimidated by your size.For obvious reasons, other exceptions include if you're Rupert Wingfield Hayes (the BBC correspondent based in Tokyo), Will Ripley (the CNN correspondent based in Tokyo), or a seventy year old college professor who is so obsessed with Japan that he gave up his native citizenship to become a naturalized Japanese citizen and now spends his time defending all things Japanese and acting as a PR ambassador for Japan. But, of course the majority of foreigners in Japan do not fit these profiles, so they are more likely to be stopped by Japanese cops.
*** C. (at T.): Okay, I see, that picture is not you. However, I think even having brown hair might be helping you.I believe you when you say you don't look full-blood Japanese, but you don't have to be full-blood Japanese to avoid an ID check--being half is enough. Even if you look otherwise Caucasian, having brown hair is enough for people to wonder if you're a haafu.Personally, I have red hair. Police know, when they look at me, that there is absolutely no way that one of my parents is Yamato Japanese. The same thing goes for someone with blond hair.If you have brown hair, then the cops think "Maybe one of his parents was Japanese--he might be a haafu with Japanese citizenship, in which case I could get in trouble for IDing him." Then they skip IDing you, and go ID someone blond/red-haired or a black guy, instead.
*** T. (at C.): "I believe you when you say you don't look full-blood Japanese, but you don't have to be full-blood Japanese to avoid an ID check--being half is enough. Even if you look otherwise Caucasian, having brown hair is enough for people to wonder if you're a haafu."No, you really don't understand. Nobody would EVER think that. My appearance has been compared to that of Jack Black and Silent Bob. I'm not suggesting that other foreigners don't get stopped, but the reason I don't is 100% not because I look Japanese in any way shape or form.
*** S.J. (at T.): T____, there is no denying that racism, xenophobia, discrimination and harassment of foreigners is a huge problem in Japan.The Japanese government's own survey published in the Asahi Shimbun shows that foreign residents of Tokyo routinely face racial discrimination. This was reported under the heading, "Discrimination encountered by 42% of foreign residents in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward", Asahi Shinbun, January 25, 2016, by Yuri Imamurs. It states, "Around 42.3 percent of foreign residents in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward “often” or “sometimes” feel discriminated against by Japanese people". Mind you, the real number is surely much higher, since this was a Japanese government survey and many foreigners would be afraid to speak up about a sensitive subject like discrimination. Yet, Japan is the only developed country in the world which still has no laws against racial discrimination, essentially making it legal and state sanctioned (both the U.S. and U.N have criticised Japan for this).In Japan, ninety percent of real estate listings openly state that they are not available to foreigners ("Student seeking Kyoto flat told: No foreigners allowed", The Japan Times, April 23, 2013).The excellent American blogger about all things Japan, K.S. also recently wrote in his blog "Japaneseruleof7" about racial discrimination he faced when looking for an apartment in his post, "Renting an Apartment in Japan". It resulted in many foreigners posting their own accounts of encountering racial discrimination when looking for a place to rent in Japan. Typical is a comment by poster B____, who wrote the following:"I’ve had terrible problems renting in Kanto. Walking around the realtors in the area I wanted to live in, I was refused service, often with the batsu gesture – they wouldn’t even talk to me. Other places would search through their list for gaijin OK places but the pickings were slim. I am a Japanese literate university educated white guy and a permanent employee at an international known large Japanese company and dressed in a suit, it would be worse for others."One can still find restaurants and businesses in Japan displaying "Japanese Only" or "No Foreigners Allowed" signs. Anyone interested in finding out more can look at evidence and pictures of these on D.A's blog (under the rogues' gallery section in the "Japanese Only Places" tab on the top of his homepage). For those who don't know, D_____ is a columnist for The Japan Times and also writes about Japan on his personal blog (just do a Google search to see his excellent blog).Such obvious signs are not as common in Japan anymore after these received a lot of negative coverage in global media. However, many establishments in Japan now use more subtle and indirect tactics to tell foreigners that they are not welcome. This was recently covered in an article here in The Japan Times, under the heading, "Osaka sushi chain sorry for spiking foreigners’ orders with excess wasabi, denies ill intent", dated October 3, 2016. Readers have also added their own experiences in Japan with such businesses in the comments section which are worth reading.
*** T. (at S.J.): You completely misunderstood my point. J___ originally said that "every foreigner has a story like this." My point was that not every foreigner experiences the same level of discrimination. As a white person I have never been stopped, but I have several black friends who have been on numerous occasions. You spent a lot of time and effort typing a lot of information that I already fully understand and agree with, but thanks.
*** A.S. (at S.J.): I understand the hard time you've had, and I feel very sorry these cases you mentioned. But not all cases you perceived as discriminatory are true.1.About Japanese only signsI used to work at a Japanese udon restaurant, one day my coworkers who doesn't speak English at all decided to put up the sign intended to show "we don't speak foreign languages", and he tried to pick up the phrase on google translate and before I knew it he put up the "Japanese only" signs on the following day on the front of the restaurant. Most Japanese don't even realize it might offend others, and that's not because the Japanese are racists but are simply ignorant of how they would be perceived by foreigners.2. Osaka sushi chainsThe itamaes( sushi chains staff ) often received the order to put more wasabi than Japanese customers at the restaurant, and so they oftentimes do the same and apply to all the "gaijin" as one of their "hospitality(not sure of it)", the bottom line of this story is not about the discriminatory attitude of sushi restaurant's staff but their unfamiliarity with the interactions with foreigners and their inability to speak foreign languages. As you know Japan is homogenous society and most Japanese cannot tell who came from where and thus the word "gaijin(foreigners)" still exists.
*** S.J. (at A.S.): A.S., I've heard such excuses from the Japanese a million times living here in Japan, but I'm sorry, I just don't believe them. For example, in the case of the sushi restaurant, Japanese chefs there were hiding huge mounds of wasabi between the fish and rice they served foreign customers (pictures posted on social media confirm this). It was clearly intended to harass foreign customers and let them know that they are not welcome there.Anyone who has lived in Japan knows how extremely racist and xenophobic Japan can be. Just last year, there was news of a Nankai Railways train conductor in Osaka making racist and xenophobic announcements on a train, when he apologized to Japanese passengers for the presence of foreigners who were supposedly causing overcrowding and inconveniencing Japanese passengers on the train.The Guardian newspaper reported this incident in an article, "Japanese train conductor blames foreign tourists for overcrowding", dated, October 11, 2016. Here's an excerpt:"A railway company in Japan has reprimanded a conductor who blamed the large number of foreign tourists on a crowded train for inconveniencing Japanese passengers.The outburst will have done little to help Japan’s attempts to become a more welcoming destination for foreign visitors as it prepares to host the 2019 rugby World Cup and the Tokyo Olympics a year later. Japan’s successful pitch for the 2020 Games made much of the country’s reputation for omotenashi– traditional hospitality and service.But there was precious little omotenashi on display when the conductor addressed passengers on a Nankai Electric Railway express train bound for Kansai international airport near Osaka on Monday morning.“There are many foreign passengers on board today … this has caused serious congestion and is causing inconvenience to Japanese passengers,” said the conductor, a man in his 40s.The incident follows an accusation by South Korean tourists that a sushi restaurant in Osaka deliberately smeared their orders with eye-watering quantities of wasabi, a pungent condiment that should be used sparingly.""So, there are far too many such incidents of racism and discrimination against foreigners in Japan for me to believe your excuses.
*** J.F. (at A.S.): I would agree with you except that the amount they put on the sushi was ridiculous. Like a teaspoon to a tablespoon from the various pictures I saw. It was squirting out from under the fish on both sides. Even if they had a lot of foreigners requesting extra wasabi, that's way too much. Example number two was clearly bullying.
*** DIJ (at A.S.): It's funny that you mention the "Japanese Only" signs. I have to brief new comers to Japan where I work and one of the things that comes up in conversation is signs like that. I tell them exactly what you said, that it usually means they speak "Japanese only" and not that they don't want foreigners in their establishment.
*** S.J. (at DIJ): DIJ, I'm afraid you're absolutely wrong about the "Japanese Only" signs, since these are not about langauge, but rather about excluding foreigners (even those who can speak Japanese). Other countries have tourists and foreigners living there too who are not fluent in the native language, but you don't see such "No Foreigners" signs in any other country outside of Japan. Why is that? There are way too many instances of this happening in Japan, but I'll give you just three examples to prove my point.1) The 2014 report on Japan by The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) criticized Japan as follows:"Access by non-citizens to public places and facilitiesThe Committee is concerned about the continued exclusion of non-citizens on the basis of race or nationality from accessing some public places and facilities of general use, such as restaurants, hotels, family public bathhouses and stores, in violation of articles 2 and 5 of the Convention (art. 2, 5).The Committee recommends that the State party take appropriate measures to protect non-citizens from discrimination in access to public places, in particular by ensuring effective application of its legislation. The Committee also recommends that the State party investigate and sanction such acts of discrimination and enhance public awareness-raising campaigns on the requirements of the relevant legislation."2) The following was reported in several place about Ten-take tempura restaurant in Asakusa, including in Dr. D.A.'s blog (“Japanese Only” exclusionary Tentake tempura restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, allegedly due to non-Japanese “hygiene” issues, dated April 5, 2014):"Today I went to a restaurant in Asakusa with my wife and some Japanese friends. They didn’t allow us to enter, because me and my wife are not Japanese. In the entrance there is a paper that says “Japanese only” in English, and other advertisement in Japanese. My Japanese friend, entered to the restaurant and kindly asked the manager if me and my wife could enter, too. The manager said they doesn’t allow foreigners, no matter if they speak Japanese nor have been living in Japan for long."3) Anyone can do a Google search for the term "Japanese People Only Sign" and see images of such signs. They can see for themselves that these signs are referring to the fact that these business allow only Japanese customers and are not about Japanese language ability.
*** DIJ (at S.J.): So you are basically calling A.S. a liar since she specifically pointed out a case where an employee in the udon shop where she worked put up a sign that was intended to reflect that they spoke "Japanese only". Just because you site an example or two about it meaning "Japanese People Only" doesn't necessarily mean that all throughout Japan that that's what it means. I myself have also seen those signs in the area where I live and they were used to signify that they only spoke Japanese. Unless you yourself have personally attempted to enter each and every establishment in Japan with a sign out front that says "Japanese Only" then you really have no way of knowing what the intended meaning is for each one.
*** S.J. (at DIJ): DIJ, your comment is completely baseless and is a ridiculous attempt to put a positive spin on the "Japanese Only" signs. The fact is that in addition to saying "Japanese Only" or "No Foreigners" in English, these signs often also specify in Japanese that "Gaikokujin" are not allowed. They use the kanji 外国人 for Gaikokujin, which means "foreign person", when specifying that foreigners are not allowed. They also often state in Japanese that only 日本人 (using kanji for Nihonjin, which means "Japanese person") are allowed. So, clearly these signs are not about Japanese language ability of the staff or the customers.Furthermore, there are many variations of "Japanese Only" signs, which make it very clear that foreigners are not allowed, regardless of their Japanese language ability. These signs include, "Foreigners are not allowed", "No foreign guests", "Japanese customers only", and "Japanese people only". A quick Google search or looking at the section in D.'s blog which I mentioned in my earlier post will show you plenty of examples of such signs in Japan.Lastly, as I said, these signs are often written in Japanese, in addition to English. It makes no sense to post "Japanese Only" and "No foreigners allowed" signs in the Japanese language, unless these are intended for foreigners who can read Japanese.
*** T.L.G. (at A.S.): I don't disagree with your illustrations on both cases, but you miss the most crucial point on the issue. Both cases you mention are essentially different from the article in terms of context. Store owners who unknowingly put up a problematic sign or making horrible a mistake to upset foreign customers can learn a lesson without strict punishments. Simple reprimand such as filing complaint to the ward office or talking to the owner in a polite/appropriate manner will do. On the contrary, racial profiling tacitly conducted by immigration authority or police officers cannot be fixed easy, because 1) it is granted as their collective rights(the Supreme Court even affirmed it in recent Muslim profiling case), and 2) they have more power than shop owners to exercise such rights that will physically/psychologically intimidate foreigners with social order.
*** J.L. (at T.): Are you therefore insinuating the article is wrong? It hasn't happened to ME so it doesn't happen?
*** T. (at J.L.): Not at all. My point was that every foreigner does not necessarily have a story like this and that it does not happen to all foreigners equally.
*** T.L.G. (at T.): Exactly the point of the problem. Police and legal authorities have the privilege in selectively targeting and interrogating foreigners who look suspicious based on their prejudice, and let go of those who pass their test Scott-free. That's how they divide foreign community by instigating anger, frustration, and cynicism.
*** Guest: This comment was deleted.
*** T.L.G. (at Guest): Your statement makes no sense. Bye.
*** Guest: This comment was deleted.
*** T.L.G.: A-ha. So, you basically agree there's problem with society.
*** J.L. (at T.): Then perhaps you should word it better.
*** T. (at J.L.): Perhaps you shouldn't jump to conclusions for no reason. My response was clearly to J.F.'s comment, not the article itself. At no point did insinuate that the article was false or that the author was being dishonest.
** DIJ (at J.F.): Not everyone, I've been in and out of Japan since 1994, 10 years on the ground here and have never been "stopped and frisked". My only dealings with the Police have been for minor traffic accidents. I think in the case of this story the Police are profiling, I wouldn't necessarily call it being racist though. There are a lot of Nigerians in Japan operating illegal businesses and he fits a profile. the Japanese police don't know the difference between an African-American, Nigerian, African, etc., just like most people can't tell the difference between Japanese, Korean, or Chinese.
** R. (at J.F.): I've never been stopped in the street by the police for an ID check ever in Japan, in close to 20 years here.
*** B.I.T. (at R.): 25 years; stopped 3 or 4 times. So...yeah. It varies.
*** T.D. (at R.): 45 years for me.
* C.: As a visibly non-Japanese person who has been living in Japan for five and a half years, I've been stopped outside and IDed on the spot five times:1. Tsushima Island2. Tsushima Island, again3. Yokkaichi4. Utsunomiya5. Aizu-Wakamatsu1 & 2. Both times were near the ferry terminal between Tsushima and Busan, South Korea. I sucked it up and showed them my passport without giving them any resistance. I was young (20 or 21, probably) and naive and didn't know much about Japanese police yet. I just figured "They're just doing their job to keep Japan safe and Tsushima is a known Russian mafia drug transshipment point."3. It was late at night, and I stepped over a chain to take a shortcut through a parking lot. Turns out it was a private parking lot, and an alarm was tripped. A security guard asked me for my ID--I refused, because he was a security guard, with no legal authority to ID me. However, he then pulled out his JSDF card, and then I thought "Better be careful and just show him my ID."4. I was hauling groceries home from the supermarket. A cop came up on a motorcycle and asked me for ID. I was indignant, because unlike in #1, #2, and #3, there was no understandable reason why she would ask for my ID--is transporting groceries home while foreign a crime? I said I knew my rights, that she needed to show me her 警察手帳 (police badge with number) before I showed my ID. She showed it to me, but only for one or two seconds, not long enough for me to note down the information. I quite vocally stated that she had to show it to me for long enough for me to take down the information, and if she didn't, that that was the law, and if she didn't observe the law, then I wouldn't show her my ID. She refused this request, let it go, and I left the scene without having to show my ID.5. I was riding my bike to the gym. Two police officers yelled through a loudspeaker for me to stop my bicycle. I asked them why they had stopped me: "You looked lost." This time, it got really, really ugly. I was very firm about my right to withhold my ID until I had seen a police badge long enough to copy down the number. Instead of complying with this simple request (which is required by law) they called in a total of seven police officers over the course of an hour, to try to pressure me into showing my ID without them having to show theirs (I had moved to a 7-Eleven at this point because I wanted everything to be on camera--I was worried for my safety at this point). Finally, after a standoff lasting over an hour, one of them finally produced his ID, and then I showed my ID. Don't police realize that the law applies to them, too? This is called "rule of law," a concept that I have realized that Japanese police generally don't understand.In other words, #1, #2, and #3 had some understandable reasons for stopping me (at least in someone's opinion), but #4 and #5 were totally random and clearly racially motivated, because they did not specify any reason for stopping me besides a flimsy "You looked lost."I've discussed this with my foreign friends many times. Some people get stopped very frequently (more frequently than I do), and others never get stopped. Here are the factors I've tended to notice:- All five times I was stopped, I was in a T-shirt. They've never stopped me in a suit. My guess is that Japanese police focus their harassment on people they know aren't rich or important, to avoid entangling foreign governments, for example.- They are much more likely to stop someone who is walking or biking. They seldom stop people in cars.- They are much more likely to stop people in certain parts of the country than others.- The longer you spend outside each day, the more likely you are to get IDed.- When they stop and ID you, this is heavily motivated by race and gender. My Korean friends rarely had to deal with this, because they are racially East Asian. The only Korean friend I knew who has been stopped and IDed was actually speaking in Korean to her friend as she passed a cop. Cops will still ID Asians, but not based on appearance alone. Additionally, they almost always stop men and rarely women. I'm not sure whether they stop black people more than white people--I don't have enough data to draw a conclusion.For example, I knew a New Zealander who had been in Japan for seven years and never been IDed. Why? Well, he had a car, so he drove everywhere. He always dressed nicely. He usually stayed home and played computer games instead of going out.Me on the other hand, I often walk or bike (no car), I often wear a T-shirt, I go out a lot (long walks around the neighborhood, mostly), and I've spent time in some fairly remote parts of Japan (where IDing is more common).So could I avoid ID checks? Probably, yes--wear a suit everywhere, drive everywhere, seldom go out, and stay near Yokota Air Base. If I did that, I'm confident I could go an average of several years between ID checks.However, that's not the issue here. The issue here is that police consider foreigners criminals, and Japanese to be pure.I've reported a crime to the Japanese police before (this was BEFORE I started getting sassy during ID checks). They were extremely rude--they interrupted me, cut me off when I was talking, didn't let me write my own version of the story (even though my Japanese is more than good enough to do this), and wouldn't let me see the report they'd written. They didn't listen to what I said, and when they recapped their report back to me, it was full of inaccuracies, which they refused to change.My conclusion: You might be able to avoid getting IDed by "lying low," but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The Japanese police are literally the most racist police I've ever met in my life (which is saying a lot--I've lived in America for 14 years, Korea for five, Hong Kong for three, Taiwan for a year and a half, and the Netherlands for ten months). They automatically consider you a criminal. They will automatically blow you off when you try to file a report of a serious crime. If you ever come into conflict with a Japanese person, they will almost always agree with the Japanese person.This is a profound human rights problem which is supposed to be prevented by the UN ICERD (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination), which Japan signed. Unfortunately, the UN has little power to enforce its ICERD, and the international community mostly just put their blinders on and pretend like there's no problem. Hell, they even gave Japan the Olympics.
** M. (at C.): "Don't police realize that the law applies to them, too?"You NAILED it C______. Police consider law is only for the purpose of policing civilians. Also shows in the nasty way they interrogate detained suspects (both Japanese and otherwise).It's sad but you subconsciously learn to keep a low profile. I avoid cops. When my bicycle got stolen I didn't buy a new one. Guess you get stopped *a lot* more on your bike for those "random" checks.Once, I forgot my foreigner ID at my office and I didn't dare just walking and taking the train as always. I took a taxi there just to avoid the risk of police stopping me and being unable to produce an ID.I haven't been stopped the last 4 years, but around that time I moved and now live 2 minutes away from a train station in the suburbs, just next to a supermarket and 10 minutes away from the nearest police box. I don't walk at night anymore.Coincidence?
*** C. (at M.): Thank you for your post, M____, especially the last paragraph where you went into how your place is near a police box and how that makes you feel intimidated and changes your lifestyle.Basically, I've been thinking of buying a small used condominium in Tokyo this spring, and until now, I'd mostly been considering the following factors:- Price- Age of building/how long the building will continue to be there (so that eventually my savings on rent will equal or exceed the purchase price and expenses)- Proximity to several important places in Tokyo and Kanagawa- Whether the things in the condominium (water, gas, and electricity) work well enough to live thereHowever, after your last paragraph, it occurred to me, I should add another one:- Proximity to the nearest police station or police boxNow, after thinking about it, I'd be willing to pay ¥100,000 extra, or perhaps more, for the same condominium that is farther away from a police station/box.I'd also consider it a deal-breaker if the condominium is unavoidably close to a police station/box (such as right across the street).The reason is simple--I can't guarantee that the next time a police officer IDs me, that I'll respond calmly and keep my anger in check. I can't guarantee that. I might just tell him or her off for the racist you-know-what that he or she is. And that could get me in trouble and deported from Japan.I'd like to think that I can keep my voice down, not wave my hands around, and simply show them the card. However, if I've had a really bad day at work or something, I can't guarantee that the rage I always feel towards the J-police won't boil up and get me in trouble.Thank you for your last paragraph, in particular, because I hadn't even considered that factor, but it's very important. I'd rather be far, far away from that particular gang of thugs.Let me put it this way--I'd rather be next door to a yakuza headquarters. I trust them more not to cause problems for me.
* e.f.: A black American immigrant in Japan, I too get racially profiled by the police. I recall a day in Narita Airport not long ago when a pair of cops asked to see my passport while I was simply walking from one place to another in a terminal, carrying my luggage. They didn't bother to tell me why they stopped me. After they finished taking down my details and moved on, and I ascended to another level of the terminal, literally only two minutes later, a trio of other cops stopped me and asked to see my passport too. Unable to hide my frustration, I told them I'd just been stopped by their comrades. Fortunately for me, they were abashed and dropped their request with a few "gomen nasai"s. I then spent some time scanning the terminal and watching cops make a bee line from one non-Japanese-looking person to another to ask to see their passports.Racial profiling also happens in the countryside where I live, in southern Izu. Cops sometimes stop me to ask to see my ID on the basis of one pretext or another. One day at 3pm they stopped me to tell me it was dangerous not to be using a headlight on my bike at that time of day, though it was still very light out and few of the passing cars' lights were on. Then they 20-questioned me about my personal and work life and weren't interested in seeing the light I told them I had in my backpack and intended to use if I was still riding at dusk.One message racial profiling sends is the police believe, or are told to operate on the assumption, that someone who looks like me is probably up to no good. This only adds to the considerable mental and practical challenges that come with being an immigrant.
** J.F. (at e.f.): You're talking about a country that had a telephone number for people to call if foreigners seemed suspicious or made them uncomfortable. I heard it had been abolished, but it definitely existed until very recently. I remember seeing signs for it in Mie prefecture.
*** S.J. (at J.F.): Actually, foreigners in Japan don't even have to act suspiciously in order to get reported, since just arousing feelings of "repugnance and anxiety" towards a Japanese person is enough cause (and we all know how easily many racist and xenophobic Japanese feel "repugnance and anxiety" by the mere presence of a non-Japanese in their midst).This was reported in the Just Be Cause column here in The Japan Times recently (Jan 8, 2017), "From Feb. 16, 2004, Japan’s Immigration Bureau had websites where anyone could anonymously rat on foreigners for any reason whatsoever — including (as a preset option) the xenophobic “repugnance and anxiety” (ken-o fuan)."
*** T.S. (at S.J.): Is this so different from the US where US Customs and Border Protection has a number that you can call to report suspected illegal aliens? (1-866-DHS-2ICE (347-2423) for the record.)Search on "how to report illegal immigrants" to verify this for yourself.Britain has something similar. Search on "immigration enforcement hotline" to get the number and the details.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at T.S.): It's different. Because certainly the people reporting "illegal immigrants" have checked up to make sure the people they're reporting are illegal (although how they would do that is beyond me).
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n): I checked the ICE website and it says you must have reasonable suspicion of some kind and then they'll investigate. It said not to consider race, but behavior. The examples included were: not being able to produce documents during a job interview, being paid 'under the table' by their boss, bragging or joking about their illegal status, or failing to appear at immigration hearings. Sounds very different to me.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): So all you need to do is say that someone bragged or joked about their illegal status. Sounds different to me.... or not. If people were held accountable for siccing the feds on people who weren't illegal, that's one thing. But that example makes it very unlikely they ever would. Horrible.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Nice try. If someone tells you they're in the country illegally and thinks it's funny, they should just be allowed to stay as long as they're never caught? How is that horrible exactly? It says that if the suspicion is reasonable, they'll investigate. That means due process.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): The example is "if someone tells a joke or brags about being an illegal immigrant". This leaves the door open for people to sic the Immigration department after people based on very little actual evidence. That is akin to what the "report gaijin" line is here. Nice try, yourself.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n): So someone saying they're illegal isn't evidence enough? America is a country with between 10M and 25M illegal immigrants (some right-wingers believe it could be as high as 40M). Japan doesn't even have a million true foreigners, and the vast majority of illegal immigrants are visa overstayers. This is a country with a big illegal immigrant population allowing citizens to report people for bragging about being there illegally versus a country with very few immigrants of any kind allowing citizens to report foreigners for passively making them uncomfortable or disgusted. There's a huge difference there.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): "This is a country with a big illegal immigrant population allowing citizens to report people for bragging about being there illegally" and thus leaving the door open for people to make up rubbish about people they don't like. As long as there is no potential for legal issues if someone abuses it (and since they're allowing "they joked about being illegal", which would be very hard to prove a person didn't do, you know there's no legal issues for abusing it - prove me wrong if you like), then it's just as bad.Good to know that you are okay with people having a system to phone in on foreigners if there's a lot, but not if there's only a few, though. Wait... what? No, both are equally ridiculous, unless you're cool with all things Trump, which would explain a lot.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): You do realize that they're not deported immediately when a report comes in, right? They evaluate the information and act accordingly. Just like calling the police for any other crime you believe took place. Should we eliminate 911 as well because anyone could just call and "make up rubbish about people they don't like"? No? OK. Then stop concern trolling.The website says they typically respond 400-something tips per year, so it sounds to me that they're taking the due process aspect pretty seriously given that there are tens of thousands of deportations every year.I'll put this in terms you can understand. One is like "if you're concerned someone might be breaking the law, give us a call." The other is like "if foreigners are making you uncomfortable, give us a call."
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): "Sounds to me like that they're taking due process".Ah, assumptions. When you have nothing factual. Our should we call them "alternative facts"?
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Interesting that you ignored the numbers and logic there and locked onto my opinion. Troll.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): Onto your assumption? Yeah, funny, that.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Because the assumption was perhaps the least important part of that post. You latched onto that because you know you're wrong and can't make an argument. You just cut out whatever you think you can respond to and ignore the rest. It's a bush league way of arguing. But thanks for playing.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): You made a dumb assumption about US immigration standards, and that is what your whole point is anchored on. And sinking. But... thanks for playing. Ta ta.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Your whole argument is based on the assumption that people can and will report people with no evidence and that the authorities can and will act on those tips. Cherry picking, goal post moving, holding your opponent to a higher standard of proof. Bush league.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): My whole point... is valid. See you.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Sure. Because you can just pull stuff out of your butt, but everyone else has to provide proof. Cool cool.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): I think today my point became a whole lot more valid. Thanks, Trump!
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): And what "point" was that, exactly? You moved the goal posts so many times that nobody knows but you.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): Huh? Do you have proof that American Immigration services will actually charge people IF they lie and say that others bragged about being illegal? If there's no negative repercussions (can't imagine there being any if you can report someone for bragging, something that no one could ever catch you on lying).But if you have something indicating that someone who reports someone else without them actually being illegal, then go ahead. Looking forward to the proof. Seems like the actual examples YOU provided run counter to it, though. Cool cool.
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Stop moving the goal posts. If your point is valid as you say you should stick to it. Why would they need to be charged with a crime? The original argument was whether that line was comparable to the Japanese one. You argued that because the ICE hotline could potentially be abused, without providing any support for the idea that authorities would actually move on unsubstantiated tips, it was comparable to the Japanese hotline which encouraged people to report foreigners for making them "uncomfortable" or for "being suspicious."Now, if you want to argue that illegal immigrants should not be forcibly removed or that the law is unfair, that's a totally different conversation.
*** J.F. (at T.S.): It's very different and if you don't understand why, then you can't be reasoned with.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at J.F.): "You're wrong, and if you don't know why you're wrong, you can't ever be not wrong."
*** J.F. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Yeah, pretty much. And even if I tell him why he's wrong, he'll move the goal posts.
*** S.J. (at J.F.): T.S. is himself Japanese according to his posts in the past, so take his comments about such topics with a grain of salt.
*** C.o.t.w.n. (at S.J.): Most anyone who doesn't agree with you gets slapped with the Japanese label. I remember, just last year, I was Japanese. Well, according to S.J., anyhow. Thusly, I was immediately racist and xenophobic.
*** T.L.G. (at T.S.): Yes, it is very different. They ask for any information but investigate it very carefully before they take action. They won't move unless they have substantial evidence or cause for suspicion of activity that is criminally chargeable. In Japan, there are some snitch sides for those to tip off to the immigration authority about foreign-looking persons who look suspicious--instead of what they are doing. Some of those were shut down due to the lack of integrity.
** N.C.L.I.: (at e.f.): White European here, and the very first time I went to Japan, I got stopped in Narita and asked for my passport too.I think black people are definitely stopped more often though; I've never been stopped since.
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*** M. (at Guest): "It's an universal problem! Why are you only accusing us!?"The "you hurt my feelings" non-argument argument.Just because it also happens everywhere else, it doesn't make it right in Japan
*** S.J. (at Guest): This is not just about African Americans in Japan, as many of the comments here from people of other races can attest to.What makes the problem in Japan worse is that most Japanese see other people as inherently bad, whereas in most other countries this is not the case. This was perhaps best described by long-term Japan resident Amy Chavez in her column here in The Japan Times ("If you don’t feel accepted in Japan, join the far-from-exclusive club", Sep 25, 2016). She writes:"Japan’s deep mistrust of strangers, or anyone not exactly like them, is what is behind the plethora of institutionalized rituals here......All these things that are often left up to the individual in other countries have a protocol that is painstakingly adhered to in Japan. It gets back to the age-old philosophical question: Are people inherently good? Or nefarious? While the West leans to the former, Japan suspects the latter."
*** J.F. (at Guest): So we shouldn't try to shine a light on the issue in Japan. That makes sense if you don't think about it.
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*** S.J. (at Guest): I don't think it's so much a universal issue, as it is a problem with Japan. There is a huge issue in Japan with the Japanese people not trusting each other, and the level of suspicion and distrust just gets much worse when the Japanese have to contend with foreigners. Such paranoia, anxiety, distrust, and fear are not healthy for the Japanese society. In the long-term, Japan's extreme insularity and xenophobia hurts only Japan.According to a global survey by Ernst & Young last year, Japan comes in dead last in all three categories out of eight countries surveyed about whether workers trust their company, their boses and their colleagues. This was reported here in The Japan Times under the heading, "Japanese workers distrust their employers, survey shows".The survey shows that in Japan, 4 out of 5 Japanese workers do not trust their own Japanese colleagues, bosses or the Japanese companies they work for. This is the highest level of distrust among all the countries surveyed by E&Y. Only 21 percent of employees trust their employer, only 22 percent of the employees trust their bosses and only 22 percent of employees trust their teams/colleagues in Japan. The numbers for the U.S. for these three categories were 38, 50 and 46 percent respectively. In China, the results were 40, 45 and 53 percent respectively.So, clearly, this is a problem which the Japanese have to deal with, as it reflects on Japan much more than it is a reflection on foreigners. If the Japanese don't even trust other Japanese, it is easy to see why they are so suspicious of foreigners. But, for the Japanese to project their fears and anxieties on foreigners is simply unhealthy.
*** J.F. (at Guest): OK... Now what?
** W.F. (at e.f.): Wish I lived in southern Izu. Check out South Cafe in Shimoda if you haven't yet, great food. :))
** TV.M. (at e.f.): e.f.Your only crime is born dark-skinned. you bet whites don't get frisked.
*** D.V. (at TV.M.): Actually we do. I was stopped on a regular basis in a town with tons of other white people who were also stopped. While it may be worse for others being non-japanese is a reason to stop people.
*** T.L.G. (at TV.M.): Not true in Japan.
* 2am: i've been stopped countless times, even two times in one day. they even followed me once and trapped me, two cars from different sides, and guys coming from all sides on foot, as if i was gonna run, i swear it was like a movie.
** L.G. (at 2am): Sorry to hear that 2am. I imagine that this foreigner shakedown scheme will get even worse as we get closer to the Tokyo Olympics. Take care.
* M.M.: If you see any cops--walking, on bikes, or in police cars, DO NOT look at them, turn away, pretend they don't exist.Freeman's biggest error: "They were eyeing me." You shouldn't be able to know if they were looking at you or not. They will come if you look at them.Every time I've looked at a cop car, they stop whatever they are doing, turn the sirens on, and zoom to me for a check (I am a Euro male.) This has happened 3 times (looking at cop cars) living in Japan for 10 years. 3 other times were crossing the street, walking around at night, and waiting around at a station. All these occasions I happened to meet eyes with the cops. If you notice them around leave the area, and certainly do not look them in the face.On the upside shokumu shitsumon is a great excuse to be late for work.
** C (at M.M.): I have noticed the same thing over the years. I didn't count this in my five examples of being stopped and IDed (because I wasn't really "stopped" per se) but my first experience with racist J-cops was in Fukuoka in 2007 when I was here as a visitor on a visa run from Korea. I was trying to find the Korean Consulate, and I asked directions from a police officer (this sometimes actually works in Korea--I once got a free ride in a cop car to the Boryeong Mud Festival on the beach in Daecheon thanks to friendly K-police). However, talking to this J-cop was a big mistake. He IDed me, then didn't even help me find the consulate. I got absolutely nothing out of the exchange.Don't engage them. That includes asking for directions, eye contact, etc.Basically, think of them not as "police" but merely as one of several gangs in Japan. Yamaguchi-gumi, Yamaken-gumi, Keisatsu-gumi--they're all the same to me, honestly. All rely on intimidation and lawbreaking. Just like the yakuza will occasionally mobilize a helicopter to provide disaster relief, or just as the yakuza will sometimes provide a protection racket to protect those who can't protect themselves, the J-police occasionally do these things too, sometimes. However, they're basically uneducated thugs who don't understand Rule of Law, Due Process, or Human Rights.Don't make eye contact with them. Don't talk to them. Look straight ahead and continue walking, the same way you would with any other well-known gang member.
* S.J.: Given how keen Japanese police are to stop and frisk foreigners, it is extremely sad and ironic that when foreigners in Japan find themselves to be victims of Japanese crime, these very same cops turn their backs on the them, ridicule and harass them, tell them that they can't be believed and often refuse to take the foreign victims' reports of crimes against them seriously. Such an attitude by the Japanese police towards foreign victims of crime in Japan has been widely documented and reported in the media, including the following two stories here in The Japan Times:- "Japan: no safe country for foreign women - A Tokyoite reassesses her view of Japan after another violent encounter is ignored by passers-by, police", by Holly Lanasolyluna (Oct 23, 2013).- "Foreign student’s account of treatment in rape case points to gaps in Japan’s safety myth", by Rachel Halle, (Dec 8, 2014).
** C. (at S.J.): Well said.Honestly, I'd gladly put up with two ID checks per day if I felt like Japanese police were true law enforcement professionals--protecting the law-abiding without regard to race or national origin, catching and prosecuting criminals, doing detective work, respecting Rule of Law, Due Process, and Human Rights of all people (not just Japanese). If they did these things, I'd gladly show them my ID twice a day with a smile on my face.However, experience has shown me that they do none of these things.In 2014, when I walked to the police station and reported being assaulted outside a bar, they kept interrupting me, cutting me off, and wouldn't let me write my own report. They insisted on writing it for me, then refused to let me see it. They did, however, give me a summary--in which I sounded just as guilty as the guy who attacked me. From that day on, I have hated the J-police. They aren't real police, they're just blithering idiots with badges.If I truly believed that calling 110 would get me help if my life were in danger, I would gladly put up with ID checks twice a day. If I truly believed that the cops would ever side with me over a hardened Japanese criminal with a long rap sheet, I would gladly bow and present my ID to them whenever they wanted to see it.The truly offensive thing here is how vigilant the police are about harassing non-criminals, then their total apathy when a crime is reported by a non-Japanese. Clearly these "police," despite receiving large amounts of money from my tax dollars, exist only to protect any and all Japanese people from me. THAT is the most offensive part of all.Gaijin ID checks are basically just rubbing salt on my skin. They wouldn't hurt at all if I didn't already have wounds there from learning the hard way that Japanese police simply do not protect foreigners, and almost always side with Japanese, period.
* D.A.: I'm afraid this has been going on for a long time. Long enough for me to have written JBC columns about it numerous times. Here are two:"Cops crack down with 'I pee' checks", Japan Times, July 7, 2009.And also, "Gaijin as guinea pig", Japan Times, July 8, 2008, where I archive a case of someone had been stopped 117 times:===== EXCERPT ========Let’s start with the racial profiling. Mark Butler (a pseudonym), a ten-year Caucasian resident of Japan and Tokyo University student, has been stopped by police a lot–117 times, to be exact. He cycles home at sunrise after working in the financial night markets.Never mind that these cops see Mark every night. Or that the same cop has stopped him several times. Or that they sometimes make a scene chasing him down the street, and interrogate him in the cold and rain like a criminal suspect.Why do they do this? Cops generally claim a quest for bicycle thieves, never making clear why Mark arouses suspicion. When pressed further they admit: “Sure, we know you’re not a crook, but Chinese gangs are causing trouble, and if we don’t crack down on foreigners, the public thinks we’re not doing our job.”But at stoppage #67, at a police box that had checked him more than forty times already, a nervous junior cop admitted that this was his “kunren” (training).“It seemed the older officer there remembered I wasn’t a thief,” said Mark, “and saw an opportunity for some on-the-job training–without the risk of dealing with an actual criminal.”Mark concluded, “I’d be happy to serve as a paid actor who rides past police stations and cooperates (or not, as directed) with the trainees. But these are officials making use of innocent people–and foreigners at that–for their kunren, with small and large risks forced upon the innocent party.”===== EXCERPT ENDS ========Also see debito dot org slash whattodoif dot html about your rights in this situation. You do not have to consent to a search without a warrant.I'm pleased the issue is still getting attention.
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** S.J. (at Guest): Speaking as a concerned American citizen, Trump's canceling of the TPP is a very welcome step in this direction. A country which is as closed, racist and xenophobic as Japan does not deserve to be in such a trade pact with my country of America.
*** B. (at S.J.): It'll be replaced by a bi-lateral agreement
* K.: I have heard similar stories from my foreign friends and Japanese friends that don't "look very Japanese". I am black African and I have lived here for seven years now but have never been stopped by the police. However, I am always singled out for luggage search at the Customs check whenever I am coming into the country. Most times a show of my residence card and a mention of my affiliation get me a pass without a search, however August last year was my most embarrassing experience so far. I was returning from an academic conference with 7 other colleagues (5 Japanese, 1 European, and 1 Middle Easterner) and was singled out as usual. What later went on was a thorough 15 mins search that turned the attention of every other traveler around on me as my luggage was turned inside out. There was no other cause for such a search other than racial profiling cos the other 7 colleagues of mine I traveled with handed in their Customs declaration slips without further questioning.
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*** M. (at Guest): See this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34550264I'm not the only one. Read the comments of other posters in this column.
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*** M. (at Guest): I read the news S____. As I said, situations that I have personally experienced or witnessed, I found them to be misrepresented. I have been in the company of foreigners numerous times and each time something happened, those foreigners have always misrepresented facts to the point where they become lies. Will just give you one example: Last year a foreigner who I was with was drunk and attempted to pass the ticket gates without using his tickets. When he was stopped by the station staff, he started lashing profanities and shoving them. He was later arrested. The next day, he nicely acted the victim's role and claimed to have been assaulted. This is just one of numerous examples. Thus, the incident at Osaka may or may not have been genuinely racist since I did not witness it but if you have been here for any length of time you know that Japanese customer service dictates that staff always apologize even for trivial reasons. What I read in the news is that one passenger complained about the trains being full of foreigners and the train driver promptly apologized. Do train drivers not apologize when a train is delayed by 3 minutes? In my honest opinion, certain foreigners have the bad habit of exaggerating. Now if you want to refer to news sources, how about this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-34550264From the horses' mouth, "Japan really loves black people." Feel like denying that?
* M.K.: 10 years living in Japan and have only been stopped when I actually broke a law (traffic law, bicycle). This level of harassment has to be based on race or physical appearance. Glad to see Japan Times shining a light on this, please keep it up.
* d.: Does anybody happen to know what rights we have in Japan regarding these kind of incidents? Like is recording the police considered illegal? There seems to be very little recourse..
** C. (at d.): Theoretically, you're allowed to record the incident.Theoretically, you're entitled to see the police officer's badge and number before he/she sees your ID.Theoretically, Japan signed the UN ICERD in 1980, which theoretically means police aren't even supposed to engage in racial profiling, because the ICERD specifically forbids things like that.All of that is _in theory_.In practice, if you record a police officer, demand that your right to see his/her badge be upheld, or call him/her a racist, I speak from personal experience when I say you will probably end up finding yourself in the middle of seven or so cops, because they will probably call in reinforcements to deal with the irritating gaijin, rather than respecting the law and their obligations under the law like police are supposed to in a _rule of law_ country.If you continued to insist on your rights, they would probably trump up some charges, or maybe use the Minor Offenses Law on you. You'd end up in a windowless cell in a police station, held for up to 23 days with either no charge or a trumped-up charge, without access to the outside world, maybe not even access to a lawyer. You would be interrogated constantly (perhaps including yelling, sleep deprivation, and a padded baton--I've seen one in the back of a J-police station before) and fed a starvation diet of a bowl of rice and a hard-boiled egg for each meal until you cracked and signed a confession to something you probably didn't do. You would crack, because Japanese police are master interrogators, and there are virtually no checks on their powers. With this confession in-hand, they could then bring you to court and have a 99% chance of getting you convicted (yes, real statistic).That is the reality--very different from the theory.If stopped, for your own self-interest, you should probably just cooperate. Much simpler than asserting that you have any rights (police believe you have none).However, if you decide to assert the three rights that I mentioned at the top of this post, I salute and respect you--but don't expect it to go well for you.
** t.d.a. (at d.): Assuming you're not in the middle of committing a crime, they do not have the right to search you or ask you to accompany them to the koban unless they are actually arresting you. You can ask them whether they have a warrant or not, that is a good word to know in Japanese. The problem is, as described above, they will physically surround you in a tight circle, and if you try to push your way through or otherwise touch them, then you will be charged. So you may have to stand your ground for a very long time. You can see the yaks sometimes, they know how to do this really well. Used to be that you were legally required to produce your alien registration card if requested by a cop, but I'm not sure that's true with the new cards. Anyone?
*** T.S. (at t.d.a.): "Foreign residents of Japan above the age of 16 are legally required to carry their Residence Card at all times and must present it when leaving the country for travel outside Japan along with their passport."Look at the www japanvisitor com web site.
** l. (at d.): As a Gaijin you can find some infos in the web, e.g.:
* S.T.: How do you teach invisible students?
* A.C.: Seriously? Ive been here 13 years and I've only been stopped twice, once at Nagoya station as I exited the train (apparently they were looking for some brazilian guy), and once in Osaka because I was riding my bicycle at night with my light off. It sounds to me like this might be an example of someone trying to make a name for themselves so they can get public exposure. That's just my opinion though. Honestly, Ive been stopped more in the US, my home country, than anywhere else in the world and it is the place I spend the least time.
** S.J. (at A.C.): I very much doubt that he went public with his story to make a name for himself or to get public exposure. Japan is extremely conscious of its image and anyone who exposes these types of things about the country does so at his own peril. I'm sure he will pay a heavy price for this if he wants to stay in Japan. This was a courageous act on his part, since he will now be forever harassed and blacklisted in Japan.
* m.: Maybe... he has been stopped 30 times.... I have been stopped 4 times....If it is a problem, I would leave the country....
* B.v.: I think if it happened to me often enough, I'd try to figure out some countermeasures. It could be tricky to navigate between asserting one's rights and sounding arrogant or cheeky, but I think it could be done. Can you ask for officer's names or badge numbers? Keep track of dates, times, places? Could you follow up by going to the police station and filing a complaint? Somehow one must find a way to increase the cost for engaging in this kind of brute-force policing without offending their society.
* P.: After reading all these personal experiences, I feel fortunate as I (gray and without necktie) have never been ID'd in 20 years (Tokyo, Okinawa plus travel destinations) while my few experiences with Japanese police have been quite positive to date. Nevertheless, I am now concerned and feel alerted because I do not believe that all these stories in this thread are merely invented.Without having witnessed any of these incidents, I would assume that it often depends on the individual officer and/or the city/prefecture by which (s)he was trained and educated.In any case, the police is legally required to respect that all legally staying foreigners have the same civil rights as native Japanese - no exceptions whatsoever to be tolerated.
* s.s.: I was riding a bike on a summer day. I realized two Cops were following me on their bikes. I ran as fast as i could making cops follow me with same speed. Cops were calling me but cops didn't exist for me. Cat and mouse game continued for 10 minutes and i decided to stop and provided my ID. They let me go in 2 minutes. Poor guys, i made them run for over 2 Km on very hot day. I was feeling great by making them sweat badly. Trying to find happiness in little things
** P. (at s.s.): Please consider yourself extremely lucky that the officers tried to understand your sense of humor and let you get away with this.You were not only playing with their patience but also wasting tax payers money, increasing risk of a traffic accident while contributing to the negative picture of foreigners.With all due respect, next time the police signals you to stop your bike you are best advised to do so immediately. A next time may not make you feel great again.
* D.T.: 1. As a foreigner you're required to show your passport or residence card if they ask.2. Never, ever consent to a search.3. Ask if you are being arrested. If not, you're free to leave. Police questioning is voluntary.That said, the only times I have ever had contact with the police was from missing a train and LARPing as a homeless person in a bathroom overnight (their advice about a warmer place to wait was completely useless), and from speeding (no, pretending to not speak Japanese will not help you).
** D.P. (at D.T.): As I understand it, the law states that you only have to show your ID in certain circumstances, not in general.
*** D.T. (at D.P.): The Immigration Control and Recognition of Refugees Act requires you show to your passport/residence card when asked by a cop, otherwise you're subject to harsh penalties. They have to show you their ID, though.
*** D.T. (at D.P.): Nope.Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition ActArticle 23, Paragraphs 3 and 4(3)　The foreign national set forth in the preceding two paragraphs shall present his/her passport, crew member's pocket-ledger, permit or residence card (hereinafter referred to as "Passport" in this Article) as set forth in these provisions to an immigration inspector, immigration control officer, police official, coast guard officer or any other official of a state or local public entity as provided for by Ordinance of the Ministry of Justice, if such official requests the presentation of the Passport in the execution of his/her duties.(4)　The official prescribed in the preceding paragraph shall, in cases where he/she requests presentation of the Passport, carry with him/her an identification card showing his/her official status and present it upon request.Unless you're under 16, in which case you don't have to carry ID.Article 75-2　Any person who falls under any of the following items shall be punished with imprisonment with work for not more than 1 year or a fine not exceeding 200,000 yen.(ii)　A person who refused to present the residence card in violation of the provisions of Article 23, paragraph (3).There's a severe penalty for not showing, too.
*** T.L.G. (at D.T.): No. that's mainly for immigration staff. All cops are required to follow a duty-specific Police Execution of Duty Law(警察官職務執行法). They have to show their ID first (You can ask a cop to do so when he stops you for that). They cannot arrest foreigners without an arrest warrant on the spot. They cannot make an interrogation mandatory, unless subject has a probable(reasonable) cause of suspicion for crime.Police Execution of Duty Law Art.2:"A police officer is able to ask for a person's ID, but only if based on a reasonable judgment of a situation where the policeman sees some strange conduct and some crime is being committed, or else he has enough reason to suspect (utagau ni tariru soutou na riyuu) that a person will commit or has committed a crime, or else it has been acknowledged that a particular person knows a crime will be committed. In these cases a police officer may stop a person for questioning."Police Execution of Duty Law Art.2.2&32: "It is possible to ask a particular person to accompany the [police] to a nearby police station, police branch [kouban], or any police administration area for questioning if it is determined this place is unsuitable for questioning because it obstructs traffic or is disadvantageous to the questionee."3: "Unless there is a regulation relating to criminal action, officials may not confine, bring back to any police administration area, or else coerce a person to reply to questions against his will."
*** D.T. (at T.L.G.): That law is talking about Japanese citizens, not foreigners. You have to show you residence card/passport if asked, unless you're under 16 or you are a PR.
*** T.L.G. (at D.T.): Not true. Police do not have the power to arrest non-citizens in refusing to show ID.
* P.R.: Depends on where you live. Been in the Nagoya area for almost 2 years and haven't had that issue. Coming from the states, where for a while I was getting stopped almost monthly, I welcome the change. I actually celebrated when I spent a whole year of not getting stopped by the police.
** S.J. (at P.R.): "Depends on where you live". This is also true for the U.S.
*** T.S. (at S.J.): If it is location specific, why do you and others generalize about "Japan"?
*** T.L.G. (at T.S.): It's just like you trying to generalize the integrity of JT articles purely based on your preference, eh?
* A.S.: I spend a lot of time in Japan and lived in numerous places, and I found the 'inner city' areas the worst for this. I was stopped twice in Warabi and Nerima, and they wanted me to take them back to my apartment so they could search it. On the edge of Tokyo, I don't have an such experiences. In the city I guess they think they can't search 'tourists' as they are leaving anyway. It all makes sense really. Little happens on edge of Tokyo.So it happens to white guys. It seems to be a 'scheduled activity', and I think its a reasonable undertaking. One can't ignore the fact that 'crime is cultural'. Race might correlate with culture, but Japanese police cannot not make the distinction. Of course Japanese police 'cultural profiling' is only a statistical proclivity. You can insist they shouldn't 'generalise', but that is what you do in the absence of 'specific knowledge'. If you require police to have 'specific knowledge', then the criminals win because they are just as smart as police, and have more reasons to evade police than the police have for finding them.Japanese police are some of the most professional and diligent in the world. I'd want them on my side. When I compare their 'search powers' to Western or emerging market police, then I see the price in terms of policing quality between those markets. In my home countries (Aust, NZ), police only care about high profile crime. In Japan, I don't mind the diligence they bring to the task, as its the safest place to live in the world. Now, the exception is probably their attitudes to sexual harassment. I feel very safe in Japan, however foreign women, and maybe even Japanese women might not have reason to feel so. Some misplaced prejudice there.
** S.J. (at A.S.): A_____, you wote, "I spend a lot of time in Japan and lived in numerous places, and I found the 'inner city' areas the worst for this. I was stopped twice in Warabi and Nerima, and they wanted me to take them back to my apartment so they could search it....So it happens to white guys".You follow this with, "I think its a reasonable undertaking. One can't ignore the fact that 'crime is cultural'." Are you saying that whites are culturally more inclined to commit crimes than the Japanese?
*** A.S. (at S.J.): Not explicitly, but yes. You can argue particular whites are, other whites are not, and that goes for any culture. If I was to guess, I suspect an anecdotal perception I have is true, but I have no corroborating evidence, so if I was to act on it, I'd want to be more grounded and discerning, and that would be that certain cultures are more prone to committing crimes (say in Japan), i.e. Muslim Africans vs Christian Africans. My 'prejudice' if you like isn't Christian, but atheistic. I think people who retain a pride in mysticism are vulnerable, so Christians are bad, because whilst they are Christians, they are 'protestant 2.0', not 'fundamentalism 1.0. So these are generalisations, and I apply them with care, in the same way that one might not lend one's car to one's teen son because they are 100% more likely to crash a car. But maybe they know their son? Causation vs correlation; knowledge vs best endeavours. You can't expect a policeman in passing to know the life story of their 'suspects'. I'd hope that they are 'sceptical', but also respectful. I've yet to encounter a disrespectful Japanese police officer. Yet, in the West, they are trained at the academy in hypocrisy and arrogance.
*** B.I.T. (at A.S.): I've been stopped by twice by police who were very nice, and twice by police who were just brusque, which I can understand.But in reporting crimes, which I've done four times, three of the experiences were just awful, because the police were rude, dismissive, and refused to help. The other time he was just businesslike, which I appreciated.And my brother is a city cop in the US, and is the nicest guy you could ever meet.I don't stereotype cops. I will just say that there are good and bad ones. And based off my past experiences with the police here, I'm reluctant to believe they will be of much help if anything else ever happens and I need one,
** D.P. (at A.S.): Statistically, foreign residents in Japan commit about as many crimes per capita as Japanese people, and that includes visa overstays.Police can stop a ton of crime without resorting to racial profiling. And they do, right, because a ton of "Asian-looking" people get caught breaking the law every single day.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): Foreigners is a 'collective'. What is the breakdown by different countries. You would probably find a disparity, just as you would between men and women. Japanese police stop a 'tonne of crime' because they have powers, like search and seizure, which other police forces don't have. I don't begrudge people doing their job in difficult conditions. I empathise with their situation. I tell myself, if they think my nationality is responsible for cultivating a perception that 'we are all thieves', then let me offer an alternative perspective. Just as I do when Japanese estimate of Australia is 'kangaroos'. I can begrudge their 'simple' estimate, or I can add to it, knowing they don't study much geography, or travel so much.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): I'm concerned that you're saying to the police, "It's OK if you're ignorant and do stupid things because your job is hard." Well, that's why police departments have bosses who can and should help them form sensible policies.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, given that race doesn't define values absolutely, they have to be open-minded to the possibility that a person who looks (North) Korean, might actually have been raised in Japan. I look Czech, but I was raised in Australia. That isn't reason to repudiate one's 'general knowledge', but reason to be discerning enough to the possibility the generalisation might not encapsulate people's full context. That's why we have courts and not vigilante justice.The flipside is that we need to empathise with cops, who need to know a lot of context dropping, dogmatic, statutory laws, whom apparently are expected to know about every drug, gun design, street ordinance, cultural sensitivity, and make instantaneous decisions.If you're cynical about police, they'll reciprocate in lost respect for your interests. So be respectful, and you'll have more engaging police. Isn't that an important distinction between Western and Japanese police. Australian and US police are shockingly arrogant. NZ and Japanese police are good by comparison.
*** T.L.G. (at A.S.): You're right about the attitudinal difference between cops in the west and Japan. Still, there's no room for defending the practice of racial profiling--especially exploiting ignorance of culture and language. Such practice done by respectful authority is far more problematic than some unknown individuals saying "gaijin," "" out of mockery.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): The word "cynical" can be a straw man. I know that police target me based on skin color, and I don't like it. Complaining about a bad situation is not cynical.Your point about being respectful is important. Of course we should be respectful to everyone, including the police, and they should respect us, and the policies should be changed, and bad cops who do racial profiling should stop or be fired.When a cop harasses me for ... just walking down the street while "looking foreign" ... then that cop has already ignored my interests. My interests are simple: to go about my life, to work and play, without being harassed based on my skin color. Can anyone seriously argue against that?
*** A.S. (at D.P.): Aren't you judging their actions from a parochial position of 'perfect knowledge' about you and their motivations. Respect includes empathising with their perspective, not just being entitled to think they should possess your perspective or knowledge of you. They have a lot to know, and having access to a database of your criminal history, or the absence of it, is not their concern. I suspect inner city cops, would love to have the time to 'harass' foreigners, except they don't have time. Consider that police don't have a huge database of info about 'foreigners', as you are an outsider. Moreover, you probably don't confess so readily as Japanese 'polite people', so they need info. They are 'behind', and if the Japanese have no greater proclivity to break the law, then the motivation of police is likely to compensate by having more 'intervention' with foreigners to make up for that absence of knowledge. Seems like a good strategy to me.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): I think I'm asking that cops have reasonable suspicion of illegal activity before they stop me. Walking down the street isn't suspicious.I know many of these cops are not busy. They are positioning themselves in front of stations and on train platforms and questioning the "foreign looking" people who walk by. That's like the opposite of fighting crime.Statistically, non-Japanese residents and Japanese citizens commit about the same amount of crimes, per capita. There is no foreigner crime wave to fight.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): I'm not saying its a 'foreign crime wave', I'm saying its a 'blind spot in Japanese police database', and they are compensating for that.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): I think it is unreasonable to think that cops can have any control over crime if they have their hands tied behind their backs, like they do in the West. The community have expectations, but they do butt-squat to help. In Japan, these added powers generally make the country far safer. The prospect of being 'harrassed', whereby I'm guessing you were padded down, had your bag searched, and your house searched, it strikes me as 'a small inconvenience'. i'd sooner not have armed felons break into my home. Foreigners with no track record in Japan are a concern. They take precautionary steps, and I respect the fact that they do those things with a great deal of professionalism.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): They don't know if you're foreign. They only know what your skin color is. Xenophobia and racism are subtly but importantly different.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): I'm white. they know I'm foreign. Even if you are Asian, they will probably know from subtle clues. Racism is an overused 'drama'. They are collective, and they are nationalistic. They even think they are 'culturally superior', and in some sense they are, and aren't. Its just generalisation. Yes, it has consequences, in every part of the world. If you are black, you are interesting. If you are white, you're a banker, or a playboy...whatever. Ignorance is common. If your hostility starts with police, who actually bring professionalism to their field, and politeness, I think your expectations are unreasonable in the context of an extortion state of democracy.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): You can't just magically sense what passport someone carries. Last year a young Japanese man got arrested in Ibaraki for "not carrying his passport", if you recall. And smaller incidents happen routinely enough around the country.I'm not hostile. I don't hate cops. My hope is to see better policies that can end racial profiling. That will help police do a better job of fighting actual crime, and innocent visible minorities will have a better life.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): That's my point, they have to 'test'. My ex-partner looked Korean, but Japanese. Didn't say you were hostile. I'm saying you're positing as a 'victim', and therein lacking empathy for the imperfect knowledge in their role. Hell, I teased them about 'using me for English practice', but it was a job, which made for a funny situation. Unless you are arbitrarily detained, what's a little inconvenience.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): You ask about "a little inconvenience", but I think the guy interviewed in this article showed how it's actually a huge inconvenience. It takes time, and it's humiliating, he explained. I would add that it also undercuts confidence in the police force as a whole. I know that many police officers will target me, that they see me as a potential criminal, that they are not looking out for my safety.And all of this has no upside. Foreigner crime is not a major problem. Racial profiling isn't fixing anything, it's a waste of time and money, and it makes our lives worse.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): D______, I'm just not reaching you am I. Its not just about you. Its about 'effective policing'. There will probably come a day when you & everyone else will have a tracking device in your arm, so they don't need to 'profile', but for now, you'll have to suck it up. Its their ignorance. You might not like the association with criminals, but rest assured, you probably aren't one.
*** D.P. (at A.S.): I agree with you: we want effective policing.Racial profiling isn't reducing crime, it's wasting police resources, and it's undercutting police-community relations.
*** A.S. (at D.P.): Racial profiling isn't perfect policing; its the best and only approach that works in the context of imperfect knowledge; aside from giving you a parting gift for your time. But alas, that would only delay you longer, and add to policing costs.
*** T.L.G. (at A.S.): Yeah, it works pretty well in the regime embracing Orwellianism. Thanks for notifying.
* S.J.: Stay classy, Japan! The Tokyo Olympics are just three years away.
** C. (at S.J.): 1936 Berlin Olympics (Nazi Germany, just before World War II)1964 Tokyo Olympics (just 12 years after Japan stripped all Zainichi of their J-citizenship, and less than 20 years since Japan had been a raging colonial power)2008 Beijing Olympics (around the time China totally clamped down on the Internet and started interfering very seriously in Hong Kong internal affairs, etc.)2020 Tokyo Olympics (at a time when Japanese police still engage in rampant racial profiling, at a time when there are still bloodline-based visas and visa preference, and at a time when there are still virtually no laws against racial discrimination even though this is 2017, now)It's almost like the Olympic committee rewards countries with poor human rights by giving them the Olympics.What next? Manila Olympics for 2024, anyone?Oh, I know! The 2024 PYONGYANG Olympics!
** l. (at S.J.): Its no problem. See what the Führer had done during the 1936 Olympics regarding the Jews. Of course, only a joke. But racial discrimination is really a big problem in Japan. They regard themselves als Europeans since Fukuzawa‘s call for "Leaving Asia"("Datsun Ron").
* A.S.B.: I have never been pulled over while driving in Japan!I sometimes flip the police who stare at me too hard the bird!The police cannot pull you over unless they have reason; I don't let them search me either---we'll have to take this down to the police station where yell all sorts of profanities! They don't want to deal with that!
* T.S.: This issue crops up regularly in gaijin oriented venues. Some people claim decades in Japan without ever being asked to show an id. Others claim being asked on an almost daily basis.My own experience was three times in twenty-five years and in two of those cases the police were also questioning Japanese.Anyone who thinks this is a Japanese peculiarity should do a search on "stop and search" for the UK or "stop and frisk" for the US, especially New York City.
** D.P. (at T.S.): The U.S. courts have ruled that "stop and frisk" as done in NYC for so long was illegal. Let's hope Japan goes the same way.
** B.I.T. (at T.S.): I've been stopped twice purely because I'm a foreigner. I know that was the reason because the police said so.And of course they also stop Japanese. This is, after all, Japan. Most crimes are therefore perpetrated by the native population, who are 98% of the total.But Japanese never get stopped "because they're Japanese". Right? That's the difference.And yes, it happens in the US, too. I know in AZ they stop anyone who "looks illegal". And I'm very ashamed of and angered by that. It's racist. It's wrong.It needs to stop, which is why we're talking about it.
** S.J. (at T.S.): T.S. wrote, "My own experience was three times in twenty-five years and in two of those cases the police were also questioning Japanese."What? You've yourself written here in a prior post that you are Japanese, so what's this all about?
*** C.o.t.w.n.: (at S.J.): Possibly acquired Japanese citizenship?
*** T.S. (at C.o.t.w.n.): Yep. Just like A.D. Naturalized Japanese. If anything, I am more "Japanese" than he is because I actually live in Japan.The Japanese government says I'm Japanese. The US and UK governments have certified me as Japanese.
** J.F. (at T.S.): Nobody thinks it's a "Japanese peculiarity." But if a problem exists in another country, that has virtually zero relevance to the problem here.
*** T.S. (at J.F.): If what other countries do or not do is of "virtually zero relevance to the problem here," why do so many posters make explicit or implicit comparisons to other countries on this and other Japan issues?
*** T.L.G. (at T.S.): Funny, you are the one who brought up "comparing-apple-to-orange" strategy to deflect the issue in previous post(see above) without being asked.
*** J.F. (at T.S.): Sometimes it's useful to say "in XYZ country, they do this." It is never logically sound, however, to say "problem XYZ is bigger in America than in Japan, so therefore Japan should not be criticized." What you're saying makes common sense. It's just that common sense is often wrong when you think it through logically.
* Guest: This comment was deleted.
** D.P. (at Guest): Of course people can leave, if they have the money. But sometimes you find a bad situation and you try to make it better. Especially when it directly impacts tens of thousands of people. Or more!
== Source ==
* https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/01/22/our-lives/meet-man-gets-frisked-tokyo-police-five-times-year/#.XeqVn4FyahB