> Not once has anyone younger than 40 been afraid of his physical safety due to the color of his skin, other than being in places where physical safety was questionable to begin with.

It's hard to take you seriously here. I've met very few black folks who would agree with you on this. Have you directly asked a black person how they feel about encounters with the police?

> I'd much rather live someplace where "actual white supremacy", to the degree it exists, is denounced by polite company

It's not denounced by polite company. I was recently in Louisiana where someone was talking about why they don't go into New Orleans anymore (because of black people), and about how we have an incorrect history of the civil war because "winners write the history" ("it wasn't due to slavery").

> than a place where it is accepted in polite company that you're avoided for looking physically different

I'm not saying this doesn't happen at all, but I think it's often mistaken for "I don't want to sit next to a gaijin", when it's really "I don't want to sit next to someone really tall because I'll have no room" or "I don't want to sit next to the gaijin who smells like they haven't showered in a week".

I know this is one of the more common complaints on japanlife reddit, so I won't discount it completely, but even there it's a pretty controversial take.

> "no foreigners allowed" in businesses are common.

I've been living in Tokyo for the past 3 years (and have traveled around Japan a lot) and haven't seen a single "no foreigners allowed" sign. I have never been rejected for being foreign. I'm sure you may run into this on rare occasion in the countryside, but this isn't anywhere near the norm, even there.

I've heard this is still the norm at places like soaplands, oppai bars, and such, but that it's not enforced for folks who can speak enough Japanese to clearly state they understand the rules. I haven't gone to any so can't personally verify that (and my spoken Japanese isn't good enough anyway). These places have strict legal requirements to keep their licenses, so this is a case where I at least understand their rationale. I'm sure there's some xenophobia baked into this as well, as it's a common (stupid) stereotype that foreigners bring STDs into Japan.

> As one who only came to the States as an adult, it's really confounding to me the degree to which it's understood that America is a racist and white supremacist country. I just don't get it at all.

As someone who grew up in the south, and who has mostly conservative friends and family, I absolutely get it. There's degrees of racism, but I've heard the phrase "we should turn the middle east into glass" more times than I'd prefer. I know lots of folks who moved away from the New Orleans area so that their kids wouldn't go to school with black children. I've been in situations at work where people would be in a 1-1 with me and be complaining about black people being hired, and how they don't allow that on their team. I know property managers that only do word-of-mouth advertising for rental openings so that they can only rent to white people.

All of those things are just direct experiences I've personally witnessed. It doesn't take into account the historical racism that continues to affect the black community today, like redlining, white-flight, systematic police targeting and imprisonment, the war on drugs, etc.

I'm glad you haven't personally had that experience, but you shouldn't downplay the situation that others less fortunate than you experience often.