American teacher faces controversy, harassment over video teaching Japanese racism

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Ida Torres in Educations, Features, National with 63 Comments
American teacher faces controversy, harassment over video teaching Japanese racism

Miki Dezaki, an American teacher of Japanese descent, is facing the wrath of the “netouyo”, an online army of hypernationalist Japanese web users who are overly judgemental of any article, video or person who they perceive are critical of Japan. This is because of a video he posted on YouTube and Reddit over racism in Japan.

Dezaki, who has gained a modest following over past videos he’s posted like “Hitchhiking Okinawa”, “What Americans Think of Japan”, and an in-depth look at what it’s like being gay in Japan, was simply trying to teach his students that racism existed not just in America but even in Japan. He uploaded a six-minute video summary of classes he had in July last year with a disclaimer at the beginning: “I know there’s a lot of racism in America and I’m not saying that America is better than Japan or anything like that,”. This disclaimer would prove to be insufficient once word about his video started to spread like wildfire on 2chan, the website/message board where the netouyo frequent. Not surprisingly, his YouTube video and Reddit’s Japan section where Dezaki posted the link to the video, was bombarded with attacks and accusations that he was anti-Japanese and that he was warping Japanese students with lies and misinformation.

But more than just angry internet comments, the “attack” spilled over to his real life. Some of the outraged netizens found out his real name and other personal details and encouraged their fellow netouyo to take the fight to the real world. The superiors at the school in Japan where he taught received numerous complaints and so they had to request him to take it down, even though they praised it when he first gave the lecture and posted the video. He was even contacted by a member of Okinawa’s board of education warning that this issue might be brought up at the National Diet. But Dezaki decided to keep the video online and even added an announcement, in Japanese and English, that he was refusing to take it down. He explained, “I fell in love with Japan, I love Japan. And I want to see Japan become a better place. Because I do see these potential problems with racism and discrimination.” Well, unfortunately it seems not everyone is ready for this particular lesson.

[ Miki Dezaki's YouTube channel ] [ via Washington Post ]
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  • A.C.

    It’s somehow absurd, but by harrassing their critics racists only prove them even more right. Strange they don’t realize …

    I’m curious though whether this article will receive many – if any – comments. A lot of people seem to idealize things Japanese, but in this case the allegations can’t be as easily dismissed as another “Chinese propaganda” …

  • Shuami

    I’ve watched video. I don’t know how anybody who is sound in his/her judgement would be up against what this guy says here. The fact that there is a “netouyu” group against him tells you something about this society. There is racism in every society, some are probably more openly, like in the US, some are more subtle. And the racism in Japan–everybody in the know probably knows where it is and how to find them, or it would show up right in front of your face…

    • Far East

      I beg to disagree. I have lived in Japan for 13 years, and can say with certainty that there is less racism in Japan than you would otherwise find in China, Hong Kong, the U.S. or Europe. All of those places, I have been and lived there. That being said, there is a disdain for foreigners, and by foreigner I include even Japanese people who are not from the neighborhood. This disdain takes its historical root from the XVI century with the attempt to use Christianity for political purpose in Japan and later in Meiji era due to some supranational legal advantages they were awarded.

      • Shuami

        “there is less racism in Japan than you would otherwise find in China, Hong Kong, the U.S. or Europe.”
        I would say there is more civility and hospitality in Japan than anywhere in the world. There is no question about that, as there is a Pew survey that supports it. As for racism, I would agree that there is less OPENLY racism in Japan. However, there is a facade, that seems to block ANY type of emotions to be openly displayed. Behind this facade of politeness and modesty, there is some unspoken sense of superiority. The Japanese culture is a paradox of superiority AND inferiority complex. It depends who you are, and the cross section of the society that you interact with, when one of these ugly heads rears. YMMV (your mileage may vary).

        • Far East

          I understand what you’re saying, but this is slightly different. What you described is what a lot of foreigners describe to what they perceive. This perception however is not rooted in what you describe as its cause.

          You mention civility? I actually feel that, like in any country I have been, it depends on the region you stay and if you live in a big city like Tokyo or in the countryside. People living in big cities, be it Tokyo, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Los Angeles, ok maybe not Los Angeles, usually have not so civil behavior. However, the Japanese by culture do not find it proper to show off their feelings or to be too direct, so they have what they called the “Tatemae” (建前) which is the facade they publicly show and they have the Honne (本音) which is the true self. Actually when you think of it, we share those 2 aspects in any culture in the world, but certainly the Japanese have pushed it more than other as far as I can tell.

          Now, beside this, the Japanese are a proud nation of people, and they have every reasons to be, and like any nation in the world, they have also issues, and their lot of nationalists just like in any other country (yes, including China), especially when economy is sluggish. Bolstering nationalistic sentiments is a cheap and dirty way to divert people’s attention from the real domestic problems. This is a tactic used intensively by the Chinese Government, but we see it also in Europe and in the U.S. as well.

          So, no the Japanese are not some terrible monsters. They have a very long history and they are today a nation of peaceful people.

          I saw a few times, the ambassador of a major african country dancing the traditional (Bon-Odori) 盆踊り and warmly welcomed with other africans by downtown Japanese. No officials, just simple Japanese. There was not an ounce of prejudice in anyone there, and I have not seen any in my 13 years in Japan.

    • johnts1975ii

      well said man. I’m with you 100%

  • Truth

    The high schools students “don’t know” because they don’t see it because there is so little. Of course, there is so little because there is so much homogeneity but, honestly, how much life awareness can one expect of high school kids?

    At there other extreme there is another excess, which is also prevalent within Japan, the “everybody must be equal” camp which is destroying difference and competitiveness who naively base their ideas on the liberal American experiment.

    In my experience, America is one of the most racially divided and racially aggressive nation on the planet. Nothing short of East European Nazi skinheads or the Jewish Israeli state can match the racism there.

    To put Japan anywhere near the same light is ridiculous. How long has this guy been in the country?

    • xli

      “In my experience, America is one of the most racially divided and racially aggressive nation on the planet.”

      Would you care to explain your experience in America compared to in other countries?

      • Booyah24

        I’d like to see it as well. I’ve lived all over the world, and the US is close to the bottom when it comes to racism. Americans just tend to very loudly air their dirty laundry internationally (in contrast to other cultures who tend to hide their problems) which makes it look worse than it really is. Don’t get me wrong, there are still issues as the US has never found a good way to deal with it’s history of slavery, but most Americans are very fearful of being perceived as racist and will attempt to change their behavior as a result. Where I last lived in the US, the community was literally 25% white, 25% Asian, 25% Hispanic, and 25% black. That doesn’t happen in too many places of the world.

        • http://www.slashgear.com Ewdison Then

          Mind sharing where that is? The 25% white, 25% Asian, 25% Hispanic, and 25% black location.

          • Booyah24

            A precinct in South Philadelphia. Asians were mostly Indonesians, with some Chinese and Vietnamese. Hispanics were primarily from the Puebla region of Mexico. Whites were a mixture of old Italian Americans who never moved to Jersey and hipster/gentrifiers. The census numbers really reveal it to be close to evenly divided by race. In contrast to other parts of the city that are mixed race, these people even lived on the same blocks.

          • http://www.slashgear.com Ewdison Then

            I know south Philly has a lot of immigrant but didn’t know it was that equally between those races. Our executive editor on JDP gets his masters degree in Westminster in Philly, let me share this info with him. Thx

          • Truth

            Please note I wrote ‘racially divided’ not racist, as in ghetto-fied, although it’s outright racist history is very recent and still prevalent in many areas.

            As far as racially aggressive, I was thinking primarily of the history of the white elite that is still playing out across the middle east and Asia today.

            Frankly, I really don’t need to spend any time justifying those comments.

            Look at Americans blanket use of the word “Asians”. It bugs the hell out of me.

          • http://www.slashgear.com Ewdison Then

            I know what you are saying and no you do not need to justify your opinion. This is why we have JDP, everyone are entitled to their opinion regardless which sides they stands on.

          • Far East

            I completely agree with you, and although I believe I understand what Booyah24 is referring to there is still a gap between the legal framework and the reality.

            Indeed, the legislation and common law rulings do not prevent the average American from being even mildly racist. And I do mean the average american. I am more confident that the more educated the less racist they are, but the pro-nationalistic education of the U.S. certainly encourage Americans to despising other ethnicities like Asian, or Arabs. Media oversimplification and generalization of international issues in the U.S. for example tend to nurture those kind of problems.

        • Whirled Peas

          Although I haven’t taken a survey I largely agree that Americans do not want to be perceived as racist and sometimes bend over backward not to be perceived as such. We do after all, have a shameful legacy of slavery in the past, whose vestiges many of us are trying to eliminate (I think to our credit). In doing so though, sometimes we go overboard in the “liberal gone amok” sense.

          So I am not sure that the US is more racist, ethnocentric or xenophobic than other cultures, though we cannot claim to have solved our problems by a long shot! On the positive side I see so many young people with a high level of curiosity and respect for other people and cultures within the US and internationally. And I see people of different ethnicities interacting in positive ways. And I see older people from different races who are friends for life. So I wouldn’t paint all Americans with the same brush. But my positive examples are derived from environments and communities where people from different racial/ethnic groups are relatively more educated so speak a common language OR have had the opportunity to work together toward a common goal, for example around improving their kid’s education, or fighting crime together, or protesting against poor working conditions. Conversing and working together lowers barriers.

          But unfortunately many Americans don’t have the opportunity to be positively exposed to other groups. A lower income Hispanic person’s only exposure to an African-American may be as a rival gang banger. Exposure to a Caucasian person may be a policeman profiling all people of Hispanic background from a housing project where a crime was committed. A White person’s only exposure to an African-Am person might be guys who say “white men can’t jump.” (Of course you don’t dare say that to Larry Byrd). These are all hurtful experiences and it takes a lot of fortitude to not generalize a bad experience to ALL people of that other group!

          I believe the key to reducing the us vs them mentality in the US (which is not always racism per se) is education and creating opportunities for people to meet and work together under friendly, supportive conditions where there is a chance of building trust.

    • Booyah24

      Japan (and Eastern Asian in general) is far more racist than the US. I’ve even lived in the deep south of the US. The Japanese type is a far more insidious type of racism. In the deep south of the US, you know where you stand with people. Japanese, in general, tend to be very two-faced about it. Plus, the US at least has housing discrimination laws. I still cannot rent an apartment here without my wife, and I make six figures a year and speak Japanese. In the US, I’d at least have legal recourse.

      • stocktonabby

        Well, it looks like you have to just go get more Japanese girls to eat our peanut sacks, and maybe we’ll get the rights to rent an apartment. Shouldn’t be too hard though. After all, we kind of own Japan.

      • Truth

        Sure … in Japan you have gangs of hundred of members running around killing each other with automatic weapons, control ‘no go areas’ and a modern history of lynching and internment all based purely on racial divisions.

        You don’t mean “insidious” you mean, it hardly exists at all.

        There are very good and practical reasons why foreigners are not trusted in Japan and it all has to do with the conduct of previous foreigners who got there before you … they trash houses, cause problems for neighbors, leave without paying rent, leave without paying off loans.

        Fine for them, they have or had a “great time” but unfortunately they damaged or destroyed the small business owners interests.

        We are all aware there is a small coterie of butt-hurt liberal American whiners in Japan, e.g. Debito and his gang of moral crusaders, and you never hear them saying anything in defence of the Japanese people who had their hospitality and businesses trashed by the foreigners who came before them. You don’t see them taking those foreigners on … and they are largely utterly unaware of the problems that have happened in the past with primarily North Korean and Chinese illegals and so on.

        What may appear like “racism” to your small, uninformed mind, is really just a rational response to negative influences that have been built up on the basis of real experiences in the past.

        And I completely support the Japanese for doing so. Don’t worry, once you make the grade you will be accepted but first you will have to earn, not demand or threaten, to get that trust and respect.

        Thank God Japan is not the USA and long may it last.

        The vast majority of foreigners living in Japan experience no racism at all. In comparison the USA, Japan is hugely less racist and racially divided. But, to be honest, I would prefer that word was not put out because I prefer Japan without such people too.

        • A.C.

          So, in short – racism in Japan is a problem of the US. www(^__^)

          • Truth

            No, that’s not logical at all, but there’s a strong trend amongst vocal liberal Americans, without very much real life experience, to imagine and exaggerate very minor to non-existent problems with Japan and repeat this stuff without really knowing anything about it.

            The small cult of but hurt gaijin surrounding Debito is another example.

            What is this guy … 20 years old? School-then-college then becomes an expert-in-life? Honestly, what does he know?

            It’s funny, I tried to find out something about him but, on a personal level, he’s almost entire wiped off the internet right now. All his social media and okinawajet.com etc. Seems like he is more of a jock than an intellectual or sociologist.

          • relaxeveryone

            The truth about him is much more than your assumption of what kind of person he is. If you knew him like I do you wouldn’t make the stereotypical judgements of what you think an English teacher in Japan is.

            Yes there are the straight out of college people who come to Japan to teach, but there are other people as well who use it as an opportunity to learn about a new culture while teaching about their own culture as well. Just because you may disagree with his message or what he is talking about, it doesn’t mean a false characterization of who he is discredits what he is talking about. Yes there is a different type if discrimination and/or racism in Japan than the US, but it doesn’t mean that people haven’t faced it. Also bringing awareness to the topic does nothing more than open the topic for discussion and then people can choose what side they wish to be on, but they shouldn’t send death threats or call him a Korean in derogatory ways when they disagree with him which simply adds to his statement that racism/discrimination exists and is contrary to their own arguments against him…

            For someone with the name “truth” and who speaks of logic you should know that an ad hominem attack on someone is a logical fallacy and not the way to go about discourse.

          • Truth

            Dezaki got ‘chon’ wrong and if that was what he was basing his position on then he shot his own foot and should remove and correct his video. He should do so now. (‘Chon’ means not special or silly).

            There’s a difference between stating relevant facts and an ad hominem attack. Within the context of your reply, it reads more like, “don’t say nasty things about me and my friend (… even if there are elements of truth to it)”. Are you also a JET/ALT?

            It’s absolutely true that I think individuals who go directly from school to college and then back to school – let alone the preferential hot house of JET/ALT teaching – are not necessarily the most worldly-wise (… although it appears Norman Mikine Dezaki is older and around 30).

            I think the strength of my reaction was based on how he waded into an issue like the buraku one without knowing anything about it and its dynamics. He came across as a bit green and very one sided. Well intentioned? Perhaps … but uninformed and repeating tired old homilies about “racist Japan” and, god forbid, dredging up WWII references.

            At what age do kids have to be initiated into discrimination?

            Are island based rivalries unique to Japan?

            How much truth are there to generalizations?

            Has the liberal ‘diversity and equality’ theory really worked in reality?

            The J-reactionaries are calling hiim a “banana man” (yellow on the outside but white on the inside). They question whether he is importing his American experiences to Japan and seeing Japan through those filters. They criticize his lack of Japan influences/awareness.

            Personally, I think the reason the kids all said there was no discrimination in Japan because they would have at that stage never encountered any and what discrimination does exist is many times more mild than in the USA and elsewhere.

        • Whirled Peas

          Your post is quite insightful. Sometimes we Americans of a liberal bent have a knee-jerk reaction to any appearance of unequal treatment in our environment, especially if directed at us (as in American visitors or expats). Sometimes we do not look beyond the surface to the basis of the difference and to a real solution. Or maybe we look but are incapable of understanding because of our cultural biases. We also have this tendency to impose our values, priorities, and judgments on other cultures without understanding and appreciating the other cultures. After all, Americans as well as Europeans, have a long missionary tradition — “convert-the savage” and all that.

          I am generally supportive of liberal America, but sometimes liberalism, like any other ideology can run amok and turn into its opposite. I have long been involved in various efforts to level the playing field for ALL Americans by creating more opportunities for training for all — mainly in the academic and employment worlds. And sometimes it’s the liberals who pose the greatest barrier to change! For example, in the US it is desirable for youth who want to go into the science track to take Algebra 1 by 8th grade. Well, studies in one middle school (which is 6th – 8th grade) showed that their Algebra 1 classes were populated all by White and Asian students, which didn’t “look good” to the liberal school board. But, instead of finding ways to prepare African-Americans, Latinos, and other underrepresented students to be able to take Algebra I by 8th grade, the liberal school board decided to eliminate Algebra 1 altogether, since the class wasn’t representative of all ethnicities! Liberalism run amok!

          We humans use labels such as liberal, conservative, left, right, capitalist, socialist, racist, etc. as a short-hand to understand and describe phenomena. And sometimes those labels get in the way of truly seeing what is in front of us.

          • Ivy

            “For example, in the US it is desirable for youth who want to go into the
            science track to take Algebra 1 by 8th grade. Well, studies in one
            middle school (which is 6th – 8th grade) showed that their Algebra 1
            classes were populated all by White and Asian students, which didn’t
            “look good” to the liberal school board. But, instead of finding ways to
            prepare African-Americans, Latinos, and other underrepresented students
            to be able to take Algebra I by 8th grade, the liberal school board
            decided to eliminate Algebra 1 altogether, since the class wasn’t
            representative of all ethnicities!”

            Please cite where this happened.

          • Whirled Peas

            This happened ca 20 years ago in a SF Bay Area school. I believe they have since reinstated Alg 1 at the urging/protest of parents. Also, school board compositions change frequently and so do educational theories on how best to train students and address specific needs. Even a change of one board member can change the outcome of a decision to keep or eliminate a course or teacher. Plus, all but the most gifted teachers find out soon enough how difficult it is to teach a class composed of students with widely varying abilities and preparation. They usually end up teaching to the middle, so most everyone loses. The other side of the coin is the system of “tracking” in which a student can never leaves his/her initial track and is “marked for life.” That is problematic as well and needs to be adjusted.

        • Booyah24

          I’m not liberal. Nor is my mind small or uninformed. Deriving behaviors to deal with the masses from stereotypes or based on one’s experiences of a handful of people is as silly as living your life based on superstitions. For example, all the car accidents I was in in the US, the other driver was exclusively Asian (true story), but I don’t determine, based on that, that all Asian people in the entire world are poor drivers. The “hundred of members running around killing each other with automatic weapons” in the US are not foreigners. They are Americans. The vast majority of legal immigrants in Japan have never committed a crime in their lives. Japan, whether it realizes it or not, gives up a lot to maintain their culture of security. It’s their choice, of course, but it’s natural when you’ve lived many places, among many cultures to compare and contrast these things.

          • Truth

            It’s a problem, isn’t it? Generalizations are generally true!

            I accept what you are saying in both aspect. Personally, although Yankee-style Liberals would see my position as an attack on theirs, really I am not attacking liberalism, I am attacking the untried theories of individuals with very little real life experience.

            In Japan, standards of behaviour are ‘generally’ (but not always I understand) very, very high especially in areas such as respect for others and I think Western immigrants

            The key component of these ‘untried theories of individuals with very little real life experience’ is that they appear to have as a key tenets to their cult religion that ‘everyone is equal’ and ‘everyone is good at heart’ and if you somehow just let them get on with things they will all become philanthropic Einsteins and save the world.

            Well, they won’t. The first thing a considerable proportion will do is steal the road signs and whatever metal they can get their hands on and melt it down, run some scams, get into every fast buck illegal business there is going, and use every weakness of their host society against it.

            It’s like some doolally Sunday Schoolism gone mad … but ‘you’re the racist’ if you point this out and that they are doing nothing about it.

            Sonno joi!

        • xli

          America has had more substantial and well-publicized racial conflicts that have prompted it to openly confront problems of racism, unlike most countries. America makes a strong effort to educate its schoolchildren about racism and past injustices in America, and enforces stronger laws and taboos on open racism. Of course there are still plenty of racists in America, but openly addressing its problems has made America a much more racially advanced society than countries in East Asia or Western Europe. America has a very mixed racial record, whose overall arc bends towards progress. America has elected a black president, albeit one with an elite educational background. Most Asian or European countries could not do the same.

          Prejudice towards the other groups is human nature, and only education can begin to change it. Some people from countries whose racial minorities or immigrant populations are small are quick to brag about their lack of racism. In fact that racism is simply hidden, and in fact, it is very difficult for foreigners to integrate or settle permanently in those countries. Look at the recent upsurge of the far-right in supposedly advanced Western Europe. I would bet that if you probed, say, taxicab drivers in Japan about what they think about certain racial groups, they will naively betray some rather ugly answers.

          “What may appear like ‘racism’ to your small, uninformed mind, is really just a rational response to negative influences that have been built up on the basis of real experiences in the past.”

          You have just made an open justification of racism. A country may receive immigrants or contain racial minorities who are on average poorer or have lower levels of education, and the dominant group may easily see them as a problematic or risky. This is usually amplified by some natural distrust of what is foreign, as well as rumor. As a result, members of the minority group are in general treated with prejudice. A better society must force its members to suppress this sort of prejudice and consider each individual separately.

          • Truth

            A better society should never force anything upon its members, that is a sort of fascism whether a fascism of the right or a liberal fascism.

            The way to protect a “better society” is to have its immigrants quarantined and educated until they are up to speed on the ways things are done and general standards of their target nation. Unfortunately, the elite capitalist influences have compromised upon this out of their greed and desire for a quick profit and pass the problems of the immigration of the poor, uncivil and uneducated down through society where they then becomes the burden of the working classes rather than the elites either directly, through loss of jobs and undercutting, or indirectly through social conflicts in areas of condensed housing.

            Certain sorts of liberal elites, who generally find their own personal comforts servicing the higher up elites or live off State paid for profession, have the habit or portraying this as “racism” but when you look more closely at it, it’s not. It’s something far more basic and rational literally to the point, “yes, it is true … the new immigrants are noisy, smelly (or rather smell different because their diet is alien) and take the working classes’ jobs”. Sounds like dyed in the wool racism … but, actually, it is true.

            I think Japan had the best idea when it kept all foreigners out, or limited access to anyone but the most trusted to a small island off Nagasaki, and they should have had that desire respected not had American imperialist values rammed down their throat with the muzzles of cannons. Edo was a highly refined society and what ails it had would have been cured gently by the gradually increase in wealth.

            With regards to the last statement, it’s also the facts. Having been a landlord and had both Western and Japanese tenants I can confirm the world of a difference. I don’t think a single landlord in the world would disagree. Japanese are universally thought of as the best tenants,

            The way in which Japanese tenants look after property is in another league. Trashing the apartment, stealing street furniture, drunken parties appears to be some kind of rite of passage for undergraduates in West and, sadly, some of them seem to make their way in via the JET/ALT programme.

            In Japan, I have come across such problems and yet, on the other, I have never once heard, for example, the same inconsiderate noise problems, dumping of rubbish, etc I used to get all the time in West.

            It’s like the famous Otaru Onsen case which is posed as evidence of outrageous “xenophobia” and yet, when you actually look into the events, it turns out the small business had suffered from numerous cases of drunken Russian fishermen upsetting the regulars and in one case punching through a wall.

            What the state employed crusading liberals like Debito seem to lack is any understanding or appreciation of the position of a small business person.

            Everyone wants rights, no one wants to take responsibilities. I am not a racist, my sympathies are entirely with small business people who end up paying for the morons either immediately or in the long term by the loss and damage to their business.

            What the caped crusaders don’t seem to figure or be aware of is the how the world operates in Japan. Why for example, there are such competitively high standards of service and how easy it is to lose one’s reputation and then one’s business.

            What people like about Japan is that it is so highly refined in so many ways and that people are so considerate of others. It operates in a different way.

          • xli

            It is good that you are honest about your attitudes.

            Let me quote a 1905 residence advertisement from San Francisco: “The Japs have invaded the Western Addition…There is only one spot in San Francisco where only Caucasians are permitted to buy or lease real estate or where they may reside…That place is Presidio Terrace. There you will obtain protection from the many nuisances that are now making life in many portions of San Francisco unbearable.”

            Do you feel that Americans’ feelings about the Japanese in the 19th and early 20th centuries were fair? How would you like to be on the receiving end of such prejudices?

            Studies have shown that people are prone to making negative judgments about people who are part of a different group. Immigrants merely try to find a better life than what they faced in their home counties; if you were born into different circumstances would you not do the same? What do people do to deserve where they are born?

            A person cannot change their race. If you discriminate against people based on their race, what can they do? If people are already disadvantaged–poor or uneducated–is it right for you to keep them down permanently with discrimination? If things do not change, this should logically lead to social instability and violent conflict.

            With your attitudes, if you actually had to deal with a large racial minority, you would have all of the worst problems that the U.S. had in its past.

            A good society does not permit discrimination based on race because it is unjust, destructive, and uncivilized. The U.S. has had many problems with this in the past, but now it has strong laws and social norms against this, which, though unable to eradicate racism entirely, successfully suppress at least its most flagrant forms. The U.S. has improved as a society since the 1960s.

        • ChuckRamone

          Good job justifying Japanese racism with a bunch of moral relativism and anecdotes.

        • Far East

          I completely agree with you. I could not have said so better myself.

          What passes for racism from an unexperienced foreigner eye, is merely distrust of foreigners, which historically started at the Tokugawa Ieyasu era when various European countries tried to used Jesuit driven Christian Missionaries to colonize the place, and then later after the re-opening of Japan with Admiral Perry and the era of supranational legal advantage many foreigners benefited from.

          So, distrust yes. Some level of genuine racism or rather xenophobia sure in some rare cases, but as you said, in much less volume that can be witnessed elsewhere, and as you mentioned well, it is mainly due to the homogeneity of the population and that nowhere at no time are the kids taught explicitly or implicitly that there would be inferior races or ethnicity.

    • fe52529929

      hope you end up dismembered and decapitated

    • CMLiu

      Yeah, I’m sure Japan appreciates having some foreigner go in to stir up racial tension and get everyone fighting each other. How well does that work in the West?

      Sure there’s discrimination in Asia. There’s also the concept of harmony, as in not whining over every tiny little thing so society won’t be shattered into little pieces. There’s nothing heroic about stirring the pot. It’s more like warrantless agitation.

  • eiffe

    I don’t like Americans coming to another country and trying to force their definition of “racism” upon others.

    • stocktonabby

      That’s what we do baby!

    • Ivy

      I totally agree.

  • stocktonabby

    This is just wonderful.

  • Andrew

    Japanese are famous for being some of the most racist people on the planet. After living in Japan for one year, as a white American, and a scholar who graduated from UC Berkeley with high honors, writing his thesis on the treatment of the disabled in Japan, I can confirm the outrageous prejudice toward others who are different in Japan. It’s not just disabled or people of different color either, it’s also women who are treated with prejudice. The issues lie deep within Japanese philosophy such as Confucianism and Buddhism.

    • stocktonabby

      Yea, and they are much more difficult to get to eat my peanut sack every once in awhile.

    • Ivy

      “The issues lie deep within Japanese philosophy such as Confucianism and Buddhism.”

      With a sweeping generalization like this it’s hard to accept your claim that you’re a scholar with high honors. Not only that, the comment reflects a definite bias, dare I say prejudice, against those two philosophies.

      • Truth

        Thank you Ivy. Let me just, “what absolute ignorant and stupid garbage”.

    • David Lee

      bleeding heart liberal. we all can’t be as “progressive” as you hippie tie shirt wearing, naive, pseudo-intellectual types

      • Far East

        LOL. Awesome :-)

      • Ivy

        Is name calling all you got? Is your argument so bankrupt?
        And speaking of prejudice, I suppose in your world calling Andrew a liberal is a high insult. And I was sure he was more of your persuasion — given his wild, ignorant generalizations about the Japanese people and yours about liberals.

        • Think

          Writing something like “Japanese are famous for being some of the most racist people” is incredible. Says who? Say those that want you to believe it of whom Andrew is no doubt one.

          Ask who they are … and the get out and experience real life a bit.

          Rather than “liberal” I would have just said, “loud mouth American” school kid. You need a microscope and to be fixated to find such discrimination in Japan and I doubt your friend did.

          • Ivy

            I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you should proof read your posts. And maybe you should have read my complete post.
            I am not defending Andrew. His remarks are ignorant and just wrong. However, insulting him personally is not a valid argument in response — see ad hominem attack.

          • Think

            I was not specifically replying to you Ivy. It’s just the way the software works if you add something to a thread.

            I would have said an ‘ad hominem’ attack was a little different from plain and simple insult, which can often be miraculously effective, economical and therapeutic.

    • Far East

      I don’t disagree with you, but this is not “racism”. It really has nothing to do with race, or ethnicity for that matter. Rather, it is about discrimination. Discrimination happens everywhere, because it is simply embedded in our genes.

  • Amanda

    I too work in Japan as a teacher, and I think his video was spot on. I am not surprised though that he has had backlash from it. Especially, the overly dramatic threat about it going to the Diet. They do love to go straight to the extreme here. The problem is that as “polite and shy” as most of the rest of the world think of the Japanese, they are strongly against looking bad in any way. This reaction, proof in point. It is also why he didn’t get many responses in his classroom. None of those kids wanted to admit to anything, even if they agreed, because on so many social levels, they would “look bad.” Unfortunately, I think that is the state w/most Japanese people, not just students. I agree w/an earlier comment that Americans do tend to go to other countries and project their ideas of things or how things should be, but I don’t think that is that case here. I have visited this country extensively, and never felt/saw any kind of racism. But that is so true about any aspect of society anywhere when you are only a visitor. Only after living here for three years, do I really see it now. Some Japanese, away from urban areas, are extremely xenophobic. So, there is racism towards outsiders. However, in regards to the content of this video, after time spent here, you do see the racism they have towards each other. Most of the time, it’s not blatant. Others, it is astonishingly so. As far as the group protesting his video, these nationalistic views are becoming more and more prevalent in the society and groups like this one are popping up all over the country. In my own little fishing village near Nagasaki there are groups like this one, and if you happen to engage someone in conversation who is part of one of these groups, you learn very, very quickly how racist they can be. All in the name of nationalist pride and a desire to return to a more conservative society.

    • Truth

      Is it possible that some of the responses you and others are talking about is not “racism” but just that foreigners are unattractive for perfectly rational reasons?

      After spending years in Japan, I found that I acclimatized somewhat to Japanese standards and I that I too became really irritated by the inarticulate, disrespectful, self-conscious behavior of ‘fresh off the airplane’ foreigners.

      Not being Japanese, there were times when I could have laid out some foreign punk backpacker for not taking their shoes off when they walked into an ancient temple, was irritated by foreigners talking loudly on trains or putting their feet up on seats and I remember once seeing some drunken and perfumed up nouveau riche Russians tromping all over the moss at the Golden Temple taking inane pictures. If I’d had a katana, and been allowed, I would have cut them down on the spot.

      Prior to moving to Japan, I lived in one of the world’s greatest cities and, to be frank, we felt the same way not even to foreigners but to provincials coming into our city. If one of them had whined “discrimination” we would have said, “no, it’s just because you’re overweight, badly dressed, wearing bad haircuts and wandering at half-speed in bovine herds on pavements we pay for carrying huge bags … and we’re trying to get to work”.

      Sometimes I wonder how foreigners must look to native Japanese. Many of what one might call “racist” stereotypes are actually perfectly true and so when I see comedians putting on fake long noses and parodying gaijin I laugh because, mostly, it’s bang on the nail.

      After years of being in Japan I can only think of one very minor problem experience and it was,

      a) entirely my fault, and

      b) would have been instantly resolvable if I had spoken better Japanese.

      (I was going to get into a plunge pool after a sauna without rinsing first that was it).

      In years of being in Japan, I had no problems and nothing but courtesy, exceptional politeness and crushing generosity. I was never stopped by police. I was never harassed. I was never refused service.

      • Far East

        Thanks. I completely agree!

    • David Lee

      here we go again, i cant stand not being part of this society so there must be something wrong–arguement. You liberal types needs to join Al-Qaidu and then get blown to smithereens by your President

    • Whirled Peas

      Hey Amanda, I’m sorry you’ve experienced the rural xenophobia you’re described. It must be disconcerting. But, I’m not so sure that is much different from moving to some parts of rural or small-town America where in tightly-knit communities, neighbors have known and relied on each other for decades, borrowed and returned each others supplies and equipment, are keen to support only gov’t policies that will help their community’s interests, and whose children have grown up together and married each other. Any outsiders who try to become part of these American communities are looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion, at least until they show they are trustworthy and share and support the interests of the community.

  • http://www.slashgear.com Ewdison Then

    Throwing my 2cents out there. I have lived in Texas (US), UK (Barnsley), East Timor (Dili), Australia (Darwin), Singapore, and Jakarta/Pontianak Borneo (Indonesia), JB (Malaysia), and Japan (by lived, means I have stayed there at least over a year) – Seen plenty of different culture, variety types of people, and ways of life. Everyone are different, and think differently.

    A little story of my experience, I was in Dallas for 12 years, & in 1999 I was traveling on I-35 in texas heading to San Antonio and had to fill up the gas along the way, I wanted to pay with a check (never like using credit cards or carry a lot of cash), but the clerk told me that he would not accept an asian’s checks because he tend to think asian like me writes hot checks. I was a bit upset and swipe my debit card instead. I asked him why he thinks that, and he told me he never gets hot checks 7 years working there until an asian lady wrote one to him for gas and some chips. I said, so after seeing me paid for a debit card, does he still think I am a hot check writer? He said obviously NOT with a smile, I smile back and say have a good day; He said, hey man, I’m sorry!

    From that experience alone, I started to understand that human reacts to protect themselves, and sometimes their action in doing so could be taken as being racist. I did experience cultural differences, but I would not call it racism. We tend to use the label racism too easily nowadays.

    Yes, real racism that is based on pure hate are out there, those are the type we need to stand up against. I am now 2 years into my time in Japan, have not experience any REAL racism yet, but I would certainly hope that one day racism is a thing in the past.

    • Whirled Peas

      Excellent post. Thanks for sharing! WP

    • Far East

      I completely agree with you. Well said.

    • CMLiu

      Good post. Wanting to protect your own ethnic integrity in your own country often manifests as racism, but itself is not racism. Do not accept the Western definition, where everything is racism. Xenophobia perhaps, but xenophobia is perfectly justified. Multiculturalism is peaceful genocide of the local majority. No Asian should forget this.

      • http://www.slashgear.com Ewdison Then

        Totally! I think people tend to pull the race card too soon.

  • Whirled Peas

    Just want to say that this is probably the most interesting, detailed, and sane discussion I’ve seen on this site for awhile. I enjoyed hearing the points of view expressed clearly from many angles. Thanks, I was beginning to despair of having intelligent exchanges. Now, off to immerse myself in mindless but fun American TV :-)

  • Truth

    I found an earlier piece by Norman Mikine Dezaki which strangely, but not uniquely, Japan Times took his name off.

    “To the minister of education: Shame over poor English level lies with education ministry”

    As an American, I think he should avoid making demands of Japan to apologize. It’s a bit archetypal, isn’t it? You know, not only the idea of Japan being racist but Japan never apologizing too.

    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2009/01/20/community/shame-over-poor-english-level-lies-with-education-ministry-2/#.UTIbgY4q-SM

  • hallocco

    I think there is discrimination in Japan. I don’t think that it is currently as violent as the discrimination that has existed in the US since WWII. But The point here isn’t who is worse. This teacher was trying to use the culture of another country to hold up a mirror to Japanese culture, which is a normal and healthy part of cultural sharing and self-awareness. When I went to Japan, I realized America makes few concerted efforts to assist the blind, particularly as compared to Japan. I also realized that Japanese people as a culture believe that foreigners are more like to commit crimes than Japanese people. I’m not saying it’s completely unfounded. After all, foreigners in any country are less likely to be invested in the society and legal system, particularly if they are transient visitors. Most prejudices have some basis in reason or experience. However I think it’s important to recognize those motivations and know when you cannot act on them or allow them to influence your judgments about people. On a more serious level, you get horrifying instances of Japanese discrimination against foreigners in cases like Govinada Prasad Mainali. But I can personally attest to some instances of unfair treatment. When I worked in Japan, I happened to be stationed in the town where the G-8 summit was held that year. I had been working there for over 6 months when the official security force was put in place. Subsequently, I was stopped three times while walking around town, twice while driving, and even had the police come visit my home twice just to “check up” on me. There were actually many complaints by the foreign community that they were being unfairly targeted. On one occasion, when I was driving with my husband (we are both Caucasians) , we were behind a car that was pulled over for a random check. The officer directing traffic came to our window to ask us politely to slow down. He blinked when he saw us, said something to his colleague who then waved on the car they had pulled over, and asked us to pull over for questioning instead. Now I don’t know if the people in front of me were Japanese or foreigners. I just know it was the third time I had been pulled over and had to give my name, employer, and show a copy of my resident alien card. In the scheme of things, not so terrible as lynching, but it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, and I was made to feel like a suspicious person when I was there at the request of the local and national government. Mind you, this was a small enough town that my employers would hear both from the police and locals if I had been seen being questioned by the police, and then I would get a lecture about it the next day, and have to apologize for any trouble I had caused my employer (by being conspicuously white). That said, I felt very welcomed and loved by the Japanese people on the whole, and I don’t want to stereotype them all as xenophobes or racists, but I think that there are still traces of Japan’s old xenophobic mindset left over, and it’s only through recognition and self-awareness that those mindsets can be eliminated, as in any culture.