subtle(sometimes not) hits of xenophobic attitudes still held by society in that half children are labeled as gaijin, any airtime we get on tv makes us out to be stupid and not able to speak Japanese properly or really understand Japanese culture.
True, I would add that you can't speak English properly either
I find that a lot of people who complain about xenophobia aren't nice people to begin with, and they attribute other people's dislike of them to "xenophobia" or "racism".
It's very simple, actually. If you're not a likeable person, people won't treat you nicely. It doesn't matter where in the world you live.
Beyond that, you made some good points about Japanese behaviour like only speaking to the Japanese person or speaking English to people with gaijin faces.
I don't think that's motivated by xenophobia, it's just that 1. Sometimes Japanese people can't understand foreign-accented Japanese, so they don't want to get embarrassed by not understanding what you say. 2. They want to make things easier for everyone, and perceive that you might not be as fluent, so they speak to a person they believe to be more fluent, or speak English to you.
I don't understand how speaking your language to you can be perceived as racist. As far as I know, speaking a person's native language to them is usually received very well, especially with foreigners. It's an implicit way of saying, hey, you're welcome here. Only in certain cases people get offended because they want to fit in so hard, and they have issues with self-identity (i.e. not confident with who they are).
Japan does struggle with xenophobia, and not without reason. But sometimes certain perceived "xenophobic" actions come from a good place in the heart.
Speaking of which, aren't you stereotyping Japanese people? And you want to complain about me talking about other races...
Please practice what you preach.
EDIT:
Note please notice I never say racism as you can't be racist to white people. Those that can and do experience are people of colour( in Japan that mainly being Koreans and Chinese)
Note please notice I never say racism as you can't be racist to white people.
you can't be racist to white people.
I deleted my response because this quote really speaks for itself
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