Racism By White People

Keiji

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19 Hate crimes against Muslims in a week in America...

I wander what are the whites who complained about Japan and are now in their country doing about this there now.

Lets remember those who used to talk about Multi-culturalism acceptance in US...
 
There's obviously a lot of white guys in Japan who are experiencing being a minority for the first time. That doesn't excuse either the racism in the US (or Europe), nor does it excuse the racism that exists in Japan.

For me as a white guy in Japan, being a minority is certainly a different experience and I've definitely experienced racism -- subtle, non-aggressive, and usually very polite, but still racism. I tend to not go posting about it on the internet or whatever, I just accept it as a force but fight it by meeting more Japanese people and try to show them that not all Americans are as they are portrayed in popular culture or on the news.
 
There's obviously a lot of white guys in Japan who are experiencing being a minority for the first time. That doesn't excuse either the racism in the US (or Europe), nor does it excuse the racism that exists in Japan.

For me as a white guy in Japan, being a minority is certainly a different experience and I've definitely experienced racism -- subtle, non-aggressive, and usually very polite, but still racism. I tend to not go posting about it on the internet or whatever, I just accept it as a force but fight it by meeting more Japanese people and try to show them that not all Americans are as they are portrayed in popular culture or on the news.
Well said.....
 
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I wander what are the whites who complained about Japan and are now in their country doing about this there now.

I have few white friends and I never had any issues. Except Australians. To give an example I was in one of the most famous pubs in Tokyo last new years eve and obviously it was really crowded. I was trying to get a drink from the bar so I was making my way through the crowd and that time heard an Australian girl saying "Bloody Indians always *something*". I know she was Australian because I can make of where people are from, according to their accent really well.

Maybe its just me but I always hear Australians making racist remarks. Although, doesn't bother me anymore cause I stopped giving a fuck long time ago.
 
Racism is practiced by all kinds of people. Take the case of these Indian men getting beat up in a black neighborhood. Or that time Chinese locals destroyed a Chinese business thought to be owned by a Japanese man. I could go on with the cases of acts brazen signs and acts of violence, murder.
 
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@astonmartini
... and the beat goes on. Isn't labelling Aussies 'racist' because you have heard a few ignorant ones mouth off. Was she Anglo-Aussie, Greek-Aussie, Chinese-Aussie, sort of coffee-coloured Aussie? I move in a very multicultural expat circle in Japan. East Asians discriminate against other East Asians in the same ways as your Aussie, as do South Asians against other South Asians, etcetc. None of it is right, all of it happens, but saying "all" of XXX is very galah-like.
 
@astonmartini
... and the beat goes on. Isn't labelling Aussies 'racist' because you have heard a few ignorant ones mouth off. Was she Anglo-Aussie, Greek-Aussie, Chinese-Aussie, sort of coffee-coloured Aussie? I move in a very multicultural expat circle in Japan. East Asians discriminate against other East Asians in the same ways as your Aussie, as do South Asians against other South Asians, etcetc. None of it is right, all of it happens, but saying "all" of XXX is very galah-like.

Hence,

Maybe it's just me but ...
 
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Unfortunately, as said by others above, racism is everywhere, and labelling and isolating a group as racist is not helpful. I have seen Indians abusing fellow South Asians Sri Lankans and Nepalis..And even more blacks...But that does not lead me to call all Indian "racists"...
 
19 Hate crimes against Muslims in a week in America...

I wander what are the whites who complained about Japan and are now in their country doing about this there now.

Lets remember those who used to talk about Multi-culturalism acceptance in US...
oh great, there are stupid people abroad as well so it's ok to be stupid here ? is that what you mean ? what are you trying to do ? defend the japanese racist by accusing the white racists ?

you act as if the victims of japanse racism are the same culprit of white racism.
why are you chosing to side with the japanse racist rather than the wherever they are from non racist people ?

I'm neither white nor japanse and I tell you all the racists are stupid may they be japanese, white, black or arabs and I'm glad there is also non racists among japanese white and others. if someone complain about racists from my country I'll be angry against those racists not against the guy who complain about them. I won't feel accused by him because I'm not racist.
 
I have few white friends and I never had any issues. Except Australians. To give an example I was in one of the most famous pubs in Tokyo last new years eve and obviously it was really crowded. I was trying to get a drink from the bar so I was making my way through the crowd and that time heard an Australian girl saying "Bloody Indians always *something*". I know she was Australian because I can make of where people are from, according to their accent really well.

Maybe its just me but I always hear Australians making racist remarks. Although, doesn't bother me anymore cause I stopped giving a fuck long time ago.

Australians can be a funny bunch sometimes. Actually the one time in Japan I saw any foreigners making tits of themselves I was in a bar with a friend we'd stopped off in waiting to meet some Japanese friends for dinner after they finish work and seeing a couple of white guys this old Aussie couple came up to us and we chatted for a bit until the old guy got on a rant about how nobody in Japan wants to speak English and other silly remarks about how their culture doesn't bend to them and I'm just thinking "Well no....Because this is Japan where they speak Japanese."

I think people either run away from it or they learn to adjust some people manage better than others with it. Being the minority for anyone is difficult and there are times you feel like a somewhat neglected unwelcome guest but most of the time I never got that impression from people. It's not like there are lynch mobs and people being openly abusive. I can live with people pretending to be busy and not serving me then serving a Japanese person 10 seconds later or coughing to hide a laugh because the waitresses had a long debate about who has to serve my table full of foreigners and she lost. Racism is just something white people are doing and not experiencing so for some it gets to them.
 

No, it's impossible to be racist against white people in a country where white people are a majority of population (historically anyway) and majority of wealth. Racism is generally considered a systemic/institutional condition. You can't implement racist policies (too many historically to name in the US) if you don't have control the mechanisms of power.

In Japan, it's impossible to be racist against Japanese people.
 
Racism is generally considered a systemic/institutional condition.

Fwiiw, in my understanding of the term, supported by some quick googling of the definition in a bunch of standard dictionaries including the most authoritative one (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/racism), "racism" is a belief that some races are inherently superior to others, and a "racist" is someone holding such a belief. What actions, institutional or personal, follow from such beliefs are another matter in the standard definitions of the words to the best of my understanding; it is the *belief* itself in racial superiority/inferiority that matters.

In that sense, location has nothing to do with it.

-Ww
 
a belief that some races are inherently superior to others, and a "racist" is someone holding such a belief.

That's one definition, sure. And even based on that definition, you can't argue that, say, some black people are racist against whites, because the behavior of those black people don't come from a belief of superiority. Generally if you are a racist and hold the levers of power, you are going to use it against those who you think are inferior.

The first paragraph of the wikipedia article on racism says: "Racism consists of ideologies and practices that seek to justify, or cause, the unequal distribution of privileges or rights among different racial groups. Modern variants are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems that consider different races to be ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities. It may also hold that members of different races should be treated differently."
 
This is one of these widely misunderstood, or very differently understood words. It's basic definition seems simple, but in reality it's quite complex. For comparison, just check the definition of "sex" and see how much it lacks.

@meiji is right that more detailed descriptions/analysis about "racism" tends to separate them into three broad categories: social, institutional, and systemic. The social level is what many people (especially white folks) think mainly as "racism", and some understanding of institutional racism based on history of the US Black Civil Rights Movement. However, on the social, interpersonal level, "racism" seems to be often mixed together with bigotry, prejudice, and xenophobia. I believe in Japan, white people face all of these, but probably face "racism" the least often (one reason being that white people are often viewed as racially superior). Racism in Japan, IMO, is most often practiced against people from South East Asia and Africa (especially people with darker-colored skin).
 
This is one of these widely misunderstood, or very differently understood words.

Well, if your and meiji's definition is the only/main correct one, all the standard English dictionaries have it wrong!

But, imo at least, there is an authority that trumps dictionaries...in fact it is the source from which they derive their contents ultimately, and that is popular usage. This, I think, is were the "differently understood" comes into play. In the US at least (speaking as someone who lived through the and to a limited extent participated in the 1960s US Black Civil Rights Movement), popular usage of racism and racist are not as closely connected as one would think from reading a dictionary. In particular, the word "racism" does indeed most often (though not always) refer to the social, institutional and systemic consequences of the notion that one race is superior to another. However, the word "racist" can refer either, as an adjective, to those consequences (e.g., "that's a racist policy") or, as a noun or adjective, to a person who believes that one race is superior to another (e.g., "Joe is a racist" or "Joe is horribly racist").

-Ww
 
Can we all just agree that most of the time when people say racist they mean bigot?

Most of (if not all of) the time, racists are by definition also bigots.

Racism is a relatively new concept for humanity, so the definition is constantly changing. The idea that racism is a systemic, institutional phenomenon is even more recent.
 
Most of (if not all of) the time, racists are by definition also bigots.

All racists are bigots, but not all bigots are racists. Some are homophobes, others are prejudiced based on faith or occupation or economic standing, etc...
 
All racists are bigots, but not all bigots are racists. Some are homophobes, others are prejudiced based on faith or occupation or economic standing, etc...

I don't know. Systemic racism affects the thoughts and actions of most people, whether they'd be considered a "racist" or not. We're probably all guilty of committing some micro-aggression or small decision motivated by race, but I don't think those actions constitute bigotry.