Posted on 07/11/2005 6:11:57 AM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
An independent investigator for the UN says racism in Japan is deep and profound, and the government does not recognise the depth of the problem.
Doudou Diene, a UN special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia, was speaking at the end of a nine-day tour of the country.
He said Japan should introduce new legislation to combat discrimination.
Mr Diene travelled to several Japanese cities during his visit, meeting minority groups and touring slums.
He said that although the government helped to organise his visit, he felt many officials failed to recognise the seriousness of the racism and discrimination minorities suffered.
He was also concerned that politicians used racist or nationalist themes, as he put it, to whip up popular emotions. He singled out the treatment of ethnic Koreans and Chinese and indigenous tribes.
Mr Diene says he plans to recommend that Japan enact a law against discrimination, which he said should be drawn up in consultation with minority groups.
He said he would now wait for the Japanese government to respond to his comments before submitting a report to the United Nations.
One man's racism is another man's homogeny. Japan is not a racist society, they just enjoy the company of other Japanese and there's nothing wrong with that.
What's wrong? Don't they have any Mooselimbs living there?
I thought liberals only called it racism if it is a mostly white nation. I thought they'd standardized on ethnocentrism or nationalism when talking about other countries. Frankly MOST countries are like this. The French, The Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese, long list. Course at least none of those cut the heads off different races as muslims do to unbeleivers.
Bet they have little crime, bet they are not paying blackmail payments to welfare voters. Bet they are not suffering from more internal murders every night than a country in a war zone.
Homogamy...I think not!
One can go to an NAACP convention and find "deep and profound"
racism. Guess some folks at the UN decided they didn't look ridiculous enough, so now they're going to tackle another problem they can't possibly solve.
Frankly, I think it's none of our business what the Japanese do.
By American standards, every country in the enire world is racist.
I applaud them for it!
Japan IS a racist society. Blackface comic portrayls can still be found and there are bars that turn away westerners (no foreigners permitted).
Then again, there are other nations that discriminate too (Quebec and France among them).
Never hear the world condemning their "French language first/only" policy. We were denied service (told to leave, in English) at a restaurant in Quebec. "You can't come in here".
The popular myth is that only white Americans discriminate.
Japan is clearly a racist society. Major politicians have made off the cuff remarks proclaiming the superiority of Japanese race over all others especially over blacks (and whites, I might add...) Chinese, etc.
Remarks of the kind which 50 years ago a Mississippi politician wouldn't have dreamed of saying are almost routine in Japan--who knows what is said behind closed doors.
The national repentence which occurred in Germany, never really took place in Japan...and their atrocities in conquored Asian countries were every bit as great as that of Germany in Europe (there were just a lot fewer Jewish people to murder in the far east).
Nothing surprising here. Japan has been and is a racist society.
Why the devil is there a UN investigator looking into racism in Japan? That is really stupid. There are bigger fish to fry here.
Not by American standards...but by liberal standards....
Poverty Pimps...
(sp)Gaiijan=Foreigners
They are- but who really cares? Aren't we all, somewhat?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin
Gaikokujin ("foreigner" lit. "outside country person") is a Japanese word used to refer to foreigners. Gaijin (lit: "outside person"), a separate word originally meaning "outsider" or "enemy," is not a contraction of gaikokujin. However, gaijin is now most commonly used to mean caucasian, and is often rendered "foreigner", though as will be shown, this is not an accurate translation.
Generally, the term is used to describe non-Asian foreigners in Japan, but not for blacks. Furthermore, Japanese tourists often use the word to refer to local caucasians when they travel abroad. East Asians are usually referred to using their ethnic or national backgrounds, as in ch¨±gokujin (ÖйúÈË Chinese; lit. China + person) or kankokujin (South Korean; lit. South Korea + person). Foreigners of primarily Japanese ancestry are called nikkei, while part-Japanese foreigners are usually called h¨¡fu ("half") or ku¨t¨¡ ("quarter"). This indicates that the term gaijin carries racial, as well as national, nuances
History
The first Europeans to visit Japan were the Portuguese in 1542. They were known as Nanbanjin (lit. "southern barbarian people"), owing to the fact that their ships came sailing in from the south, and that they were perceived as quite unrefined by Japanese standards. This designation was adopted from Chinese usage, and had been in use to name southern people in general.
The usage of the term died off during the Edo era, when the country was closed to foreigners. From 1854, when Japan opened again, until the early 20th century, foreigners in Japan were commonly referred to as ijin (lit. "different person"), a contraction of ikokujin (lit. "different country person") or ihoojin (lit. "different motherland person").
Starting in the Meiji era, the term gaikokujin was used to refer to Japanese residents from outside the Empire of Japan, while the term naikokujin ("inside country person") was used to refer to nationals of other territories of the Empire. The naikokujin term fell out of use after World War II, but gaikokujin remained the official government term for non-Japanese people in Japan.
[edit]
Political correctness
Some feel that in a collectivist culture such as Japan, where strong social and business distinctions are made between in- and out-group members, the literal meaning of this word, i.e. "outside person," emphasises the idea that non-Japanese are outsiders. Others point out that what foreigners in Japan really find annoying is that, after settling into Japan and becoming proficient in the language, they are still referred to as "foreigners" by people who couldn't possibily know their actual citizenship or status of residence. Further, the term is regularly applied to naturalized Japanese citizens who do not have ethnically Japanese ancestry. Due to these racially oriented and out-group contexts in a society that is nearly ethnically homogeneous, non-Japanese often perceive the word gaijin as derogatory.
Japanese may avoid using gaijin in front of non-Japanese, using instead the term gaikokujin (some non-Japanese even insist on this). On the other hand, most Japanese use the term gaijin as part of their conversation, ostensibly without pejorative intent. In fact, puzzled Japanese sometimes ask foreigners why they find the word gaijin to be offensive. On the other hand, more sensitive individuals who have lived abroad may be offended themselves when another Japanese person uses the word, regardless of the user's intent.
Because of these mixed perceptions of the word gaijin, it is a common target of kotobagari ("word hunting"), the censorship of terms considered to be politically incorrect.
The Ainu, those round-eyed, brunette aboriginal people from Hokkaido, might beg to differ. Of course, after all these centuries, I doubt you find an Ainu who looks like his or her ancestors.
Wonder if the status of the Okinawans has risen since the Ryukyu Islands reverted back to Japan in '72? That might be something interesting for me to chase after.
. . . and there's nothing wrong with that.
Yes, there is.
I spent two weeks in Japan last summer on a Boy Scout trip and I was treated with wonderful hospitality everywhere I went.
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