Let’s review what you have said (your words are in dashes.)

—To westerners who are upset at being prejudiced by us Japanese. I want to let you know that Japanese people were not allowed to become American until WW2 ended. Even the nisseis who were born in USA were interned, and the US tried to strip them of their citizenship. In Canada, they took away the property, and charged head taxes. I feel good to see us Japanese standing up to white people saying to them that they get no special treatment, and that we can make even white people second class.—

The year is now 2008. Sixty-three years have passed. In that time America has gone through a massive social upheaval, roughly from 1957-1972. In that time most nisei and issei have been apologized to and generally garner sympathy from the average citizen. In that time the Quota System on Asians died, the Civil Rights Act has been passed (don’t be fooled into thinking it applied to blacks only, that is a fallacy) and the Supreme Court totally altered the dynamics of race forever: it was an issue that once didn’t speak its name and now not only is it debated around the table there is a black man running for President who looks like he may win.

The current powers that be include Daniel Inouye (a nisei himself) who both holds the highest honor the Army can bestow and has been a loved Hawaiian Senator for decades. Tetsuya Fujita did groundbreaking work in meteorology. John Meada is a professor at MIT and a Japanese American man whose applications of technology to the arts would be worth billions to Nintendo or Sony. Ann Curry is set to cover the Olympics (her mother is issei) and Eric Shinseki was a Japanese American who bravely stood up to the President and his band of morons over Iraq (he is now a great voice of dissent with some influence in the military.) We have made horrible mistakes in the past (we still do), we are far from ideal, but we DO deal with it every damned day. It is ugly, sordid, and innumerably pointed out to Americans wherever we go, even as the Germans seldom get reminders of their Nazi past and the British of its actions in India and Ireland. But we DEAL.

Since when can Japan claim any of the same? Since when has a gaijin ever been able or allowed to accomplish any of the achievements of the above, especially considering all the American cases were either naturalized Japanese or Japanese by lineage? Since when has Japan done anything except allow national shame to cripple the people so badly that the normal choice is to bury it in the cupboard so deep that the word “Narnia” comes to mind? -It is extremely hard for a foreigner to get a resident’s visa in Japan and quite frankly the treatment of gaijin I have witnessed ranges from the ignorant to the vicious: An Irish woman does not like to be groped by some creepy businessman and then get jailed because she fought back. An Australian father doesn’t like having his heart broken when his children are abducted to Japan by his ex-wife and the Japanese courts NEVER rule in favor of a foreign parent. A black American woman does not like being treated like livestock/ostracized for her skin color/ogled for her exoticness or being called a “negro.” She even is capable of understanding Japanese: hate to break it to you, but I have some bilingual black pals coming back from East Asia/Japan reporting that the offenders may not use the word “nigger”, but in practice and in conversation they heard things that would make the Klan proud.

–What I don’t like is seeing Japanese American second lieutenants who work the Okinawa bases with III Marines as translators. What is a Japanese doing wearing an Eagle, Globe and Achor with white soldiers and negros under their command to occupy and control the land of their grandfathers? This is disrespectful to the ancestors land.

The USA should not be using Nikkeijin to work the US bases stationed in Japan wearing the American flag. This is, treason as a Japanese.—-

Okinawa and the Japanese government have the right to ask the soldiers to leave at any time. Okinawans can simply refuse to do business with the bases: no alcohol, no parties. The same is true in Germany, Qatar, Taiwan, etc. Whereas I don’t deny the denizens of the bases at Okinawa are pigs, the victims deserve justice, and that Bush can barely walk without having to remind himself where his feet are let alone revamping a 60 year old agreement I do think that shall change in the coming election if Obama gets it: diplomacy is one of his top priorities and that shall be needed on an issue of particular interest to both the US and Japan: North Korea. (Funny how as a black man he’d normally be shunned in fair Hokkaido…..)

Furthermore, what is most treasonous to an ancestor is not learning from the past and endangering the future. Japan sadly, doesn’t do very much in this regard: textbooks don’t discuss much about the Rape of Nanking, the hostile takeover of Korea, or what the social climate was that precipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor. Instead there is a cultural preference for preaching nihonjinron/pride in insularity. The only problem is that it has taken its toll in the past and shall do it again, in fact already does: American businesses have to send ASSOCIATES AND LACKEYS to deal with Japanese businessmen in the case where board members/CEOs are female or black. The fools are so taken with chauvinism they don’t realize they would get more of what they want if they’d just meet with the normal board or CEO. (This is not unique to America, but true of companies found in six of the eight G8 members.)

If Japan does not change and solely defines nationality by jus sanguinis and everyone else as barbarians it puts itself at great risk in the long term: a homogenous society has much higher risks of genetic diseases. (Japan already has a large pool of sufferers from CIPA, rare in other populations except Ashkenazi Jews.) Japan has a decent sized population however only a trickle of new genetic material is getting in now-if the birthrate continues to fall and xenophobia gets any worse it may mean danger (foreign brides will be harder to find in the future as there shall be a lot of fighting with China and Korea to get them due to their own gender imbalances and prejudices.)

So go ahead Takeshi. Enjoy your insularity and ethnocentrism: my country is coming out of a nasty misbegotten war because of our ignorance and arrogance and because we failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam. I’d rather not entertain what will eventually explode in the East.

But seriously, Takeshi, what you have said just confirms the xenophobic attitude in Japan. Keep in mind, this isn’t the 1940’s, things have changed in the US. The US is not an internment camp for the Japanese, we don’t own slaves anymore, attitudes have changed in the US. Of course there are small backwards places that are racist in the US, but it is such a small part of this country and people get called out for it all the time.

From what I hear about Japan, things are much different. The Japanese are not culturally diverse at all and have grown up in a closed society. Even after WW2, when the US helped rebuild Japanese society by dumping millions of dollars in modern factories, which still hasn’t been paid back to this day, to help Japan become a World power nothing has changed when it comes to cultural equality. Not to mention an “evil white American” was the one to bring standardization through statistics to Japanese companies and help them vastly improve their products so that they are recognized as some of the highest quality in the World. Before that, Japanese products were garbage.

Of course if Japan really doesn’t like the US, us “whites and negros” can just take our billions of dollars out of the Japanese companies we’ve invested in, drive American and imported German, English and Italian cars, and buy American and European Electronics. We wouldn’t want to dirty up the yen with our unpure Dollar and Euro….

DISPROVE ME
OR
SUPPORT ME

PROVE ME WRONG OR RIGHT.

WITH DEBATE AND LOGICAL ARGUMENT.
FOR I CARE NOT FOR BULLCRAP BASED ON ILLUSION, WISHFULL THINKING, CULTURE, SAYING OR DELLUSIONS OF RACE AND RELIGION.

I ACCEPT FACTS AND LOGIC AND PEOPLE WHO ACTUUALLY PUT TIME AND THOUGHTS INTO THEIR THOUGHTS. NOT RABBLE ON ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE RELIGION THAT MAY NOT EVEN BE REAL , TRUTHFUL, RIGHT OR PROVABLE, LOGICAL. JUST YOUR OPINION AND BELIEF OR FAITH VERSES MINE………………(I DISLIKE SUCH DELUSIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND WHICH HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL TO KNOW THE TRUTH BUT RATHER LIVE IN A CONFORT OF DELUDED LIES SO THE WORLD TO THEM IS A ‘NICER’, ‘BETTER-SOUNDING’ , ‘ILLUSIONEARY HAPPY PLACE’…….

ITS NOT…………………………………………

CHEERS PEOPLE.
PEACE OUT

i will tell you what you are, not you but me and all creatures that are ‘alive’

they are nothing more than a bunch of cells clustered together in system. you and me and all are just chemical reactions and these reactions of chemicals has no ‘meaning’ or ‘identity’ or ‘importance’ or ‘race’ or ‘culture’.

and you may say well we as a ‘human’ does have culture and race’ WRONG.!!!!!!!!11

IF YOU THINK THAT, THEN YOU ARE TRULY IN A MIND OF ILLUSION, DELUSION AND basically there is the phrase:

’self lying to self’

then to others and then others actually ‘believing’ the crap of human dellusion due to passing down from generation to generation and thus not accepting or SEEING the ‘TRUTH’ of reality and life.

that it all is ‘meaningless’, and ‘unimportant’ and ‘feable’ and ‘laughable’ and

’simple humans’ feable and pointless and meaningless attempt and trying to be something that TRUTH BE TOLD we are not……trying to make meaningless chemcial reactions and process into something special, spitritual, important and GODLY.

we are ants, and nothing more……no gods or something grander for GOD ITSELF is imaginary.

peace out my chemcial reative ‘brothers and sister’, i share your ‘pain’ but PAIN, is again just an illusion of the mind, same as happiness, and love and hate and racism and the feeling in this case, RACISM,

THEY ARE MERE NOTHINGS. see the truth and don’t live in the lies of human dellusion.

but as i said, i do share your pains and sufferieng. for we all go through life the same, REGARDLESS OF OUR HISTORY, OUR DNA, OUR so-called CULTURE AND COLOUR AND RACE AND CREED (FOR THESE AREMAN-MADE) And being man-made, can be fallible and it is….and of course ging man-made can me MAN-UNMADE,

into something that is more ‘tolerable and nice and pleasant’ (though all these feelings and words are again just human dellusion) for in TRUTH

natures sees not anytihng…..it doesn’t differentiate between colours and races and people and plants and animals and love and hate and death and life and important or unimportant, meaning or meaningless.

THERE SIMPLE IS ‘NOTHING’……………………………..no emotion, no knowledge , no nothing. and we as humans AS LIFE………….in sad truth is the same. NOTHINGNESS…

AND IF YOU FEEL THERE IS SOMETHING, (for even me writing this message and these word need soemthing and meaning and feelings and thoughts and fingers and computers and electricity)

it all really is JUST INT HE MIND OF THE DELLUSIONED HUMAN………..(in absoulte unbias truth)

for other life forms and creature think nothing of us or our thoughts and messages as you read now RIGHT NOW before your eyes and in your minds (constantly trying to comprehend, be conscious and aware and ‘KNOWING’)

but in the end, THERE IS NOTHING FOR IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS NOTHING SO INBETWEEN ‘nothingess’ is actaully truth (WHO ARE WE TO SAY AND CLAIM THAT ALL THIS LIFE AND FEELINGS MEANING SOMETHING.

IT IS THE BEGIINING AND THE END THAT COUNTS. (the middle is the journey and all we can do in life is focus on that coz we have nothing in the beginning and nothing in the end and really nothing in the inbetween (but we force ourselves to BELIEVE THERE IS SOMETHING…………..MY FRIENDS IT IS SIMPLY MERE HUMAN DELUSSION CLOUDING THE ULIMATE SAD TRUTH OF EXISTENCE, REALITY AND OUR LIVES.

PEACE OUT MY FELLOW LIFE FORMS THAT ‘WE’ CALL ‘HUMAN’ AND SOME DECIDED TO SPLIT IT UP INTO RACES AND CULTURES AND DEFEND IT AND KILL AND FIGHT AND HOLD TO IT LIKE IT WAS SOMETHING SPECIAL. IT ISN’T…..(FOR WE ARE ALL ‘NOTHING’ IN THE FIRST PLACE IN SCHEME OF THINGS)…..

but peace out anyways and treat each other ‘good’ right and ‘decent’ for if there is nothing really to reality and exitence, then the ‘kindest’ gestures and the ‘nices’ acts.

ITS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD……………..IN THIS WORLD OF NOTHINGNESS ANYWAYS………………………………

Perhaps you would do better to refer to the ‘whites’ and the ‘negros’ as ‘Americans’.

I think that you are worse than any supposed ‘Gaijin’ as you actually believe that those in Japan who aren’t Japanese are second-class and not worthy of your attention. Also, not every White or Black person is an American. As a European, I don’t really appreciate being lumped in with a country that I have absolutely nothing to do with. Perhaps you would feel the same way if you were referred to as Chinese were you in a different country?

Though I suppose it is in a sense good to have the views of a very definate racist in response to this article. Your comments and views only serve to emphasise what has been said in the article.

Perhaps it is that you feel second class yourself as a Japanese person in the international world? Don’t worry, it is your racist views on others, not your race itself that make you a second class citizen.

Maybe it’s important to remember that younger people in Japan are very different from older people. A lot of the younger men I know are looking for love and don’t seem to accept cheating. And several care about women. Though, it’s not just younger men. It’s obvious that there are happy marriages of older people as well. However, as in anywhere in the world, there are cheaters and lousy men. That’s just expected.

I’m just tired of hearing such a negative view of Japanese men. A lot of foreigners in Japan who start feeling very negative seem to continually express opinions that Japanese men are abusive cheaters who don’t love or care for women. This is, of course, true for some and I definitely think that Japan can make it perhaps too easy for some men to act in that way and I have seem some ignorance towards how some harrassment affects women, but it’s not fair to describe Japanese men so often in that manner. It’s not fair to the respectable and loving men of Japan who really do care for their wives.

Excuse any of my poor spelling or grammar.