Next time you get heckled or made known of your ostracism just ask this question:

”Are Ainu, indigenous Japanese or Gaijin?”

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….