“Take Japan, for instance” is that argument where White Americans compare themselves to the Japanese to show that their racism is natural, reasonable or not all that bad, that it is what anyone in their position would do.
For example:
“I don’t think white people are unique in how the view themselves or ‘others’. Japanese for instance, view themselves as ‘normal’ and everyone else as ‘strangely different’.
As a moral argument this is terrible. It is the “everyone does it” excuse, the Arab Trader argument. Even eight-year-olds know better than that.
Japan is hardly a good moral example:
- Bataan Death March,
- Rape of Nanking,
- comfort women,
- forced mass suicide of Okinawans.
Etc. This stuff is used in another piece of White racist sophistry: the Asian Atrocity argument, wherein White Americans show that they are not “uniquely evil”, as if anyone said they were.
And if all that was “too long ago”, there is discrimination going on right now, today, in Japan against the millions who do not belong to the main ethnic group, the Yamato:
- Koreans,
- Okinawans,
- Chinese,
- Ainus,
- Japanese Brazilians,
- Japanese Filipinos.
Etc. As well as the Burakumin, the untouchables among the Yamato.
But for some, that is the whole point: See, non-White non-Westerners are racist too! Racism is part of the human condition.
Except that racism in Japan was copied from the West!
Examples:
- In the late 1800s, Japanese scientists measured skulls, just like Western scientists did. But, unlike Westerners, they were not measuring them before 1853. That was when Matthew Perry arrived from the US with his black ships to open Japan to the West.
- In the early 1900s, eugenics came from – the US.
- In 1943, the Japanese government wrote a secret document called “An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus”. Among other things, it talked about settling Australia and New Zealand in the 1950s. It used ideas of race to argue that the Yamato know best and should rule East Asia and the Pacific. Yet, when it talked about the history of the idea of race, that history goes back to – the West. To Britain and Germany, in particular. It even used the phrases “blood and soil” and “living space” – which come from the German Blut und Boden and Lebensraum.
Most of what White Americans think of as Japanese racism is directed at fellow East Asians. It is not racism so much as nationalism or ethnocentrism – thinking one’s nation or culture is best – which are extremely common and not what White racism is about.
For example,
- Germany wiped out half the Jews of Europe because it thought they were racially too different to ever become good and loyal Germans.
- White Americans, likewise, wiped out Native Americans.
That is racism.
Japan, on the other hand, did not try to wipe out the people of Taiwan and Korea. Instead it took over their countries and tried to force Yamato ways on them to make them into good and loyal Japanese. That is ethnocentrism, not racism.
Thanks to commenter Jefe for suggesting this post.
– Abagond, 2015.
Sources: Mainly “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.
See also:
- Racism before 1400
- Spanish racial identity before 1492
- The word “race”
- eugenics
- Jewish Holocaust
- Japanese history textbooks – a bit more on Japanese atrocities
- arguments used by White racists:
This is an interesting piece.Feels like black people have such a bad press right now anyway. Even if the Japanese people are not into ethnic cleansing I dont know if they are generally positive to the black race specifically. Have you had any experience of this?
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So what’s your point? If you’ll take the time to look around and take notice of all that’s been invented and all that’s being invented,you’ll observe(if you’re honest)that it was/is white and recently Asian people that are responsible.
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@cowboy54
“f you’ll take the time to look around and take notice of all that’s been invented and all that’s being invented,you’ll observe(if you’re honest)”—If you were honest then you would not have been able to type that seriously. Then again honesty is not what you are looking to be now is it?
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racism is involved certainly, but wouldn’t genocide be a more appropriate term for these extreme examples?
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I know the truth must be painful for you. Tell you what,I’ll make a list of all that has been created by whites and Asians(it’ll take a while),and you make one for everybody else,then we’ll compare. But,I recommend you take a xanax before we do.
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@cowboy54
Considering I know the truth it does not bother me. Though I don’t think I ever disputed the LONG history of Asian inventions. Not the recent ones you lay claim that they only have. So here is a link for you to make that list as to not take this thread off topic…https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/the-white-inventor-argument/
I will wait.
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Oh a remember that since you claim is whites invented everything I expect the everything they invented to be listed. Starting with the invention of air.
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Whereas, I think the “Take Japan, For Instance” argument is about as morally bankrupt as they come, I don’t think it is solely a matter of the Japanese being more ethnocentric v. racist (like the West).
I know that Abagond pointed out the Japanese are racist too. But he also suggests that much of what is attributed as Japanese racism is actually ethnocentrism (which is supposedly “normal” to the human condition).
That is true, but racism is still a factor.
Take the example of Japanese Brazilians.
In the late 80s when Japan’s economy was taking off and Brazil’s was not, Japan came up with the idea of importing overseas Japanese to fill in some of the slack. Since Brazil has the largest number of persons of Japanese descent outside Japan, that became one of the target labour sources.
So, they adopted a race-based immigration policy allowing foreigners who were at least part Japanese to gain visas to work, study and live in Japan. This caused
– Brazilians who were say, of European, African, Native American or even Chinese descent NOT to be entitled to this special treatment.
– Brazilians who were part Japanese, in some cases able to avail themselves of this policy, but those who were part white or part black would still receive discrimination in Japan
– Japanese Brazilians will never be able to act or think like Japanese – educated and raised in Brazil, they spoke Portuguese better than Japanese, and brought their Brazilian customs and behaviour with them. Japan did not automatically grant them citizenship, and tried to oust them 20 years later when the economy tanked.
–> I suppose that foreigners of Japanese descent were believed to be easier to assimilate into the society than those with other ethnic backgrounds.
This is hardly a good case for white Americans to argue anything about their immigration policy.
Japan has many other bad examples:
– Many institutions and businesses exclude foreigners from participation, but this is essentially racist. Foreigners who can pass as Japanese may be admitted, but Japanese nationals who look white or black or otherwise non-Japanese to them get excluded.
– Japan pushed the Philippines to allow their retirees to settle in the Philippines, where it is cheaper to live and hire long-term care. The Philippines pushed back and said that Japan should allow Filipinos to work in Japan to take care of their elderly.
– Japan asked Brazil to accept their mixed black – Japanese children, reasoning that it would be easier for them to grow up in a multiracial country rather than Japan. Brazil pushed back saying that they will not accept the responsibility from Japan for solving their internal racial problems.
The point: Japan’s racist practices are still wrong. They are hardly a good model to justify those by whites in western countries. That is consistent with the post, but it is not merely or primarily an issue of Japan being ethnocentric.
I think it is also one reason Japan pushes their robotics program so heavily – getting more work done without foreign or non-Japanese labour.
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@John Jung
Genocide can be prompted by other factors other than race, e.g., political ideology or religion.
But those cases in which race is involved would be cases of BOTH racism and genocide.
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@Abagond,
Suggest that you also add this link of one of your prior posts. It gives some more background to the atrocities you mentioned above in this post.
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@ Jefe
I added the link. Thanks.
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@ gro jo
Deleted your post for using a racial slur.
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@abagond
It’s very difficult to differentiate to honest. You’re really trying to push a fine needle through a hair here and it shows. I wish you well and hope this post didn’t agonize you as you came up with it. Really tarnish if you closely examine it.
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ethnocentrism is tribal not national. Today’s concept of “nation” is a recent western one. Ethnocentrism with relation to Japanese/Yamato and Non-Japanese/Ainu and others is tribal identity.
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Nikkei-jin—This also is actually tribal/ethnic based idea—not “race” based
Apart from prejudice because of ethnicity, there is social prejudice according to status (Burakumin—which includes Ainu). The concept that some people are “impure” because of what they do—for example, the Ainu (considered indigenous peoples) were animal hunters and were therefore considered impure. To understand the structures of prejudice/discrimination in Asia—one has to look at the Indo-Chinese cultural/philosophical systems because they have the most influence in the region.
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@anon,
Race-based nationalism is very strong in Japan and some other Asian countries. The concept of nation might have western origins, but it did not take much effort for Japan and some of the other countries to extend the concept of tribal identity to national identity. In the case of Japan, that means Yamato is the default and the rest, well, are outside that perimeter.
The concept of Nikei-jin might have tribal / ethnic based origins, but how is that different from race-based? That would be like saying the Holocaust was tribal based and not race based.
The concept is that foreign Nikei-jin were perceived as being more assimilable (or at least more acceptable from a “tribal” standpoint) than non-Yamato who had ancestors in Japan for a hundred years, if not thousands of years. Isn’t that tantamount to being race-based?
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@ anon
Tribe/ethnicity/race is all the same thing. The only difference is one of degree.
I know some people like to pretend that discriminating against another tribe or ethnic group is less worse because it’s not really “racism”…but if we’re honest, it’s all the same thing. The words tribe/ethnicityrace have often been used interchangeably anyway. It’s all racism.
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Uh,air wasn’t invented. It’s a naturally occurring part of nature. You’re being silly.
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I think the only truth you know is how to spell the word. Make your list. It shouldn’t take long.
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@AlanDavis
It’s largely a semantic thing. Language evolves to describe the situations to which it refers and the word “racism”, to many people, refers to prejudice enacted by a privileged group against a disadvantaged group. There is a systemic power/privilege component to Racism that distinguishes it from plain prejudice, bigotry or race-hate.
The distinction is one of which I was unaware before I began reading the articles and comments here. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to have the term refer specifically to the systemic version.
I blogged a rather crude explanation some time back. (http://www.buddhuu.com/can-black-people-racist/)
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cowboy54
Your silly claim was whites invented everything, so air would be a thing you are trying to lay claim to. Do you need a quote or link to remind you?
Lucky for you we have spell check because I doubt you could recognize truth to spell it or otherwise. Oh, but was it not you who claimed you would make this long list? Is this where you back peddle and try to push it off for someone else to do it while you magically fail to come up with all these white inventions?
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The more you say,the more your ignorance shows. That ridiculous link you sent is a joke. The pyramids? Are you kidding me?! Tell me,what were the pyramids? An office bldg.,hospital,research lab,hotel? No,they’re quadtriangular piles of rocks,built by low paid and forced labor as ego stroking monuments to despotic families. It also says the white influence is only 140 years old. Well then,non whites should be embarrassed to no end. Because all the wonderful things that idiotic link gave to non whites took thousands of years for them to create and they basically never improved on them,plus you can count them on ten fingers,erstwhile,the 140 years of white invention has created things that number in the hundreds of thousands. So,genius,every time you get on your computer,talk on your phone,get in your car,get on a plane,turn on the AC or lights,have your physical ailments cured,read a classic piece of literature or listen to classical music,go to a museum to see priceless artwork,eat plenty of good food grown by farmers with access to new age technology,watch television,marvel at the things we do in space,be sure and thank white people. To write out a complete list would require more space than is available. Get over it. Your argument is not only ridiculous,but a loser. So,I’m sure being the good liberal that you are,you’ll resort to y’alls tried and true comeback of hysterical name calling. This is one argument history and truth won’t allow you to win.
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WAY OFF TOPIC: White inventions.
There is already a thread for that. Discuss it there:
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cowboy54, take my advice, you are out of your depth here… You are not making a good argument, you just lack the wherewithal to realize it. Why go on?
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Interesitng post.
I think this is a very, very, very important topic because the white supremacists love to pretend that all people do the same things but they never pretend that all people are equal. I have a long response so I’m going to break it up into two or three parts.
White supremacy is Racism. Racism is White Supremacy. White people are the ONLY people on the planet who have devised a SYSTEM to mistreat people based on skin color alone. This SYSTEM embraces EVERY aspect of human existence — education, economic, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war.
That is why black and non-white people CANNOT BE RACIST. We do not have a SYSTEM — the power or the institutions– that allows us to mistreat people based on color. Of course, black and non-white people can be PREJUDICED (meaning to pre-judge) someone based on color but that prejudice is limited to what that INDIVIDUAL can do to another INDIVIDUAL.
In fact, most of what black and non-white people do and say is BASED on what they LEARNED under the system of white supremacy – a GLOBAL system that includes India and Japan and their skin color madness. That is NOT ‘internalized racism” because black and non-white people cannot practice “race-ism.”
A more accurate term (in my opinion) for a black person mimicking white racism would be “anti-blackness” or “self-hatred” or “anti-self” but it is NOT racism because we do not have the systems to mistreat other people. Words are important. We should NOT include ourselves as complicit in the practice of race-ism anymore than a concentration camp prisoner who have been brainwashed (gone insane) against his or her fellow prisoners should pretend he or she created the prison or is responsible for its existence. Let the white people responsible for creating and practicing racism TAKE ALL THE BLAME.
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@ Bud Dhuu
Nobody outside of the sociology class buys that Racism = Prejudice + Power nonsense. Nobody, despite their best efforts to change the language we already use. Anyone can be racist, and the blacks are the most racist of all.
If you want a word to describe systemic racism, then make up your own and hope that it catches on, but nobody is going to allow you to change the existing definitions of words.
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”
on Thu 2 Apr 2015 at 02:52:43 abagond
@ gro jo
Deleted your post for using a racial slur.” Nonsense, the word was in quotes in order to make the point I was trying to make that your racial vs ethnocentric point was weak. Despite calling the Japanese the offending name, the USA did not massacre Japanese civilians once they occupied their country but your ethnocentric Japanese went on a rampage of rape and pillage. I’m sure it was a great comfort to their Chinese, Korean and other victims that they weren’t “racist”. Political Correctness taken to the point you took it to in this post is stupid and dangerous because it skirts the essential for the superficial.
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@ Trojan Pam
Leaving aside the fact that we have black president in the US now, and therefore the claim that blacks have no institutional power is bogus, the fact remains that you don’t need institutional power in order to discriminate and hurt people of other races.
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@Abagond
I provided him with that same link above.
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No,truth to you libtard blockheads is like Kryptonite to Superman. No amount of truth and logic can budge you people from your mountain of ignorance,even though all you have to do is look around.
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cowboy54
Projection is a MF. 🙂
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Part 2
Race-ism is the practice of mistreating people who are not white based on the man-made concept of “race.”. “Race” did not exist before white supremacy. The so called “people of color” did not call themselves “people of color” before white supremacy. Nor did they call themselves “brown” or “black” or “red” or “yellow.” They called themselves whatever they wanted to call themselves, and those names were based on where and how they lived.
For example, a group of people might call themselves a word that meant ‘people of the river” if they lived near the river. They never based their identity SIMPLY on what color they were and everyone was fine with their color and hair and skin BEFORE WHITE SUPREMACY because everyone pretty much resembled each other.
The only people on the planet who weren’t happy about skin color (including their own) were (and still are) white people. Even Mark Twain wrote an essay basically about how unattractive white skin was compared to the skin color of black people. (google it).
That’s why I believe ENVY is a huge part of the root that formed the tree of white supremacy AND why there is such a desperate NEED on the part of the white collective to feel superior to people who aren’t white.
If you know you’re superior why do you need a SYSTEM of oppression to guarantee it? And why do you need to make other people feel inferior to you if you really believed you would be superior even without the system in place? I think the answer should be obvious.
From everything I have seen and studied I have NEVER found a single SHRED of evidence that anyone has ever created a system of skin color supremacy other than white people. I have found no evidence of “black people” EVER creating a SYSTEM of black skin supremacy, or “brown people” creating a SYSTEM of brown skin supremacy, or “yellow people” creating a SYSTEM of yellow skin supremacy.
Certainly, people have waged war over regional or ethnic or religious differences, but those people NEVER went all over the world and decided to rob, rape, and murder people SOLELY based on the reason than someone looked “different” They have never created SYSTEMS that created the appearance of inferiority.
the ONLY people have done this are white people and the PROOF is a historical FACT.
Native Americans (many of who were BLACK), welcomed the visitors (invaders) and taught them how to survive and taught them a form of government they DID NOT HAVE in England (which they took credit for). When whites went to Africa, the Africans didn’t savagely attack them or rape their women, they welcomed the INVADERS, not knowing that was the worst thing they could have done. The same was true in New Zealand, Australia, Latin America, etc.
If so-called “people of color” had the same mentality and nature as whites, they would have wiped the white invaders out as soon as they stepped foot in a ‘black or brown or yellow’ country.
And there would have never been a system of white supremacy.
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I posted this on open thread a while ago. http://www.afro.com/half-black-woman-named-miss-japan-stirs-reaction/
After reading it I brushed off the reaction of the Japanese as ethnocentric. Now I must wonder how much that was the case vs racism.
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@ AlanDavis
President Obama is NOT In charge of white people. He is a PUPPET of the white supremacists/bankers/globalists (like all presidents are)
and he is certainly not telling the most powerful whites in the nation what to do. They nominated him, they selected him, they vetted him, and they financed him — which means THEY CONTROL HIM.
and anyone so naive as to think the same people who have the power to put you in a powerful (appearing) position are now taking their marching orders from you,
well, I have a bridge I’d like to sell them.
That’s why President Obama and his wife, First Lady Michelle, are targeted for so much ridicule and racism — because the white people in the government and the media know the REAL DEAL — that he is still a “n**ger” in a white supremacist system and that he has NO REAL POWER TO STOP THEM FROM DOING IT.
I’ll ask you the same question I’ve asked countless whites over the years and have NEVER ONCE received an answer
name one thing that black people — as a group — have stopped white people — as a group from doing that they had a RIGHT to do? For example, denying them the right to work, own a home, live in a certain area, get a just trial, an education, or use any public facility.
(and I’m not talking about people “harming” people. A black person can come up to a white person and bash their skull with a rock because he doesn’t like white people but that is NOT racism, that is an INDIVIDUAL acting as an INDIVIDUAL and there is no SYSTEM in place that will support his right to harm you, In fact, he will go to JAIL.
However, white policeman murder black people on a DAILY BASIS and get away with it because there is a SYSTEM in place that allows them to do it. (the courts, the police, the judge, the prison SYSTEMS).
So, let’s stop playing word games.
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@gro jo
And the 250,000 killed in Hiroshima & Nagasaki were …
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@cowboy54
Why don’t you make a list of all the things blacks collectively have done to or stole from whites, and what Koreans and Chinese collectively have done to Japanese. And compare them to my list of things whites collectively have done to or stole from everyone else, and what Japanese have collectively done to Koreans and Chinese.
Mine will take a while, so I’ll follow up in a few weeks, but you can respond right away with your list.
@”As a moral argument this is terrible. It is the ‘everyone does it’ excuse”
It’s only used to say, “look, whites aren’t the only people capable of pure evil.” People like cowboy can’t help to use it because it makes them feel less guilty.
@AlanDavis
“the fact remains that you don’t need institutional power in order to discriminate and hurt people of other races.”
So, tell us how. And provide historical examples.
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@resw77
An individual black person can walk up to any random white person and shoot them for absolutely no reason, other than the fact that they were white. They do this all the time. That is what we call racism. End of discussion.
Why shouldn’t whites make themselves feel less guilty anyway, since they’re being unfairly singled out? Saying “everyone else does it” doesn’t mean what you did was ok, but it does mean everyone else who is whining about what you did is a disgusting little hypocrite, and non-whites are some of the vilest little hypocrites. I have no time for them. Personally, I feel absolutely no guilt about what whites are supposed to have done, and I WILL point out the hypocrisy of anyone who whines about it and thinks whites need to feel guilty.
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“And the 250,000 killed in Hiroshima & Nagasaki were …” killed during the war, you know, that thing we do as human beings to impose our will on other human beings. If you can provide evidence of mass killings of Japanese after they were occupied I’d be happy to take back what I wrote. The world is more complicated than all the racism talk here would indicate.
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@ resw77
AlanDavis’s response is another pebble on the mountain of evidence that there is nothing black or nonwhite people can say or do to change the racist white mindset, which collectively is a SOCIOPATHIC MINDSET and is genetic in its origins.
If it wasn’t how is this behavior MIMICKED all over the planet wherever whites come into contact with non-whites even before mass communications even existed? How can their behavior be the same no matter where they go if it is NOT a part of their genetics?
By sociopathic, I mean they feel NO REMORSE for their own past AND current history and atrocities AND have no problem benefiting greatly from the exploitation and mistreatment of non white people all over the planet.
It’s not that they don’t know what is happening to nonwhites at the hands of white people — they JUST DON’T CARE.
This is the point I have tried to make over and over with nonwhite people that it is largely a waste of time to try to make white people “feel” or change what they think, say and do. Too many people much more brilliant than myself have tried and FAILED.
Instead, non-whites need to educate ourselves about the SYSTEM OF WHITE SUPREMACY — that people like AlanDavis denies even exists Because that is HOW they keep the system going the same way a criminal mob organization denies that the Mafia even exists even while they’re committing criminal acts.
And when we complain about our mistreatment, they call it “whining”
Much like all SOCIOPATHS do when it comes to their victims.
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@ AlanDavis
I hope you’ll answer the question I posted to you earlier:
“Name one thing that black people — as a group — have stopped white people — as a group from doing that they had a RIGHT to do? For example, denying them the right to work, own a home, live in a certain area, get a just trial, an education, or use any public facility.”
And please provide some examples, links, or evidence to support your answer if you disagree.
(if you do answer it, you’ll be the first white person who has)
Thanks! (in advance)
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@AlanDavis
“An individual black person can walk up to any random white person and shoot them for absolutely no reason…That is what we call racism. ”
LOL. That’s an individual. Trojan Pam said “people,” not an “individual black person.”
I know you don’t understand the difference, so let me explain it for you. Blacks collectively are not the same as an individual, just as whites collectively are not the same as James Eagan Holmes.
So please tell us how people without institutional power can “discriminate and hurt people of other races.” And provide examples in history.
“Why shouldn’t whites make themselves feel less guilty anyway, since they’re being unfairly singled out?”
What’s unfair about it? What other people have killed and stolen from other people on anything close to the scale of whites, and all while justifying it based on race?
“Saying “everyone else does it” doesn’t mean what you did was ok”
Maybe, but it’s still an excuse to deflect from the topic.
“Personally, I feel absolutely no guilt about what whites are supposed to have done”
I have no doubts that an evil person would feel no guilt for evil actions.
“I WILL point out the hypocrisy of anyone who whines about it and thinks whites need to feel guilty.”
Well, you didn’t point it out. So what’s the hypocrisy?
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@Trojan Pam
If you feel you’re being mistreated, go live somewhere else far away from whites.
Why is it the non-whites just can’t stay away from those evil white racists who are supposedly “mistreating” them?
And you’re right, I don’t care. Why should I care, when you obviously don’t care about whites? You are the true sociopaths.
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@ cowboy @ Sharina
Deleted off-topic posts.
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@Trojan Pam
By the way, the “mistreatment” non-whites have suffered from whites is nothing compared to the mistreatment non-whites have suffered at the hands of other non-whites. That is one of the main reasons why I just don’t care. Whites are the most tolerant and compassionate race in the world, and non-whites are hypocritical little whiners. They get no sympathy from me until they sort their own problems out, and stop trying to put the blame on whites.
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Be warned: AlanDavis is most likely a troll.
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@Trojan Pam
Why does it have to be black people “as a group”? A black business owner who discriminates against potential white employees and denies them work is just as racist as if he was doing it as part of a group. It makes no difference, it’s just yet another attempt by non-whites to move the goalposts and give themselves a pass for their own racism.
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No need to become perplexed cowboy, and frustrated in your attempts. Besides… you haven’t come with any truth, just a vague accusation that you yourself don’t fully understand.
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@AlanDavis
“If you feel you’re being mistreated, go live somewhere else far away from whites.”
How can she? Whites are gentrifying black inner city neighbourhoods, retiring in black countries in the Caribbean (and elsewhere), and buying up property all across Africa and Asia.
There’s just no escaping you.
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@Resw77
I already answered your question. A person without institutional power could, for example, shoot someone of another race.
Just because whites were more successful and did things on a larger scale, it doesn’t mean they were qualitatively worse or somehow more guilty, and to claim that they were is unfair.
Pointing out that “everyone else did it” is not excuse-making or deflecting, it’s putting things into their proper context. When you realize that almost every culture had slaves, for example, it’s hard to whine about whites owning slaves without appearing like a worthless little hypocrite. It’s even more hypocritical when the slaves sold to whites were originally enslaved by other Africans.
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@AlanDavis
“Why does it have to be black people “as a group”?”
Because you just said, “it’s just yet another attempt by non-whites to move the goalposts and give themselves a pass for THEIR own racism.”
Can’t have it both ways.
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@resw77
No escape? Now you know how it feels to be white. You really have the nerve to whine about gentrification of black neighborhoods after what blacks did to white neighborhoods?
What goes around comes around.
Nobody is buying up property in Africa, other than the Chinese. They are your new masters now, and they aren’t restrained by any “white guilt”. May you live in interesting times.
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Be warned: AlanDavis is almost certainly a troll!!!
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@resw77
Yes, that’s what I said….it’s an attempt by non-whites, and by that I meant individual non-whites as well, to give themselves a pass for their own racism.
What’s the issue here?
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@AlanDavis
As you know, I specifically said “people.” So, no, you’ve not answered my question.
“Just because whites were more successful and did things on a larger scale, it doesn’t mean they were qualitatively worse or somehow more guilty”
So just because you were evidently more successful at killing and stealing, doesn’t mean you’re more guilty than someone who did not kill or steal? Is that the way your American justice system works?
“Pointing out that “everyone else did it” is not excuse-making or deflecting”
Actually, it is literally deflecting if we’re talking about what A did, and you start talking about what B did. Get it now?
“It’s even more hypocritical when the slaves sold to whites were originally enslaved by other Africans.”
See, you deflected yet again, and you pointed to something for which you have no evidence and disregarded the evidence that many African slaves were kidnapped by Europeans. But that’s a topic for another thread about deflection using the ” But Africans Sold Their Own…” deflection method.
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@AlanDavis
“No escape? Now you know how it feels to be white.”
I think I’d still need a shot of guilt, a gallon of arrogance, and a side of iniquity in order to feel what it feels to be white.
” You really have the nerve to whine about gentrification of black neighborhoods after what blacks did to white neighborhoods?”
More deflection, I see.
Was that before or after whites bought blacks to work their farms, cook their meals, warm their beds, clean their homes and breastfeed their children?
And blacks migrated to white cities because white manufacturers needed cheap labour. Whites are migrating to inner city black neighbourhoods and black Caribbean countries because they can get more bang for their buck. Big difference.
“Nobody is buying up property in Africa, other than the Chinese. ”
How charmingly foolish. Most private African land and resources are still owned by European companies and individuals. And the Chinese collectively have never done anything on the scale of what Europeans have done to Africans. Sorry, this deflection didn’t work either.
“What’s the issue here?”
The issue here is obviously your self-contradiction. You’re saying on one hand “Why does it have to be black people “as a group”” then saying that black people and non-whites (plural) are racist. Get it now?
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@resw77
Yes, I know you said people. And as I said, a person, or people, could, for example, shoot someone of another race. They do it all the time.
We’re not talking about people who didn’t kill or steal, because everybody did it. Everyone is equally guilty.
When you single out A, and talk about what A did, as if A was the only one who was guilty of it, and therefore more evil than everybody else, it’s very relevant to point out that B is also guilty, especially when B is the one making the accusations. That is not deflecting, that’s correcting a false accusation. When you leave out critical, relevant information like that in order to mislead people, it is lying by omission.
It’s a fact that Africans enslaved their own people to sell to Europeans, and they had been doing it for centuries before with Arabs, Indians, Chinese, etc. That is not up for debate. The Africans have to take responsibility for the slave trade. It should also be pointed out that Europeans freed many slaves.
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@resw77
Pointing out your hypocrisy is not “deflection”. I don’t see much point continuing this until you learn the difference.
The only point I’ll address is this. Blacks in general are very racist, as in most individual blacks are racist. They don’t need to be racist “as a group”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and anyone who insists they do is wrong. I really don’t know what’s so hard to understand about this. Maybe it’s just the constant need for blacks to deflect from their own racism.
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Take India for instance…
http://qz.com/372192/a-brown-woman-with-a-white-man-brings-out-the-worst-in-indians/
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@AlanDavis
“Everyone is equally guilty.”
What country’s justice system works that way? Where a person who commits less crime gets penalised “equally” as a person who commits more crime?
“When you single out A, and talk about what A did, as if A was the only one who was guilty of it”
LOL. If the subject is about what A did, why is B relevant? It’s as if I were to write a news article about a crime committed today by A, and I said, “well some other guy committed a crime last week,” and then just started rambling about this crime that B committed. It’s nonsensical.
“That is not deflecting, that’s correcting a false accusation. ”
No, it is literally deflecting. I’ll walk you through this one as well.
The accusation is A did something. Saying that B also did something, does not redeem A. We know that’s what you want it to do, but it doesn’t.
In court, a defendant being accused of murder doesn’t say, “Well some other guy committed a crime last year, so that means the defendant is innocent.” Come on, you’re probably smarter than that.
“Pointing out your hypocrisy is not “deflection”.”
That’s the thing. You didn’t point out any hypocrisy. When you do, let us know. I’m here to help you get through your struggle with your guilt.
“Blacks in general are very racist, as in most individual blacks are racist.”
You can say that, but you don’t have evidence to prove it. However, there’s ample evidence for white racism.
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@resw77
I don’t have any guilt.
Typical of non-whites, you don’t have any reading comprehension whatsoever, and that’s why discussing anything with you people is a huge waste of time.
Let me try explain this one more time, and if you still don’t get it, that’s your problem. I have more interesting white things to do elsewhere.
The black argument is that whites are more evil than everybody else because they owned slaves. However, blacks also owned slaves. Therefore, the accusation that whites are more evil/guilty is clearly false, and the fact that blacks owned slaves is relevant because that is the proof that it’s false.
It doesn’t have to “redeem” whites, and I never claimed it did. I’m only claiming that the accusers are liars and hypocrites.
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@Trojan Pam
“Certainly, people have waged war over regional or ethnic or religious differences, but those people NEVER went all over the world and decided to rob, rape, and murder people SOLELY based on the reason than someone looked “different” They have never created SYSTEMS that created the appearance of inferiority.
the ONLY people have done this are white people and the PROOF is a historical FACT.
Native Americans (many of who were BLACK), welcomed the visitors (invaders) and taught them how to survive and taught them a form of government they DID NOT HAVE in England (which they took credit for). When whites went to Africa, the Africans didn’t savagely attack them or rape their women, they welcomed the INVADERS, not knowing that was the worst thing they could have done. The same was true in New Zealand, Australia, Latin America, etc.
If so-called “people of color” had the same mentality and nature as whites, they would have wiped the white invaders out as soon as they stepped foot in a ‘black or brown or yellow’ country.
And there would have never been a system of white supremacy.”
!00% Correct! Does anyone disagree with this? I find it very difficult to do so.
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@Alan Davis
You said:
“The only point I’ll address is this. Blacks in general are very racist, as in most individual blacks are racist. They don’t need to be racist “as a group”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and anyone who insists they do is wrong. I really don’t know what’s so hard to understand about this. Maybe it’s just the constant need for blacks to deflect from their own racism.”
This is hilarious! Are you serious?lol You must be a stand up comedian!!lol
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@AlanDavis
“I don’t have any guilt.”
Yes you do. It’s crystal clear. Why else would you need to deflect and say, in your own words, “everybody did it. Everyone is equally guilty.”
If you weren’t guilty you wouldn’t have any guilt to share with “everybody.”
“I have more interesting white things to do elsewhere.”
Then why are you here? You are trying, unsuccessfully, to pass on your guilt by using the “Take Japan for Instance” method. You do know that you’re proving Abagond’s point.
“The black argument is that whites are more evil than everybody else because they owned slaves. ”
No, I think the argument that Europeans are more evil is that they committed genocide on every continent, enslaved on every continent, maintained forced segregation on every continent and stole from every continent…all falsely justified by race. No other people did this but Europeans.
“It doesn’t have to “redeem” whites, and I never claimed it did. ”
Sure you did. You specifically said, “it’s very relevant to point out that B is also guilty…that’s correcting a false accusation” Get it now?
Don’t worry, you’ll get through your guilt complex.
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@cowboy54
Another comment that shows your reading comprehension. The link I provided is not and I repeat is not my source. It is a link for you to go to in order to discuss said topic. SMH
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@ King
Thanks for the link.
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Am I the only one concerned that the trolls are getting dumber? It is just weird.
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Even worse, I encounter people in real life who spout the same cr@p that Davis is excreting here – but they do it with not thought of trolling, they’re just speaking their “minds”.
Stupidity and overt racism don’t necessarily indicate a troll. Sometimes the intent is not to provoke a reaction, it is simply to express a view. Occam’s Razor says that sometimes stupidity and overt racism just indicate a stupid racist.
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@ Bud Dhuu
What Abagond and I both recognized is that AlanDavis is only selectively stupid. He is smarter than he is letting on but trying hard to hide it. Then he proceeds to lay out the most ridiculous statements. It smells like intentional baiting to me.
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@ Abagond & King
Thanks for the heads-up about AlanDavis possibly being a troll. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up and start to argue with people who aren’t looking to communicate
It reminds me of a quote by Mark Twain:
“Never argue with stupid people. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience”
I’m not calling anyone stupid but when you realize the other person doesn’t have good intentions and they’re not trying to communicate it pretty much ends up being a kinda stupid situation and a waste of time
Question — how do you (both) define what a troll is?
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If AlanDavis isn’t a troll, then he’ll answer my question (that I posted twice)…
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@King
Most likely.
I was just musing over possibilities.
Certainly the persistence is a troll trait.
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“Germany wiped out half the Jews of Europe because it thought they were racially too different to ever become good and loyal Germans.
White Americans, likewise, wiped out Native Americans.
That is racism.”
That is genocide.
“Japan, on the other hand, did not try to wipe out the people of Taiwan and Korea. Instead it took over their countries and tried to force Yamato ways on them to make them into good and loyal Japanese. That is ethnocentrism, not racism.”
That is colonialism.
You have to show the point of view of those the Japanese oppressed.
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@ Kushite Prince
when people accuse black people of being “just as racist as whites” they NEVER give any real examples of this “power” that blacks allegedly have over whites.
All they can say is, well, a black person cussed me out and called me a “honk*y!” or some black person (usually one person) said or did something which may or may not have happened because they were white.
If a black criminal robs you on a street corner, they’re not doing it because you’re white, he or she is robbing you because he or she wants your money, phone, etc,
but they call this “black racism”
Even when black people have powerful “titles” they still cater to white people and are still following their orders from their white bosses but as soon as the black person does or says something white people don’t like (like Michelle Obama talking to black girls)
they call this “black racism”
It’s so bad that even black people are calling other black people “racist”
“Oh, so and so said something unflattering about white people so that black person is a racist!”
that’s why it’s important to know the definition of words and how they’re used to confuse and deceive us.
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@Bud Dhuu
“Stupidity and overt racism don’t necessarily indicate a troll.”—It does not, which is why as much as I like to call them trolls I wholeheartedly believe they are serious. They believe what they say and because they have been taught that white is right they have no qualms showing a level of stupidity on the basis that they are better by right of skin. It is a major possibility that they simply do not know any better. That coupled with a system meant to dumb down Americans you can really see the recipe for disaster.
Like King and Abagond, I believe full well he is a lot smarter than what he appears.
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@ gro jo
As I’m sure it was a great comfort to their Japanese victims that the US firebombed and nuked them BEFORE the Occupation.
And I’m sure the American use of that slur had nothing to do with their slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. Or the internment and calls for the slaughter of Japanese Americans.
/sarcasm off
And what is essential and what is superficial that I am skirting?
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@ Sharina
It’s something of a paradox. Some studies have identified a correlation between extreme right-wing, conservative views (racism, homophobia) and relatively low IQ. But clearly there are some otherwise intelligent people who are still unable to recognise the stupidity and destructiveness of bigotry.
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@ Speak Out
It can be BOTH racism and genocide. And BOTH colonialism and ethnocentrism. As cause and effect. I was trying to show the difference between racism and ethnocentrism – not with great success, given some of the comments.
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Some trolls are very intelligent. It is not their views or level of intelligence that makes them a troll, but their reason for being here. Unstated motives are a hard thing to be sure of, otherwise this blog would be troll-free.
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If black people were as racist as white people:
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You see how easy it is to get rid of racist trolls? Let them know the truth about themselves as it relates to this article and they will scurry away just like AlanDavis.
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“And what is essential and what is superficial that I am skirting?” The fact that the USA did its raping and pillaging at a time when doing so didn’t bring it into conflict with an equally rapacious and powerful foe. As a johnny come lately to the club of imperialist plunderers Japan had no choice but to try and knock off some of the established powers. In your zeal to give Japan a pass you wrote: ” But for some, that is the whole point: See, non-White non-Westerners are racist too! Racism is part of the human condition. Except that racism in Japan was copied from the West!” The Japanese chose to emulate what resonated with their aim of not being left behind by the Western powers in the scramble to divide the world into spheres. Being a christian, you might have tried to speak to the lack of resonance in Japan for that particular Western ideology. Why in your opinion did the USA, racist as it is, rebuild Japan instead of destroying it if the hateful propaganda you spoke of against Japan was the main thing that motivated the ruling class of the USA? Racism, in my opinion, is just a militant version of the ethnocentricism you allude to. Racism is ethnocentricism in uniform and ready to do battle. Blacks are looked down on in the world because they have been subjugated by force. A small band of white men could walk into a territory and enslave its population with minimal effort. Playing around with definitions doesn’t change such facts.
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Kiwi, where’s the evidence for this white nationalism you speak of? World War I had the Japanese fighting against Germany on the side of England. The rulers of Germany and England not only belonged to the same race but the same family. World War ll saw Germany allied with Japan against England despite Hitler’s professed admiration for the British. My point was that this post tries to make it seem that ideologies such as racism are sufficient to explain why things are the way they are. As for a lack of a pan-Asian version of white nationalism, I’m not aware of any territory colonized by Asians of different nationalities who needed to hang together as whites did in the Americas.
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@gro jo: The post to me seems to be directed against people who try to dismiss or downplay racism by pointing at someone else and saying “look at their evilz!” as though the existence of those evils by someone else negates or dilutes the evils of the racism practiced by, in this case, Whites. The argument addressed is “Look at Japan” whenever US or “White” racism is brought up, with intent to nullify or downplay the accusation by pointing to other people’s wrongs. The problem is that is a morally childish argument, that if someone else is doing something wrong, then it’s okay or not as bad if you do something wrong.
Also, the argument regarding racism in Japan made in this post is that there was a racist, in the sense of “divide humanity into groups with a claimed biological difference, use pseudo-science to justify it, and then discriminate on the basis of it” element that was derived from the West, but that doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING Japan did was due to this. Just that that was part of it.
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We need a post to explain why Japan got involved in WWII. It definitely had to do with “race” and might clarify a few items here.
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“I don’t understand why people are trying to convince me that white people are racist? You’re pushing at an open door! “I think one man is as good as another, so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman. My uncle Will says that the Lord made a white man of dust, a nigger from mud, then threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion that negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America.– US President Harry S. Truman, the man who made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan”.
Great quote Kiwi, now explain why this racist did not turn Japan into a slave colony but instead built it up to become the economic powerhouse it is today? A racial reading of the facts would make such policy absurd, so something more profound must explain such behavior in light of the beliefs held at the highest level of the US government of that time. Kiwi, what’s the difference between white soldiers treating the Japanese dead as trophies and these Japanese soldiers doing the same to their victims? Racism is indeed universal given the right circumstances. What I find childish is the desire to make whites appear as if they were solely responsible for that evil. Any group dominating another for any length of time will develop such vice.
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I agree that prejudice is prejudice whatever name one may call it by. How I understand the difference between racism and ethnocentrism is that racism is a color based concept whereas ethnocentrism is culture/tradition based prejudice. Tribal prejudice is also identity based—and not specifically race/color based. However, this does not mean that a prejudice has to be distinct—human beings have various degrees of emotional reactions and a person may have all types of prejudice to varying degrees.
Nationalism has been added to the list of prejudices in the East–not just in Japan….and I want to differentiate between pride in ones identity—ethnic, national, or tribal—and hate/prejudice against the “other”. Identity/group formation need not be based on hate of the “other”. This is a choice that can be discarded.
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@ jefe
“The concept is that foreign Nikei-jin were perceived as being more assimilable”—you are correct. They are expected to conform more strictly to Japanese traditions and ways than the Gaijin. The foreigners/Gaijin are not expected to follow Japanese ways even if they have been there for a long time…
Race prejudice may exist to varying degrees in the East—but it is a Western import as is nationalism….
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@anon
I respectfully disagree.
The basis for the Holocaust was racism – the concept that certain people from a different tribe are unassimilable and need to be controlled or eliminated. It is an extension of tribalism. It was not simply a matter of ethnocentrism or differing cultural traditions.
It is not qualitatively different from the Native American genocide or the Asian American ethnic cleansing, or even Jim Crow for that matter.
Until the Irish were assimilated, they were not “white”.
Each society has a different definition to how they designate “race”.
Also, race and colour are different. For colour, we have “colourism”, which exists even among people who identify with the same “tribe” or ethnic or racial group.
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“Jefe,
We need a post to explain why Japan got involved in WWII. It definitely had to do with “race” and might clarify a few items here.”
Linda says,
that would be interesting to hear, especially since before WW2, Japan was seeking to have an alliance between Japanese and Ethiopian royalty/Nobles.
Ethiopia and Japan’s Aborted Marriage Alliance
http://bawza.com/2014/01/20/ethiopia-and-japan%E2%80%99s-aborted-marriage-alliance/
“Ethiopia and Japan had been communicating for some time concerning their economic and political interests. While accompanying the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Blattengetta Hiruy Wolde Selassie, on a trip to Japan in 1930 to sign a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce, Lij Araya apparently became enamored with the people of Japan as did others who were impressed with their rapid industrial development and wanted to take the relationship one step further.
When it was reported that the “prince” of Ethiopia was interested in marriage with a Japanese woman aristocrat, Mr. Sumioka Tomoyoshi, and other businessmen, saw an opportunity to increase relations between the two countries.
Emperor Selassie had recently signed a new constitution largely based on the Japanese model. Some young Ethiopian progressive intellectuals called “Japanizers” had been arguing that Japan was a good model for modern development and supported marriage between the upper classes of the two countries.
Many Japanese nationalists thought it was necessary to unite the colored races against the white.”
I want to know what happened between 1934 and 1940 that changed Japans world view so that they saw the Germans as a viable partner. Japan did not support Hitlers views on the Jews, so what was the glue?
I know that Germany supported Japan’s invasion of China in 1937. Did Japan promise to help Germany with their Russia takeover? was splitting up or sharing Asia the goal?
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gro jo wrote:
:”Why in your opinion did the USA, racist as it is, rebuild Japan instead of destroying it if the hateful propaganda you spoke of against Japan was the main thing that motivated the ruling class of the USA?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s a good question, gro jo. What’s your answer to this question? Why did the US help rebuild Japan …. ???
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Abagond, isn’t it inconsistent of you to have deleted my comment because I wrote “Jap” and yet you let Kiwi’s extensive quote of Truman stand using equally offensive language to describe Blacks and Chinese? Linda, you’re asking a profound question. “I want to know what happened between 1934 and 1940 that changed Japans world view so that they saw the Germans as a viable partner.” I don’t think the Japanese changed their worldview since the alliance with Ethiopia was based on the needs of Japanese commerce and industry. Ethiopia was seen as too weak to be a viable partner and an alliance with it would have entangled Japan in a major war with one or a coalition of European powers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War The defeat of Ethiopia at the hands of Italy showed the Japanese that such alliance was unwise. Germany did want Japan’s help dismantling the Soviet Union, but the Japanese ruling class thought twice about that proposition when they were soundly trashed by Zukhov’s army. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol
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Just Me wrote: “That’s a good question, gro jo. What’s your answer to this question? Why did the US help rebuild Japan …. ???”
For the same reason the US rebuild Germany. The roles both countries played in the world economy made leaving them devastated waste lands an impediment to world commerce.
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@ gro jo
From the way you wrote the comment, it was not clear whether you were saying it in your own voice.
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@ Just Me
We forget that Japan lost the war and was de-militarized by the Anglo-U.S. government.. Japan is NOT a sovereign nation, it is a COLONY of the U.S. That’s why Japan is one of the only (or the only) “super powesr” that doesn’t have any nuclear weapons (and It won’t be allowed to have any).
Germany ALSO lost the war but it has nuclear weapons and no one worries about them having them in spite of Hitler’s campaign to dominate the planet. Why? Because Germany is a “white nation.”
If you look at the nations where possession of nuclear weapons is a “problem” for the U.S. or Israel or NATO — they are always NON-WHITE nations.
And that’s why Japan cannot force the U.S. to remove its military bases even though it has begged and pleaded many times over the years to ASK (not tell) the U.S. to remove them and the U.S. has the power to refuse to do it.
Japan can’t build anything — even a convenience store — in the U.S. without permission from our government so how can we build, even expand a military presence in Japan without their permission? Because Japan is not just a U.S. colony it is a non-white nation under the system of white supremacy.
—
An excerpt from an article entitled:
“Injuries to Okinawa anti-base protesters ‘laughable,’ says U.S. military spokesman” (dated Feb 9, 2015)
NAGO, OKINAWA PREF. – As the Japanese government intensifies its crackdown against demonstrators blocking construction of a new Pentagon base in the Henoko district of Nago city, Okinawa, a senior U.S. Marine Corps spokesman has weighed into the fray by accusing peaceful protesters there of faking their injuries.
On Jan. 22, Capt. Caleb D. Eames, deputy public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Installations Pacific, likened demonstrators to play-acting professional soccer players: “The attempt to appear injured is laughable when you see it in person,” he said.
—
The contempt the U.S. spokesman has for the Japanese protestors is obvious.
Japan has good reasons to want those bases to leave. They know if or when a nuclear war breaks out between Russia and the U.S. that those military bases in Japan puts the Japanese right in the cross-hairs of the Russian military.
More evidence that racism/white supremacy is a GLOBAL system, not a bunch of prejudiced kooks running around “hating” people. It is a SYSTEM that in no way whatsoever can ever be compared to what so-called “racist” black individuals could even dream of doing.
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@ Abagond
thanks for your definition of a troll
( I have a hard time telling who is and who isn’t )
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Abagond wrote: ” on Fri 3 Apr 2015 at 14:58:13 abagond
@ gro jo
From the way you wrote the comment, it was not clear whether you were saying it in your own voice. ” Hilarious. Glad to see you have a sense of humor.
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@resw77
What exactly have I done to feel guilty about? It’s your hypocrisy that is the issue here, not my non-existent feelings of guilt.
The fact that Europeans were more successful doesn’t let non-whites off the hook when it comes to genocide, segregation and enslavement. Is a serial killer who killed 50 people before he was stopped somehow worse than a serial killer who only managed to kill 40? That’s the argument blacks are trying to make against whites. You seem to be the one deflecting here, and in fact it could be argued that non-whites are actually more evil because they were more savage and brutal. Europeans are less evil because they ENDED slavery and segregation.
“Get it now?” Get what now? Pointing out that the accuser is just as guilty isn’t supposed to “redeem” the accused. It’s just making the point that the accuser is a worthless little hypocrite and probably nobody should pay any attention to them. Do YOU get it now, or are we going to continue to have a pointless back and forth like this?
I don’t think blacks will ever be able to integrate into white society as long as you don’t understand the language. Even the non-whites who are native speakers of English don’t really seem to comprehend what whites are trying to tell them. Either non-whites are just wilfully ignorant and obtuse, or they lack some kind of reading comprehension, because whites and blacks always seem to be talking across each other. That’s why nothing is ever achieved and blacks remain bottom of the ladder. They’ll remain there forever until they learn to listen – and not just listen, but actually understand too.
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To control them. To rebuild them, and in so doing, control the world economy. Germany became the foremost banking and technology power within the European Union. Japan became the most important banking and technology power in Asia, before the Chinese of late. I doubt if this was accidental.
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@AlanDavis
“Even the non-whites who are native speakers of English don’t really seem to comprehend what whites are trying to tell them. Either non-whites are just wilfully ignorant and obtuse, or they lack some kind of reading comprehension, because whites and blacks always seem to be talking across each other.”—–You know the interesting part about all of this is that it appears everyone else knows the deal and whites such as yourself are too obtuse to get a clue. If everyone else is seeing your problem then it is less of a problem for others and more of a problem for your types….hmmmm
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@ gro jo
Racism does not always lead to genocide. Otherwise, the US would be 100% White.
The US built up Japan because of the Cold War and because it saw what became of Germany after the First World War.
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@ gro jo
and
I do not think it is that simple. If it were, racism would have been common before 1400:
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@ gro jo
The post is not trying to explain the world. Instead it argues against the idea that Japan’s racism is “natural”, that it was not part of its Westernization.
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@ Kiwi
White Americans did the same thing to the Black people they lynched. I never heard of them doing it to the White people they lynched, but then I do not know much about those lynchings.
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@sharinalr
What is the “problem” and what evidence do you have that it exists, and isn’t just a product of your paranoia and victim mentality?
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@abagond
Racism has always been common. How people choose to identify themselves has evolved over time, and it naturally changed after the 1400s when the known world was massively expanded and people re-evaluated their own place in it and their relation to others, but this is nothing particularly new, and there was never a time when racism wasn’t common. Racism is as old as mankind.
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@ AlanDavis
Really? Care to elaborate on how and why that happened in the U.S.?
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@abagond
Japan has always been a very insular society. What reason is there to think they got “racism” from the West?
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@Trojan Pam
“Even when black people have powerful “titles” they still cater to white people and are still following their orders from their white bosses but as soon as the black person does or says something white people don’t like (like Michelle Obama talking to black girls)
they call this “black racism”
It’s so bad that even black people are calling other black people “racist”
“Oh, so and so said something unflattering about white people so that black person is a racist!”
that’s why it’s important to know the definition of words and how they’re used to confuse and deceive us.”
Thank you for that Pam! Beautiful breakdown! I hope people are reading your comments. You’re making a lot of sense. I hope it’s not going over their heads.lol
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@King
Well, the US being a majority Christian nation has always had a large anti-slavery movement, and there’s also the fact that whites are a very compassionate and empathic people, with a large conscience. It’s probably our biggest weakness. Non-whites often try to exploit it, and the white guilt liberals are the proof that this tactic works.
The anti-slavery movement actually began in Britain, by the way, mainly with Christian groups like the Quakers, and it later influenced the anti-slavery movement in the US,
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Alan… are you trolling me? Seriously?
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@King
What, do you disagree? If so, why? What’s your theory?
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Alan I suspect that you are TROLLING me! Is this an experiment?
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Define “trolling”. If what I’m saying is true, what difference does it make anyway? If you think I’m wrong about anything, please point out where.
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What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. You’re saying that if a bully beats you up every day for 40 years, that when he stops beating you up it, it’s because he is compassionate and empathic. But if he was compassionate and empathic
1) He wouldn’t have beat you up in the first place
2) He wouldn’t have taken 40 years to stop
3) He would seek to make your injuries right
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Trolling is saying things that you know to be untrue simply to provoke a reaction of some kind. It’s like making prank phone calls for your own entertainment.
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It’s not really an accurate analogy since the African slaves were first “bullied” by other Africans, and had been bullied for hundreds of years already. It was the whites who first said “Hey, hang on a minute, maybe this isn’t right”. If you want to make any injuries right, find me a slave who is still alive today, and send him to Africa to ask the tribal chiefs who enslaved him to compensate him.
There’s also the fact that only a tiny minority of whites ever owned slaves, and slavery was never as much a part of life as it was around the rest of the world. So you can’t really accuse whites of being bullies, just the tiny minority who actually owned slaves, and who were eventually outvoted by the compassionate majority of whites who opposed slavery.
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@King
Everything I say I know is true.
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@King
I know for people who have been raised to think whites invented slavery and are the root of all evil, the fact that the blacks started slavery and were actually worse than whites might be difficult to process, but it doesn’t mean I’m trolling.
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Fascinating!
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Ok, to begin with, the argument around slavery is not that Whites invented it. Probably a better argument would be that the variety of race-based slaver that Whites nurtured in the Unites States was a *particularly* nasty strain of slavery. All slavery is wrong, of course, but some varieties are more cruel and abusive than others. Do you understand that distinction?
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@ King
You are wasting your breath.
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@ King
He has been trying to derail this thread from the start. Keep it on topic.
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You see, that is a particularly difficult distinction to make in a functioning democracy (or representative republic). If you are living under a monarchy, a dictatorship or an oligarchy, then the rules are made “over your head,” so to speak. But in a democracy the PEOPLE make the rules. So if the people of Alabama have continually voted for leaders and for laws that enforce slavery, it is not “a tiny minority of whites ” it is (by definition) a majority vote of Whites in Alabama that keep slavery in tact and approve of it. That makes the people of Alabama responsible, not just those who personally own the slaves, but all those who’s votes make the ownership possible.
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Ah! Sorry about that Abagond, right you are.
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@King
Except for a long time, it was only a minority of wealthy, land-owning males who got to vote. Regular white guys didn’t get the vote until well into the 1800s. Even so, people vote on a wide range of issues, so even if they voted for a particular candidate, it doesn’t mean they supported everything they stood for. Did everyone who voted for Obama approve of his war in Libya?
I don’t agree that the US strain of slavery was particularly nasty. By all accounts, the slaves were treated with extreme kindness, relative to most other cultures. The Africans were extremely cruel to their slaves. Morality is an alien concept to them, especially the Christian-based morality you’re familiar with and take for granted today. We’re talking about people who practised (and still do in some cases) cannibalism, female genital mutilation and witchcraft.
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@King
Or another example. It’s a well known fact that most blacks are opposed to homosexuality and gay marriage, and yet around 98% of them voted for Obama, who has supported gay marriage.
Things aren’t so black and white or clearcut, and that’s why holding whites collectively responsible for anything that happened in the past is so wrong.
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@AlanDavis
“What is the “problem” and what evidence do you have that it exists, and isn’t just a product of your paranoia and victim mentality?”—Looks like you are not as sharp as I originally thought. Allow me to break this down in a more understandable manner.
If you meet a person on the street and they tell you they are ignorant after one conversation with you. You throw this off as them being mean, jealous, unable to argue etc. You later meet another person and they tell you that you are ignorant after a conversation. You again throw this off as the person being mean, jealous, unable to argue etc. You meet yet another person and after a conversation they also openly conclude you are ignorant. You then tell yourself they are mean, jealous, unable to argue etc.
You at that point are simply being willfully obtuse as 3 different people have made the same statement on three different occasions and you wrote it off. This is where you are ignoring your obvious problem in favor of your inability to recognize or even care that you have one.
My point being is that if you have several different groups pointing out an issue, then the issue is one that whites like you have and not one that you have concluded people are just making up.
As to evidence, it is everywhere. It is all a matter of how you register that evidence. Your very comments are evidence to what I am saying. Isn’t it interesting how most of your comments consists of “paranoia and victim mentality” though you project this idea onto others such as myself? 😉
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@sharinalr
The vast majority of people you meet in the street are complete idiots. I wouldn’t hesitate to write them off or dismiss their opinion of me, especially when the facts are so clearly on my side. I use facts and reasoning, you just call me names. It seems I’m justified in writing you off.
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@sharinalr
If the evidence is everywhere, it shouldn’t be hard for you to show me a few examples.
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Correction they tell you you are ignorant*
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@AlanDavis
“If the evidence is everywhere, it shouldn’t be hard for you to show me a few examples.”—It also shouldn’t be hard for YOU to find. They didn’t invent google, yahoo, or bing for nothing.
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Why would I do your homework for you though? You’re the one claiming there’s a problem, not me.
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@AlanDavis
“What exactly have I done to feel guilty about?”
I don’t know why you feel so guilty, but you’re the one who said “Everyone is equally guilty.” Are you now retracting that comment to exclude yourself?
“Is a serial killer who killed 50 people before he was stopped somehow worse than a serial killer who only managed to kill 40?”
If that’s a veiled analogy, then what two groups of people does that proportionally compare? If you’re comparing whites to some other group, then the proportion must be ad minimum 99 serial killings to 1.
“Pointing out that the accuser is just as guilty isn’t supposed to “redeem” the accused. ”
Again, you’re the one who said you were changing subjects for purposes of “correcting a false accusation.” Are you retracting that statement as well?
“I don’t think blacks will ever be able to integrate into white society as long as you don’t understand the language.”
First you don’t know what race I am or whether or not I want to integrate into white society, whatever that is. And plenty of whites don’t speak English, btw. But based on our discourse thus far, it’s clear to any clinically sane and reasonable person that my command of your language is better than yours.
“That’s why nothing is ever achieved and blacks remain bottom of the ladder. ”
I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, but if we’re measuring achievement by slaughter, theft and racism, then you’re right, white people win by far.
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@AlanDavis
“Why would I do your homework for you though? You’re the one claiming there’s a problem, not me.”—-Actually it is your homework. If I am not mistaken it was you here (https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/take-japan-for-instance/#comment-280977) that made the claim that everyone else had the issue and not whites (not the exactly words but a decent summary).
Though it is clear you don’t really have a clue what I see as a problem now do you?
Seeing as I am contending your original claim, then it is not my job to do more than say I disagree. Of course I could do more and provide this evidence, but I know better to realize this is where you use it to deflect and draw attention away from what you said and focus on getting me to do the work for you. 🙂
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@AlanDavis
“I don’t agree that the US strain of slavery was particularly nasty. By all accounts, the slaves were treated with extreme kindness, relative to most other cultures. The Africans were extremely cruel to their slaves. ”
Aww, what a cute way to make yourself feel less guilty. Too bad you have no evidence to prove it. But we understand how necessary it is to fabricate history in order to feel better about yourself. Maybe after this little phase of your life, you can move onto treating people who look different than you with kindness, and be a little less evil. Don’t worry, we’re not expecting much.
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OFF TOPIC: slavery, unless it can be related to the post, like to prove a point about the nature of racism.
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“I don’t know why you feel so guilty, but you’re the one who said “Everyone is equally guilty.” Are you now retracting that comment to exclude yourself?”
I don’t feel guilty, as I’ve said several times. Every race is equally guilty, or “culpable” if you want to put it that way, but I in no way feel any personal guilt.
I just don’t. Accept it. I feel absolutely no regret or remorse for whatever happened in the past.
“If that’s a veiled analogy, then what two groups of people does that proportionally compare? If you’re comparing whites to some other group, then the proportion must be ad minimum 99 serial killings to 1.”
So where do you draw the line? What is an “acceptable” proportion when we’re talking about genocide and slavery? At what point does one cross the line from “naughty” to “evil”?
“Again, you’re the one who said you were changing subjects for purposes of “correcting a false accusation.” Are you retracting that statement as well?”
I’ve no idea what you’re even talking about anymore. Those words you just used might all be English, but they’re pure word salad. This is what I mean about even native English-speaking non-whites not being able to communicate with us properly. They just make stuff up and put words in our mouth, without actually hearing anything we said.
“First you don’t know what race I am or whether or not I want to integrate into white society, whatever that is. And plenty of whites don’t speak English, btw. But based on our discourse thus far, it’s clear to any clinically sane and reasonable person that my command of your language is better than yours.”
If you refuse to integrate into white society, whatever race you are, then you deserve nothing. But, if you want to alienate yourself forever, be my guest. It won’t affect me.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, but if we’re measuring achievement by slaughter, theft and racism, then you’re right, white people win by far.”
I was obviously talking about socio-economic achievement. Even the Hispanics are doing better than the blacks.
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@AlanDavis
“I don’t feel guilty, as I’ve said several times. ”
That’s right, keep denying what you’ve said and you’ll forget you ever said it. It’s OK, you’ll get over your guilt one day.
“At what point does one cross the line from “naughty” to “evil”?”
Why are you asking me? You’re the expert on evil.
” Those words you just used might all be English, but they’re pure word salad.”
It was a direct quote from you, and so we’ll just assume you’re retracting that one as well.
“If you refuse to integrate into white society, whatever race you are, then you deserve nothing. ”
Another irrelevant tangent.
“I was obviously talking about socio-economic achievement. Even the Hispanics are doing better than the blacks.”
First, some Hispanics are black while most are white. But by what measure, Income? If so, Asians are “doing better than the” whites, so Asians are obviously superior to whites, right? That’s pretty sad considering whites run American society and discriminate for the benefit of whites? And they still can’t even come out on top. SMH.
And even sadder, their income growth has been way slower than ever other race. White growth in entrepreneurship has lagged every other race. Black entrepreneurship is growing fastest.
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@Kiwi
Those are very good observations.
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rasicm/ethnocentism— people can look at the same behavioral phenomenon and come to different conclusions. As an Easterner—I can accept that the Holocaust was race based prejudice,—but can also come to a different conclusion regarding the various roots of prejudices in the East.
As a Muslim, I have encountered this view many times where a Westerner/Christian will insist on interpreting Islam from a Western/Christian perspective completely disregarding the historical/philosophical roots of Islam as Muslims understand them…..
The idea that the White/Western view of the world is default is so pervasive that it is hard to shake off….but that is also why other voices must be heard—even if not agreed with…..
Racism while older in the West(Europe) than in the East, was nevertheless a later construct—Europe was made up of tribal groups that formed larger groups such as Visigoths, Franks…etc So, Europe still has traces of ethnocentrism….though this is also expressed as nationalism……
My opinion is that (both in the East and West)various types of prejudices are tangled up with each other…but we need to understand the “narrative” that underpins these prejudices in order to find solutions……
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@ AlanDavis
This is white supremacy in a nutshell. If you ain’t White, then you just ain’t right.
Brevity is the soul of my wit and the best way of dealing with trolls. These guys really, really want us to pour our souls out educating them while they deliberately ignore us. Sorta like a parent talking to a teen with headphones on, tuned out.
Drop the convos and they lose interest. It’s not as though they have anything of value to offer.
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I have these takeaways:
* Japan’s primary “mission” during and before WWII was to rid Asia of Western imperialism. Curiously, the model for doing this was itself Western imperialism (especially the British variety)
* Ideas about race were borrowed from Europe and the USA
* Using Japanese wartime atrocities and its attitudes about race to justify or mitigate those in the USA or other Western countries is about as morally bankrupt as it comes, esp. after learning that the model for such behaviour is the West itself.
* Japan lost the war to the USA. The USA then used it as a sort of colony, esp. as a base in the fight against the cold war, with China, Russia and North Korea at its doorstep. It does a similar thing with South Korea after the Korean War.
My further thoughts:
* The West, esp. Britain was particularly humiliated by the Japanese in the eyes of local Asians. It was obvious to the other Asian countries that Britain was not nearly as mighty as it made itself out to be.
* Britain got broke fighting Hitler. But its experience with Japan in Asia also weakened its power there. Asian countries shortly became independent from Britain afterwards (except for Hong Kong).
* The USA lost face in the Philippines during the war, but gained much of it back after beating the Japanese.
* It lost the war in Vietnam. As it did not retain it as a sort of colony, it did not try to rebuild it.
* Japan’s treatment of its minorities (and foreigners) is hardly a model or moral argument for race relations and white supremacy in the USA. Any racist policy or initiative it draws up or enforces is equally worthy of criticism and condemnation.
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AD’s tactics seem a lot like those of sbxxxx — derailing the topic in an effort to rile everyone. He thinks it is clever, but it is not.
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Why does the argument “somebody else did this too, therefore whites are good!!!!!” (or at least, not that bad after all) keep coming up so much? Why is it so hard for some to recognize just how morally infantile that reasoning is? Try it in court if you’re ever accused of a crime, if you think it’s such a great argument.
I don’t think anyone on this site actually would deny that other people have also perpetrated evils of their own. What is being said is that the evils that have been done by whites must be recognized as such and dealt with as they haven’t been dealt with yet to a satisfactory degree. With regards Japan, Arabs, etc. their demons are their responsibility. And the existence of that responsibility does not nullify the existence of responsibility for Whites.
If every human group were to take up responsibility for its various evils which led up to the world we have now and do something about them to make real and lasting positive change, we would probably get world peace.
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“What is being said is that the evils that have been done by whites must be recognized as such and dealt with as they haven’t been dealt with yet to a satisfactory degree.
…..
If every human group were to take up responsibility for its various evils which led up to the world we have now and do something about them to make real and lasting positive change, we would probably get world peace.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yeah, Mike. I used to be an optimistic dreamer too. Then I …..
See a James Baldwin quote re John Wayne seeing the world differently … and growing up under a group delusion. You can find it on this site, or elsewhere.
World Peace?
Maybe it’ll come from the ashes of near total destruction/annihilation. It doesn’t appear that it will arrive sooner. Those with weapons of mass destruction have exceedingly hard heads and crooked fingers bent toward Hell, itching/willing to launch an inordinate number of missiles with numerous nuclear warheads amongst their fellow man.
World insanity rules… for now.
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@mike4ty4
The argument is not “somebody else did this too, therefore whites are good!!!!!”, the argument is blacks did this too, therefore blacks who whine about slavery are worthless little hypocrites who have no right to complain. Or, “somebody else did this too, therefore there’s no reason to single out whites for demonization”.
The “evils” allegedly done by whites has already been dealt with to a satisfactory degree. There’s no longer any reason to keep discussing it or for singling out whites as somehow being worse than everyone else.
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Broken Record #3: Whites are not uniquely evil.
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I don’t think it is just an argument to excuse evil atrocities. It is also an argument to justfy things like
– marginalisation of native born or aboriginal peoples
– treating one ethnic group with a requisite race percentage as the single default norm for the country, with everyone else as widely different or even dehumanised.
– treating native born citizens who were raised and educated in a country as perpetual foreigners
– drawing an analogy between US citizens in the USA and foreign tourists in Japan
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@Trojan Pam:
Only just caught up with all that you’ve written in this thread. Excellent comments, especially re. Obama.
I note that the troll has barely begun (is unable) to properly address your points.
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@ Kiwi
Miss Japan—ethnocentrism may be generally outward–towards others…but there is internal (social) prejudice also—this prejudice is against people who differ from the accepted norm, such as transvestites, half/multiracial, those that suffered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing—particularly the women, Ainu…etc…This type of prejudice may be based on a social status/cast idea (not necessarily racial)….those that belong to the group and those that don’t…..
For example, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “tainted” because of the radiation and this made them outcasts–particularly the women—there was fear of health problems and birth defects.
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@Kiwi,
You are mixing a couple of factors here, so I am not sure if you have really thought about this that clearly.
Part-white “Hafu” in Japan do seem to grace the covers of fashion and beauty magazines in Japan, and show up in Beauty and Fashion Ads. One may be led to believe that there is some kind of beauty worship of the Part-white “Hafu”.
However, there is a big difference with having them represent Japan. Had a part-white Hafu Japanese taken the Miss Japan spot, there would have been some backlash too, it is very likely that they would have also said that she is not Japanese enough to represent Japan. Almost every single part-white Hafu who grew up in Japan that I have spoken with experienced constant daily reminders that they are not authentically Japanese, regardless of what their passport says, even experiencing bullying from other Japanese.
So no, they would not be cheering it either. The comments would be different from the ones directed towards part-Black Hafu, but it would not have been very welcome either.
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Kiwi wrote: “Japanese soldiers mutilated Chinese war dead but American soldiers did not mutilate German war dead.” Are you absolutely certain of that? I can think of a number of American soldiers who would have personal reasons to mutilate Germans. Namely Jews, Poles and other white ethnic Americans who would have been aware of how beastly the Germans were to their kin. When the Red Army entered Germany, a number of Germans paid for the deeds of their soldiers. My problem with the kind of thinking that’s behind your statement and those of a number of commentators on this subject is how much you’ve swallowed all the bullshit about white nationalism that the white nationalists like to pretend is true. A great example of this sort of gullibility is the following statement by Trojan Pam: “Germany ALSO lost the war but it has nuclear weapons and no one worries about them having them in spite of Hitler’s campaign to dominate the planet. Why? Because Germany is a “white nation.” ” The claim that Germany has Nuclear weapons is nonsense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing. The US didn’t even want France, a WW II ally to have nuclear weapons! The whole white ideology thing is a lie because as both WW I and II showed, the people who run white nations never hesitated killing millions of other whites when they felt it would benefit their nation. If you disagree with me you can refute my claim by showing that a white nation refused to attack another because doing so would violate the white nationalist credo that all whites should love one another. I don’t think you can.
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@Kiwi
You really seriously got this wrong.
I remember when that ad came out in HK a couple years ago. It caused a real firestorm. Even the blog link you posted pointed out how negatively it was received, even causing the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to prohibit the event to be held on their premises.
It was not generally positively received.
It is also not correct to make a blanket statement that HK is like Japan and has adopted colonized racial attitudes and the “PROOF” is in ads like the one you posted.
Sorry, but no.
OK, yes, there is a niche market where white expatriate men are looking for wealthy Asian women, ie, those who would not be marked as golddiggers, but financially secure Asian women just looking for white men. That dating service was an attempt to exploit that niche. It is certainly not the norm or reflective of any trend in society. It is not reflective of a trend of description of HK society any more than the following is a reflection of Asian men seeking black women in New York city:
(https://youtu.be/VyqncSE2iLU)
“Beyond Black & White and FYOOZ went on location to speak with the New York chapter of an Asian Men/Black Women group, 500 strong. Listen to the men and women dish dating advice and some hard truths about how parents of such unions can be a big obstacle for some.”
HK’s colonialist values and attitudes is now a hot topic today in HK. It is worthy of discussion. However, the post you provided does not reflect that discussion nor does it indicate anything about Japan.
Finally, by posting stuff like that, you are hijacking the main point of the thread – how white people excuse their racism by attempting to use Japan as example.
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OK, I will have to respectfully agree with some of your points and disagree with the others.
I also counter that while we can certainly argue some of the racist attitudes in Japan were borrowed from the West, it would be disingenuous to insinuate that Japan’s attitudes are a carbon copy of Western racist attitudes, and that THAT explains the issues such as those that face Blasian beauty pageant contestants. It would be wrong to extrapolate Western attitudes to determine Japanese attitudes, esp. their treatment difference between Blasian and Eurasian “Hafu”. I will agree that, in some part, ideas about black and white have influenced Japan, but I will disagree that that will explain why or why not a particular Japanese person will be accepted as authentically Japanese.
Indeed, I think you got some of it wrong. As I mentioned before, I was active in Eurasian and Hapa forums in the past, and one I even helped to moderate. I interacted with hundreds in Asia, Europe, Australasia and the Americas. Your observation is not consistent with my field experience.
I can be 99.9999% sure that Japanese would not be so welcoming to Eurasian Hafu representing their country either. The rhetoric will certainly be different from the one directed towards Blasian hafu, but it is not how you picture it.
I also still feel your argument about Hong Kong is generally wrong. There are some aspects which do represent white male racial attitudes, esp. those white men who see Asian female partners. But it is totally wrong to conclude that the reason why such a dating event (I wouldn’t call it a dating service) occurs is solely the direct result of white colonial attitudes. The backlash against that event ad was far in excess of any support for it, and we can still only relegate it as a niche market in HK. It is NOT reflective of any general situation in HK.
I disagree (actually vehemently disagree) that what I presented was a false equivalence. It was brought up specifically to demonstrate that finding an example of an event does in no way suggest that a trend is occurring, or that it is reflective of a society as a whole. I disagree that that group in NY formed solely to counter stereotypes. The Youtube was prepared in part to challenge stereotypes, but my point was not about WHY such a thing is posted but about whether the existence of an event is reflective about anything general in society.
And I still claim that you somewhat derailed the point of the original post , i.e., the morally bankrupt argument that whites use to justify THEIR racism. Sure, the Westernization of East Asia (and its impact on racial attitudes) is a factor to explain why the white argument is bankrupt – I agree with that. But then you go on to make claims about Japan and Hong Kong which simply are not true and do not reflect what actually happened. When I was studying the Japanese language in New York and also in Japan, one topic that that was addressed is why Japanese seem to welcome images of white people to represent certain products and services aimed at Japanese consumers. But, without fail, they will always be regarded as “gaijin”.
At least you qualified it by saying “It would not surprise me if …. “. That is fine. Just don’t make them into facts.
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@Kiwi,
That is the question that you are just now posing. That was not the question I was addressing.
My point was not why the rhetoric is different. That is another ball of wax, but undoubtedly part of the reason comes from white, mostly American stereotypes that were first brought over by the GIs, then later by American movies and television.
My point was the rhetoric does not follow the template that YOU proposed. It certainly is not the case that Japanese will singlehandedly reject the Blasian hafu and embrace the Eurasian hafu with open arms. Neither are seen as truly Japanese. And going by the current case, it seems that Japanese decided to select a Blasian hafu to represent them and not a Eurasian one. It seems to refute your model.
Again you changed the point that I was addressing. My point was that the phenomenon in Hong Kong of Asian women seeking White men is a niche phenomenon there, not the norm, and not like it is in the USA. Most women in HK, and in Asia in general, are not as brainwashed by the Asian male emasculation movement from the white media and government policy.
However, we do see in HK
– Asian women who are returnees or migrants from Western countries, and who received all or part of their education abroad. Some of them have internalized the Asian male emasculation phenomenon. Many professional Asian women in HK are overseas educated.
– Some Asian women in Asia, but a minority in the wealthier countries, have some fascination with things “foreign”. That spills over into interest in foreign men, which is interpreted as “white”. But, it is not the norm.
You might ask why they go after whites and not blacks. It might be partially because whites are perceived as having higher social standing (which might be attributed to some residual colonialist thinking) but part of the reason is that there simply are not many blacks here. Many of the black men I saw here ARE married to Asian women. You see it more in places like Guangzhou where there are nearly 100,000 Africans. Asian Indians are perceived as being lower status in HK, so we do not see as many ethnic Chinese women dating and marrying South Asian men (but I still do know plenty of these cases).
It seems like you are NOT questioning why Japanese seem to accept white images representing products and services geared towards the Japanese consumer, but rather why whites do not accept images of Asians to represent products and services geared for them. But we KNOW the answer to that, don’t we?
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@Kiwi
“Some whites like to argue that Western countries did not get rich through imperialism, that they got rich through their own merit, by pointing at developed places in East Asia, like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.”
That’s exactly what AlanDavis was trying to argue. They were “more successful,” which is obviously at killing. THey don’t mention that Europeans brutally colonised much of the Asia/Pacific rim.
“What they don’t realize is that because these jurisdictions lacked natural resources”
Actually, Britain and China fought in the brutal opium wars, and Hong Kong was the major transit point opium (and tea and opium). Even though HK was ceded back to China, HSBC (and other banks) is a remnant of the British legacy…all financed by opium.
France also fought China in the brutal Sino-French war in Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia. France eventually got the most land and ran most of the rubber plantations (with forced labour of course), and that’s how Michelin got so big. Singapore also grew from the British rubber plantations and trade.
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@Kiwi,
This time Japanese chose a Blasian hafu to represent them. If she won first place, at least a requisite number of people thought she more beautiful, at least enough to beat out the monoracially identified Japanese and the Eurasian Hafu Japanese.
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@Kiwi,
Oh come on, have you proven anything?
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@Kiwi
It’s still the international trade OF Asian natural resources, dominated by brutish European colonists. I don’t see any difference.
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@Kiwi
“The difference is that the areas without resources developed while those with abundant natural resources were resource cursed.”
That’s not accurate. Singapore’s success, for example, started with rubber plantations…and over a third of Singapore was rubber plantations up until WW2. There were also tin mines there for many years.
I don’t see that paradox as being any different than the difference between urban v. rural. Singapore was just as much a colony as the Malaysian or Indochinese hinterland.
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@ Kiwi
“Much of that paradox is due to Western imperialism.”
Could you elaborate that? The Wikipedia article indicates little connection with imperialism.
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Kiwi, thanks for the laugh.
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Kiwi, I don’t know about the ” for racist reasons” part but white on white violence for fun and profit is quite common. Here’s what I found from the Civil War era: ” Clement soon became known as Bloody Bill’s most trusted follower—or, in the words of an enemy, “Bill Anderson’s scalper and head devil.” Standing just over five feet tall and weighing about 130 pounds, Clement’s youth and slight stature belied his ferocity. Anderson (or one of his men) left this note on the body of a dead Unionist after a particularly vicious skirmish; “You come to hunt bush whackers. Now you are skelpt. Clemyent skelpt you. Wm. Anderson.”[3]
Clement took a prominent role in all of the major operations of Anderson’s organization in 1864, including the Centralia Massacre, in which the guerrillas blocked the tracks of the Northern Missouri Railroad and forced a train to stop. They then robbed the civilian passengers and killed 22 Union soldiers found on board, returning home on furlough from the Atlanta campaign. Anderson left one Union sergeant alive for a possible prisoner exchange. The guerrillas shot the rest, and scalped and otherwise mutilated the corpses.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Clement. It took me one minute to find this on Wikipedia. A clear case of white on white violence, don’t you agree? Sorry, I won’t be hunting for further ‘evidence’ to convince you of the point I was trying to make.
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“It’s obvious that you didn’t understand the point I made. White American soldiers mutilated Japanese soldiers but not German soldiers, for racist reasons – a detail you chose to ignore.” Oh no, I understood your point all too well, I just don’t take it seriously, and dismissed it because I find white racial attitudes to be lies that white people tell each other in order to live with one another. Given the long bloody history of white on white violence they need such stories to keep going. You and others on this blog can choose to believe their stories about being one big happy family united against the world. Churchill was every bit as much of a racist as Hitler but they ended up destroying the racist colonial world they each aspired to rule. Given these facts, what do I care what their racial attitudes were?
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[…] https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/take-japan-for-instance/ […]
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@ Bud Dhuu
Thank you for having the courtesy to respond.
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[…] https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/take-japan-for-instance/ […]
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@Kiwi
“What I wonder is how the reaction of the Japanese would have differed if Miss Japan had been half white instead of half black.”—I have been curious on what made them choose her considering their attitudes towards he half blackness. Is she a pawn to show how not anti-black japan is? Do they see her as an opportunity to have Japan win?
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Hi Sharina,
I don’t think Kiwi addressed your question at all.
“Hafu” in Japan, as a rule, are not seen as Japanese, at least not authentically Japanese. This is true whether the individual is part black, part white, part Latino, and even part other Asian (e.g., Filipino, Korean, etc.) This idea was addressed in the film “Hafu” that was alluded to in the link that Kiwi provided:
(http://hafufilm.com/en/)
I have discussed this idea with many Japanese “hafu” in the past. It has been quite consistent. I also worked and studied in Japan before and sometimes got mistaken as “hafu” there. At least it opened me up to a discussion of the “hafu” phenomenon with both hafu and non-hafu Japanese.
I remember discussing with a woman who was half Japanese and half English who grew up in Japan. She said that at least her ability to speak English in addition to Japanese gave her a psychological buffer. She knew many in Japan who could only speak Japanese and whose identity was entirely dependent on what Japanese people said about them or otherwise treated them. They tended to have more psychological problems than the ones who had a mixed cultural and educational background.
What is going on in Japan is not altogether that different from the USA in the 1950s (and I would argue, still today, given all the “Take Japan, for instance” arguments that people still use). Non-whites and even multiracial Americans were not seen as authentically American.
I think it is just a symbol that Japan’s society is indeed changing. With hundreds of thousands already present, and over 20,000 mixed racial and mixed ethnic kids born every year, it will not take long for that number to exceed 1 million. Added to this other factors affecting them (e.g., the influx of overseas Japanese from places like Brazil, some of whom who were also multiracial), and they are faced with a reality affecting their society that they have long denied. They are still resolute in resisting foreign immigration to their country. That is one reason the race for robotics is fastest in Japan – they would rather replace their labour force with robots than with immigrants. But even if many people there still live in the fantasy that there society is a racially and ethnically homogenous one, it will change right before their eyes. Ariana Miyamoto is reminding them of that.
I am not happy that she feels compelled to preemptively state that she “may not look Japanese on the outside, but her soul is Japanese”. To me, she looks perfectly Japanese, and a beautiful one at that. I hope to see the day that most Japanese will do the same.
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In the link above, there is another one describes the meaning of “hafu” in Japan. It sounds almost alike an Abagond post.
(http://hafufilm.com/en/about/meaning-of-the-word-hafu/)
One interesting thing that that definition brings up is the difference between the idealized image of “hafu” in Japan and what the reality actually is.
Maybe it might also be instructive to explain to people the difference between the term “Hapa” used in the USA and “hafu” in Japan and the social implications of each. Both terms spread throughout the society around the same period, but of course do not have the same meaning.
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“By the way, the “mistreatment” non-whites have suffered from whites is nothing compared to the mistreatment non-whites have suffered at the hands of other non-whites. That is one of the main reasons why I just don’t care. Whites are the most tolerant and compassionate race in the world, and non-whites are hypocritical little whiners. They get no sympathy from me until they sort their own problems out, and stop trying to put the blame on whites.”
This statement? Coming from a member of the MOST deceitful race on the planet that perpetrated terrorist acts and atrocities on other races, some for CNTURIES, yet on-going at the same time. (dryly) And, as they usually do, “attempt to compare apples and oranges” (white and black slavery) to take themselves off the radar. I have no doubt that this troll and others like him have NO remorse for their fore-fathers and their racist acts.
But to compare white slavery to black slavery? And white supremacy continues to be the “standard practice” in the Amerikkas globally?
Answer: “There is none.”
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Kiwi,
” It was only when the West forced its doors open in the late 1800s that it “modernized” (aka Westernized) and adopted Western technology and industry, along with Western racism and imperialism, which led up to World War II.”
Much of what is thought to be considered “the Japanese way” is very much a recent development in the speck of East Asian history. A lot of the crap about the eternally “hardworking,” “honorable” Japanese is bullshit mythos designed to portray Japan and its culture in a venerable light, and it most of it is inaccurate.
“Some whites like to argue that Western countries did not get rich through imperialism, that they got rich through their own merit, by pointing at developed places in East Asia, like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. What they don’t realize is that because these jurisdictions lacked natural resources, the Western powers that took them over did not see as great a need to exploit them.”
Precisely. The Tigers are in the position they are in, along with Germany and the rest of northern Europe because there really is nothing of importance to modern technological development that can be extracted from their lands.
It’s that simple, and has little to do with ability of the people those particular nations’ work ethics.
“The Cold War also made these places strategically important as a bulwark against the spread of communism in Asia.”
The West’s alliance, the trillions of dollars poured into these countries, the sharing of advanced technology, with Southeast Asia through today is built purely upon the desire to curb the influence People’s Democratic Republic and the Federation. Such thinking goes all the way back centuries, in which Asians were “worshiped” by white Europeans, praised for their “intelligence” and “civilization” (really what they liked was their submissiveness to authority.)
“Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan’s ideas about race, however, derived immense inspiration from the United States. After all, in spite of being America’s enemies, both nations admired the prestige of American power.”
Conversely, this is also why Germany and Japan are now the United State’s most important allies.
Power.
The burning desire to obtain power at any cost, like wiping out millions of “undesirables,” and the burning desire to obtain KNOWLEDGE at any cost, like performing the most abhorrent and inhumane of experimentation of living humans.
Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan’s ideological foundations, though criticized in public, were greatly respected by the United States and the former Western superpowers. The primary qualm the Allied West had is they want to be the sole perpetrators directing the show, not sharing it with other rivals.
“Hong Kong, a highly Westernized locale in Asia, is similar to Japan in the sense that much of its natives have adopted colonized racial attitudes.”
Pro-white skin, anti-dark skin attitude is transparent in all Asian societies, not just Westernized ones. Before the steamrolling of Western European colonization, darker-skinned Asians in general were always looked down upon, yes. The arrival of the Europeans took this already ingrained concept and added the factor of dehumanization not only towards darker-skinned peoples, but also in a cultural sense, where now various groups within the Asian race believed their ethnicity and/or culture instilled superiority over outside ethnicities or and/or cultures.
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sharinalr, Kiwi,
Even being here at the moment, it is quite difficult to completely understand why Ariana, or however her name is spelled, being half-black, was picked, because Japanese people as a whole do very much indeed find darker skin to be repulsive. From the only picture I’ve seen of her, Ariana(sp) is quite light-skinned and this certainly gives her advantages than wouldn’t be applicable to darker-skinned half-Japanese girls.
We see similar attitudes, unfortunately, in our own communities in America.
The modern Japanese mindset is highly ambitious in terms of winning international recognition in everything, technological advancement, competitive sports, standardized testing, international beauty contests, et cetera. That being the case, the onus on the judges is not simply that their nonpareil be recognized as representing the nation, but also as representing the “universe.” This is evidenced by the 2001 establishment of the hilariously-titled “Miss Universe Japan” competition, with the stated goal of producing Miss Universe finalists, rather than having their contestants finished unplaced in the event, as had often been the case, with the exception of 2007.
To put it simply, I believe that Ariana was chosen not because the judges believed her to be representative of Japanese beauty, or even beauty itself, but because they believe she is their best shot towards the ultimate goal of finishing as a finalist in the Miss Universe competition. The Japanese are very clever in terms of shaping international opinion about themselves, and almost certainly those involved in her selection knew the massive amounts of positive attention they’d receive from choosing a mixed race candidate, especially considering the widely-known insularity of the country.
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My above comments were written much too hastily. I’d like to rewrite a few parts.
“A lot of the crap about the eternally “hardworking,” “honorable” Japanese is bullshit mythos designed to portray Japan and its culture in a venerable light, though most of it is inaccurate.”
“The Tigers are in the position they are in, along with Germany and the rest of northern Europe, because there really is nothing of importance to modern technological development that can be extracted from their lands.
It’s that simple, and has little to do with ability of the people in those particular nations’ work ethics.”
“Such thinking, that Asians are easily manipulated, goes
all the wayback centuries, where Asians were “worshiped” by white Europeans, praised for their “intelligence” and “civilization” (really what this meant was they likedwas theirsubmissiveness to authority, a central tenet in Asian philosophies.)”“The burning desire to obtain power at any cost, like wiping out millions of “undesirables,” and (most important) the burning desire to obtain KNOWLEDGE at any cost, like performing the most abhorrent and inhumane of experimentation on living humans.”
“The arrival of the Europeans took this
alreadyingrained concept and added the factor of dehumanization not only towards darker-skinned peoples, but also in the cultural sense, where now various groups within the Asian race believed their particularethnicity and/or culture instilled superiority over outside, but still racially Asian, ethnicitiesorand/or cultures.”“The twentieth and twenty-first century Japanese mindset is highly ambitious in terms of winning international recognition in everything, technological advancement, competitive sports, standardized testing, international beauty contests, et cetera.”
“This is evidenced by the decision to eliminate the “Miss Japan” contest, and in 2001 establish the hilariously-titled “Miss Universe Japan” competition, with the stated goal of producing Miss Universe finalists, rather than having their contestants finish
edunplaced in the worldwide event, as had often been the case, with the exception of 2007.”“The Japanese are very clever in terms of shaping international opinion about themselves, and almost certainly those involved in her selection knew the massive amounts of positive attention they’d receive from choosing a mixed race candidate,
especiallyconsidering the widely-known insularity of the country.”LikeLike
Love this blog. But why so off the ball on Mao and G. Khan? I really don’t get glorifying the latter but holding Japan accountable for their atrocities?
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I take back that last post when reading all the way down. You should do a blog on forced occupation of US Military in the Pacific….
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@ TeddyBearDaddy
How about forced labor of enslaved Africans in the Americas too?
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@ MC
Abagond has made quite a few blogs in various forms but more would definitely be welcome. Along with a formal blog concerning Columbus, since the search function yield nothing. Another comparison European Americans love to make is the internment of ‘Germans’ and how that would be the equivalency of Slavery, Native American Genocide, and of the course the Ban of Chinese/Asian groups all the way to the interment of Japanese Americans. Let’s take a look at the actual numbers and actual treatment….
Best of luck to you Mr Cooper.
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[…] Take Japan, for instance – Japan is just as racist as the US […]
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