Mr. Clark is consistent in one respect -- he consistently misrepresents
and distorts facts in his columns to support his views, and decries
anyone who disagrees with him as having a racist attitude toward Japan
(which must mean that the Japanese lawyers for the plaintiffs and the
Japanese judges that have decided in favor of the plaintiffs must have
some kind of racist attitude towards their own people). In fact,
wanting to eliminate racial discrimination (or "organizing society
based on factors of race", one of Mr. Clark's favorite misnomers) is
really the highest respect and honor for the Japanese people, as it
assumes that racial discrimination is not the norm and that those who
practice it are well outside the mainstream of Japanese society. The
more I read of Mr. Clark's writings, the more I realize that his anger
comes more from a personal dislike of the "chief do-gooder" and that he
is using -- or abusing -- his position as a columnist to carry out a
vindictive personal feud. Now that the plaintiffs have won -- twice --
Mr. Clark has racheted up his distortions and misrepresentations in a
desperate attempt to discredit the plaintiffs, while only serving to
further discredit his own reputation as well as the reputation of the
newspaper that carries his column. Mr. Clark has become so married to
his own preconceived notions that he interprets any criticism as a
personal attack and automatically assigns ulterior motives -- such as
this absurd notion that those that seek to end racial discrimination in
Japan are racists themselves -- and then purposefully distorts
information in an attempt to discredit his critics.
Below is a 1999 article and response which only further exemplies Mr.
Clark's determine to distort the truth to support his own positions.
Steve Silver
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
GREGORY CLARK on
"JAPAN'S PARTICULAR RACISM"
Japan Times, Op-Ed, December 25, 1999, page 18
Reprinted in slightly modified form (the Japanese words translated) in
the Taipei Times, Taiwan, January 22, 2000
There is something very one-sided about the way so many outsiders want
to see Japan as a den of racist iniquity. The case of a small Hamamatsu
jeweler fined for refusing entry to foreigners was played up in
responsible Western media. In the internet chat rooms for resident
"gaijin", the joy was unconfined.
Yet almost every foreigner here must at some time or other have felt
the extraordinary courtesy and honesty the Japanese can show to
outsiders. Is that supposed to be part of some racist plot?
Few other nations go to the same trouble to provide materials and
services in English for a foreign minority not very interested in
learning the local language. Where else in the world would mediocre
foreign TV personalities and commentators receive such attention,
simply because they are seen as different and "kakko-ii" (superficially
attractive).
In areas where many Western nations still discriminate against
foreigners--licences, company registrations or land purchases for
example--Japan can often be remarkably open and fair. Foreigners are
even invited to join government policymaking bodies ("shingikai").
But no doubt the critics will find a way around it all. If Konishiki is
not promoted to yokozuna, that proves more anti-gaijin racism. But when
Akebono is made yokozuna and Konishiki is promoted to TV stardom, we
get deep silence.
If Japan for fairly valid reasons fingerprints foreigners, that too is
racism. When US fingerprinting of aliens is pointed out, we get more
silence.
Nor is there much interest in the reasons why a Hamamatsu jeweler might
want to keep out foreigners--when even the Hamamatsu police are
concerned over the problem of petty pilfering by local Brazilian
workers. The critics are now focusing on an Otaru bathhouse keeper who
sought to keep out visiting Russian seamen. Many of these people are
delightful. Even so, the fact remains that people who have just arrived
from Sakhalin on unsanitary, rust-bucket boats are bound to cause
problems ("meiwaku") in Japanese bathhouses. In Japan's person-oriented
value system, causing meiwaku is a major sin.
Landlords who bar foreigners because the fret over the meiwaku that
untidy tenants might create are also hit by gaijin critics. But we hear
little about the landlords who prefer foreigners over Japanese tenants
because they believe the former are more likely to obey contracts.
One of the reasons why Japan works so well as a society, and is
therefore attractive to foreigners seeking a comfortably-ordered life,
is precisely because of the particularistic, anti-meiwaku fussiness
with which shopkeepers, bathhouse owners, landlords, etc. go about
their business. To ignore these and the many other details that can
make life for gaijin here so easy, while focusing relentlessly on the
occasional downside, is devious. It is also immature.
Needless to say, the critics also have nothing to say about the good
citizens in Hamamatsu and elsewhere who go out of their way to organize
friendship societies in a fairly vain effort to help poorer foreign
workers (Latin-Americans especially) and students integrate into Japan.
But the decibels rise if some hypersensitive foreigner feels Japanese
avoid sitting next to him on trains, though the chances are that said
Japanese are simply afraid that said critic will cause them large
meiwaku by asking directions in loud and incomprehensible English.
True, there are times when antiforeign sentiment in Japan can turn
ugly. But that is usually just the flip side of the instinctive
sensitivities that lead so many other Japanese to be unduly pro-gaijin.
Even at its militaristic worst, the Japanese approach to foreigners was
ambiguous. Japanese nationalists would vent cruel hatred on other
Asians seen as unfriendly. But they would then turn round and embrace
those whom they thought were pro-Japan.
They never developed across-the-board racial hatreds seen in our
Western societies--not because of any superior virtue, but simply
because they lacked our Western ability to turn particular feelings
into universal rationales binding for all times and places.
Even at the height of the Japan-German alliance, Japan, unlike Vichy
France and other allegedly civilized nations, never saw any need to
cooperate with Nazi anti-Jewish hatreds.
Some blacks in Japan complain about discrimination. But many more say
they find Japan more open and friendly than some Western societies,
where black people are still stereotyped as undesirable, without regard
for individual personalities.
Today Western progressives try to fight these across-the-board
prejudices by religiously trying to deny any hint of differences
between races. Even legitimate mention of such differences, for example
that black people make superior athletes, is banned for fear of
reviving the rationales that fueled past racism.
But for the Japanese, it is quite natural to note that there are
differences between the races--that some foreign people are kakko-ii or
likely to observe contracts, while others are more likely to be untidy,
pilfer, leave mud on the floor, etc. These attitudes may trample on the
principled sensitivities of progressives, but that's their problem, not
Japan's.
Japan's uglier discriminations have usually been closer to
home--towards the formerly outcast people ("burakumin") and other
domestic minorities. Since the discrimination is so instinctive, with
no attempt at rationale (another aspect of Japanese values), they are
hard to deal with, and progressive Japanese often try to avoid even
discussing them for fear of reviving the ugly instincts.
Gaijin critics see that reticence as another ugly, racist, Japanese
coverup.
To demand that Japanese observe our value system, while pouring scorn
on theirs, is the worst kind of racism.
Gregory Clark is president of Tama University
ARTICLE ENDS
ISSHO KIKAKU BENCI PROJECT LETTER TO TAIPEI TIMES IN RESPONSE
Discrimination is racist
Letter to the Editor
Published February 3, 2000
As a longtime "resident foreigner" of Japan and activist in
discrimination cases in my adopted country, I would like to comment on
Gregory Clark's recent commentary ("Is Japan racist towards foreigners?
No, says a Westerner," Jan. 22, p. 9). I would like to focus on the
facts of the two referenced discrimination cases.
First, Clark's passing depiction of the Hamamatsu case leaves out
important information. The Japanese jeweler forcefully evicted the
plaintiff only because she was a window-shopping Brazilian.
In 1999, Japan's courts ruled, via the UN Convention on Racial
Discrimination (adopted by Japan in 1996), that exclusion based solely
on nationality was illegal, necessitating US$15,000 compensation.
If foreign critics in Japan are unduly bashing the shopkeeper, they are
in good domestic and international company.
Second, the Hokkaido bathhouse case, where according to Clark a manager
sought to keep out visiting Russian seamen, is another
misrepresentation.
Not one but three bathhouses in the Hokkaido area have had exclusionary
policies for over six years. And not only for Russians.
Their front-door signs proclaim "Japanese only," meaning all
foreigners, technically including Japan-born Chinese and Koreans, are
prohibited from using the facilities.
Why should the actions of the few be applied to everyone of a different
nationality? After our organization brought this up in the media and
with nationwide authorities, one bathhouse repealed its shut-door
policy.
The remaining two, despite personal visits and entreaties to the
management, still bar me (a permanent resident of Japan, with land and
a Japanese wife and children) and my Caucasian friends from bathing
with my own children. The fact is these policies are abusable.
On one of our visits, managers permitted entry to a Chinese friend, who
looks Japanese, until she revealed her nationality and was evicted.
I expect nothing different when my
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