Are Japanese people really that racist?

UCLAri
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:17:24 +0000

futurenyustudent,

“Kind of sort of xenophobic” pretty much translates into a form of bigotry.

And your mom is incorrect. Citibank had a hard time succeeding because of regulatory pressures that it hadn’t faced in other countries.

k&s,

It isn’t? So when an Arab is sitting on an airplane and every other passenger is staring at him, glaring, and whispering to each other about his presence, that’s not discrimination?

That’s what you get in Japan, except that it’s supposedly “benign.” To be honest, I don’t often side with Debito Arudo on his pet issues, but he is right on one thing: Japan is EXCEPTIONALLY closed when it comes to non-natives. Even those who naturalize face a lifetime of discrimination.

Yes, I know, it happens in the US. However, the degree to which those few naturalized citizens of Japan face discrimination is far far worse than what occurs in the US. It’s gotten better in the last decade, but it’s still FAR behind other states.