# Japanese racism - available now at convenience shops near you

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2007-02-03T10:58:59Z


From the Magazine.In Japanese it says:"Oi Nigger!Don't be touching a Japanese girl's ass!"
Ejovi, Fukumimi and JapanProbe blog about a mook (magazine/book) published by Eichi called "Gaijin Hanzai Ura File" or "Foreigner Crimes Secret File".

Crimes by foreigners have been a central talking point of the right wing in Japan including Governor Ishihara of Tokyo. This story of foreign criminals being a public issue is a very old political position. For instance, after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, The Home Ministry declared martial law and blamed the Koreans for crimes. Rumors spread blaming Koreans for looting, arson and even poisoning the well. A great number of Koreans were killed/lynched. The official number is around 231 killed but independent studies put the number closer to 2,500. (Wikipedia reference). In Jr. High School, I visited the graves of these Koreans, which exists today in the Arakawa district of Tokyo. If it wasn't for this visit lead by our wonderful Japanese Social Studies teacher at the time, I would never have known about this incident. (Thanks Ms. Anami!)

Several years ago, the Governor of Tokyo made a very controversial speech at a graduation ceremony of the Self-Defense Force telling the young soldiers that during a time of national emergency, they may be called upon to protect the people from people of the "third country" - another name for people of Korean descent.

So while I have sympathy for Ejovi and others, I believe that this "good old fashioned racism" in Japan is pretty deep rooted and held by people in high places in government and corporate Japan. I believe this is one of the most important and fundamental ailments of Japanese society today and we need general awareness to increase on this issue. Many foreign business people in Japan look the other way because talking about such things is "bad for business"... The American Occupation decided to let the right wing movement in Japan survive and thrive choosing it as the lesser of two evils compared to the threat of communism from the USSR. The end of the war would have been the perfect time to squash this thing, but we missed that and now we're stuck with a daunting task that will possibly take generations.

I raise this issue whenever I can and have been labeled a "public enemy" by at least one prominent politician because of this. More people need to speak up spread the word.





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#### Categories

Japanese Culture, Japanese Policy