{"id":10276,"date":"2012-06-06T14:41:43","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T05:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=10276"},"modified":"2012-06-10T09:01:29","modified_gmt":"2012-06-10T00:01:29","slug":"my-japan-times-just-be-cause-column-june-5-2012-guestists-haters-the-vested-apologists-take-many-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=10276","title":{"rendered":"My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column June 5, 2012: Guestists, Haters, the Vested: Apologists take many forms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Books etc. by ARUDOU Debito (click on icon):
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Hi Blog. This month saw another side-by-side Community Page with my argument made and a rebuttal, this time from a person I respect mightily: Colin P.A. Jones. It’s worth a read, as always. His point in crux and excerpt:<\/p>\n

========================
\n“Here we come to the reason why I felt compelled to write a response to Debito: Microaggression is disturbingly familiar to what I perceive to be the Japanese government’s strategy (a term that credits it with more thought than is actually involved) of “protecting” human rights by trivializing them. With definitions of harassment, abuse and even violence that are so broad that they can be applied to just about any type of behavior that makes someone unhappy, everyone can be a victim, but everyone is a potential human rights violator too.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

“Perhaps the government devoting significant resources to identifying causes of unhappiness is a good thing. At the same time, however, if you have ever worked for a Japanese institution and witnessed the vast number of hours of otherwise productive people’s time that can be diverted to addressing a single person’s baseless claims of persecution, you can’t help but wonder if the life energy of everyone involved wouldn’t be better spent on other endeavors…”<\/em><\/strong>
\n========================<\/p>\n

Rest at http:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/text\/fl20120605a1.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my column this month made the Top Ten Most Read again, thanks, and also because an “Editor’s Pick” (also thanks!) Have a read. Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

\"justbecauseicon.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Japan Times, Tuesday, June 5, 2012<\/strong>
\n JUST BE CAUSE<\/strong>
\n Guestists, Haters, the Vested: Apologists take many forms<\/strong>
\n By ARUDOU Debito<\/strong>
\n Zeit Gist Column 59\/Just Be Cause Column 52 for the Japan Times Community Page<\/strong>
\n To be published June 5, 2012<\/strong>
\n DIRECTOR’S CUT: Restoring a paragraph deleted from the print article (in parentheses)<\/strong>
\nCourtesy http:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/text\/fl20120605ad.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Last month\u2019s column on \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d<\/a> was my most debated yet. Thanks for reading and commenting.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So this month, let\u2019s explore how the microaggression dynamic works in all societies, and why some people live in denial of it. Brace yourself for a bit of theory …<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

All societies, when defining themselves, decide who is \u201cus\u201d and who is \u201cthem.\u201d So do countries. In the name of sovereignty, nation-states must decide who is a member (i.e., a citizen) and who is not (i.e., a foreigner). (If they didn\u2019t, there\u2019d be no point to citizenship.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nation-states also perpetuate themselves by creating a feeling of community for their citizens \u2014 national narratives, invented traditions and official shared histories. So the concept of \u201cWho is \u2018us\u2019?\u201d gets created, reinforced and generationally encoded through the media, public policy, primary education, etc.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What about encoding \u201cWho is \u2018them\u2019?\u201d It is by nature a process of differentiation. Foreigners by definition have different legal, civil and political rights in any society. (They usually cannot vote, for example.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But differentiation is also codified in everyday interaction. To determine their community\u2019s borders and clarify their identity within it, people tend to contrast themselves with outsiders. This is a process of socially \u201cothering\u201d people.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eventually the presumptions of \u201cOthers\u201d as \u201cdifferent\u201d become normalized into mundane assumptions, such as stereotypes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Herein come the microaggressions. They keep life simple by enforcing (consciously and unconsciously) the stereotyping. For example, \u201cThis person looks Asian; he can use chopsticks.\u201d \u201cThis person looks Caucasian; she needs an English menu.\u201d They are not necessarily grounded in hatred \u2014 only in presumed difference.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This means that even well-intentioned people, trying to be kind when offering those chopsticks and menus, tend to view the person standing before them not as a unique individual, but as a collection of socially encoded characteristics assigned to that individual\u2019s presumed group. Then they react accordingly.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why microaggressions are so invisible, powerful and difficult to fight. For why would anyone resist someone trying to be kind? But people do \u2014 even in Japan, where they grumble about arigata meiwaku (nuisance niceness).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Japan, however, microaggressions towards non-Japanese (NJ) are especially difficult to counteract for three reasons.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One is that Japan\u2019s encodings are extremely standardized. Japanese basic education and social science (JBC, Sept. 7, 2010<\/a>) are grounded both in stereotypes and in a cult of Japan\u2019s difference (\u201cuniqueness,\u201d in fact). They inculcate convictions that, say, all non-Asian foreigners cannot use chopsticks or can understand English. Doubt that? Walk by a schoolyard and count the inevitable \u201charou!\u201ds.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A second reason is that Japan\u2019s encoding for what makes \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d is so strong that it is insuperable, precluding possible exceptions. Take, for example, the case of a person who naturalizes and becomes a Japanese citizen. Surely such people prove that it\u2019s possible to jump the wall from The Other to become part of The Self?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Legally, yes. But not always socially. As \u201cJapanese Only\u201d signs and rules make plainer, \u201creal\u201d Japanese have to look Japanese. We are far from a \u201ctipping point\u201d where multitudes of multiethnic Japanese demonstrate that language ability and manual dexterity are unrelated to phenotype.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But the third, more insufferable reason is a lack of cohesiveness, especially within Japan\u2019s English-speaking NJ community (JBC, June 7, 2011<\/a>).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead of asserting themselves as unique individuals, many NJ buy into the stereotypes behind microaggressions and enforce them on each other.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s call the accepters, defenders and enforcers of the status quo \u201cApologists\u201d for short. Why do they do it?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For some, it\u2019s a matter of \u201cguestism,\u201d as in, \u201cJapan is for the Japanese, so I can\u2019t tell them what to do.\u201d However, Guestists also assume anyone who appears to be foreign are also \u201cguests\u201d and should likewise shut up.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

To justify their mindset, Guestists not only invoke grandiloquent theories like \u201ccultural imperialism\u201d (i.e., foisting \u201cour\u201d Occidental values on \u201ctheir\u201d insular, inscrutable Oriental society), but also cook up delusions such as that one person\u2019s protests \u201cspoil\u201d Japan for everyone.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, they too validate the \u201cguilt by association\u201d meme underpinning racialized stereotypes. Not only do they endorse NJ being treated differently as human beings, they also demand NJ disenfranchise themselves.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For other Apologists, it\u2019s a matter of vested interests. They\u2019ve lived here long enough to reach mental equilibrium in their fishbowl. Life\u2019s too short \u2014 why cloud their day by going against the flow?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After all, many of the Vested have Japanese spouses, kids in school, a mortgage, and a job they can\u2019t just leave. Their Japanese families rarely empathize with any resistance anyway. So their attitude becomes, \u201cLeave me alone. What can I as one person do to change, oh, a bent bureaucracy, an irradiated food chain, and everyone poking my stomach and saying how fat I\u2019ve gotten? Shikata ga nai.\u201d And they acquiesce.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still other Apologists are either blind or relativistic towards microaggressions because their mind is closed. They\u2019ll criticize even recognition of the concept of microaggression as \u201coversensitivity,\u201d \u201cparanoia,\u201d \u201cpolitical correctness,\u201d or \u201cseeing racism everywhere!\u201d One sniped, \u201cSomebody said \u2018nice weather\u2019 to me! Microaggressor!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, try opening your mind: Let\u2019s go back to that \u201cEnglish menu for Caucasians\u201d example. A commenter excused this as an act of kindness, for how could a waitress possibly tell what language he could read? Was he to pore through an unintelligible menu just to prove a point?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

No. The waitress should assume that any customer gets the same menu, unless advised by the individual customer of a different preference. Deciding his preference for him is arigata meiwaku.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Switch shoes: Let\u2019s say a waitress in a Western country is told to give anyone who \u201clooks Asian\u201d a menu in Chinese.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How would that sit? Not well. Because people know that there are many kinds of \u201cAsians\u201d (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, American, Canadian, etc.). Assuming that any \u201cAsian\u201d is a Chinese is just wrong.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Paragraph deleted by editor: \u00a0(And how do we know it is wrong? Because overseas \u201cAsians\u201d grumble aloud about being \u201cmicroaggressed\u201d like that, over time raising public awareness of the problem.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So what should have happened? The commenter takes the standard menu from the waitress and, if unable to use it, asks if one exists in a language he can read (in his case, English). Simple.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the power of microaggressions: so invisible that the aforementioned commenter endorsed the stereotype that all \u201cvisibly foreign\u201d people in Asia read English. That\u2019s plain wrong.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, there are the \u201cHater Apologists\u201d who mysteriously launch into ad hominem attacks fueled by visceral animosity. I think I\u2019ve finally figured them out.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you ever noticed that, if they are not the \u201cTeam Japan\u201d Japanese defending the nation (even its wartime atrocities) under any circumstances, the Haters are generally white people?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Think about it. Since colonialism and the Enlightenment, whites have been the dominant racial group in the world order. Because whites have historically had \u201cno color\u201d (remember, everyone else is \u201ccolored\u201d), they are often oblivious to the processes of racialization.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Brace yourselves for a little more theory: Current postcolonialist\/postmodernist analysis of racialization generally holds that people are systematically differentiated, othered, then subordinated. This is how nation-states unified their peoples under national narratives of \u201cSelf\u201d and \u201cOther.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For centuries now, the whites (who created the modern nation-state paradigm replicated around the world) advantageously ranked everyone else below them by race (see \u201csocial Darwinism\u201d). Whites have never been a subordinated racial minority on a national scale in any \u201cFirst World\u201d country.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Except, of course, in Japan. So whites seek to elevate their social standing here by using whiteness to their advantage \u2014 as \u201csensei.\u201d And they use pandering techniques so normalized they are practically invisible.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For example: 1) offering the \u201chonorary white\u201d status that Japan covets in the world order by teaching them English (witness how \u201creal English speakers\u201d are sold in Japanese media as white); 2) feeling lucky or smug that they aren\u2019t lower on Japan\u2019s ethnic pecking order (they aren\u2019t blacks, Koreans, South Americans, etc.); 3) playing Uncle Tom to offset themselves as \u201cgood gaijin\u201d (they aren\u2019t low-wage migrant workers, \u201cillegals,\u201d criminals or \u201cflyjin\u201d) and claim extra privileges; or 4) shouting down anyone who threatens to upend the sensei status quo (even though whites, after slotting everyone else in a racial hierarchy for centuries, should not be allowed to claim they are now an exception to it).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Furthermore, consider what kind of whites are generally attracted to Japan: socially awkward, tech-savvy, nerdy dorks. (I know. I\u2019m one too.)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Click on the photos for more information.]<\/em><\/p>\n

With chips on their shoulder after childhoods of being bullied, the Dorks are at last extracting their revenge on the Lucky Beautiful People (e.g., prom queens, football captains, or anyone with a talent \u2014 like writing \u2014 they were not born with) by tearing them down.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But in Japanese society (itself culturally rife with dorky, techie, socially awkward people), Dorks are further empowered by the Internet (and Japan\u2019s blind eye towards bullying) to attack people anonymously. And they can coast within a well-established narrative of \u201ccultural relativism\u201d to camouflage it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t like these stereotypes I\u2019m creating? Alright, Apologists, fight them for a change. But you\u2019d miss the bigger irony.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Apologists, by reflexively denying the existence of microaggressions (substantiated in decades of social science as a fundamental means for policing social identity), are hurting themselves. They are reinforcing their status of The Other in Japan by supporting the stereotypes that subordinate them. And all for maybe a crust of white privilege.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The final thought I want to leave you with this month is, \u201cWhy we fight.\u201d Who is all this protest for?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Not for us, actually. For our children in Japan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Many Apologists point out, \u201cWe chose to come to Japan. If you don\u2019t like it, leave!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, how will that sit with your Japanese children, who didn\u2019t choose, and who might want the choice later of what society to live in as adults \u2014 and maybe even have some control over their identity within it?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Are you going to let Japanese society \u201cmicroaggress\u201d them into The Other, \u201cgaijin\u201d category, just because they look more like you than your Japanese spouse?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What kind of future are you helping create for them? One of tolerance?, Or one of constant differentiation, othering and probable subordination?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So think seriously before you disparage the activists trying to make Japan a better place for everyone regardless of how they look.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not arigata meiwaku. This is advocating The Other become part of The Self.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1695 WORDS<\/em><\/strong>
\n ENDS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JBC: Last month\u2019s column on \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d was my most debated yet. Thanks for reading and commenting.<\/p>\n

So this month, let\u2019s explore how the microaggression dynamic works in all societies, and why some people live in denial of it. Brace yourself for a bit of theory …<\/p>\n

All societies, when defining themselves, decide who is \u201cus\u201d and who is \u201cthem.\u201d So do countries. In the name of sovereignty, nation-states must decide who is a member (i.e., a citizen) and who is not (i.e., a foreigner). (If they didn\u2019t, there\u2019d be no point to citizenship.)<\/p>\n

Nation-states also perpetuate themselves by creating a feeling of community for their citizens \u2014 national narratives, invented traditions and official shared histories. So the concept of \u201cWho is \u2018us\u2019?\u201d gets created, reinforced and generationally encoded through the media, public policy, primary education, etc.<\/p>\n

What about encoding \u201cWho is \u2018them\u2019?\u201d It is by nature a process of differentiation. Foreigners by definition have different legal, civil and political rights in any society. (They usually cannot vote, for example.)<\/p>\n

But differentiation is also codified in everyday interaction. To determine their community\u2019s borders and clarify their identity within it, people tend to contrast themselves with outsiders. This is a process of socially \u201cothering\u201d people.<\/p>\n

Eventually the presumptions of \u201cOthers\u201d as \u201cdifferent\u201d become normalized into mundane assumptions, such as stereotypes. Herein come the microaggressions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,22,26,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-cultural-issue","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-problematic-foreign-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}