{"id":14912,"date":"2018-03-07T08:35:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T18:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=14912"},"modified":"2026-07-09T09:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:50:16","slug":"japan-times-jbc-111-white-supremacists-and-japan-a-love-story-march-8-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=14912","title":{"rendered":"My Japan Times column JBC 111: “White Supremacists and Japan: A Love Story” (March 8, 2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. This month sees a Japan Times column that I\u2019m particularly proud of, as it ties a lot of things together. My research question was, \u201cWhy do people react so viscerally whenever somebody criticizes Japan?\u201d And I think I found the answer: Japan attracts and nurtures White Supremacists.<\/p>\n

Here are the opening paragraphs:<\/p>\n

==========================================
\nWHITE SUPREMACISTS AND JAPAN: A LOVE STORY<\/strong>
\n JBC 111 for the Japan Times Community page<\/strong>
\n By Debito Arudou, Thursday, March 8, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

ttps:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/community\/2018\/03\/07\/issues\/white-supremacists-japan-love-story\/<\/a><\/p>\n

JUST BE CAUSE<\/strong>
\n\"justbecauseicon.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post reported<\/a> something interesting on Feb. 14: A farm put up a sign saying \u201cResist White Supremacy.\u201d And it incurred a surprising amount of online backlash.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Calls for boycotts. Accusations and recriminations. One-star Facebook reviews that had nothing to do with their products.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The article pondered: Who, other than a White Supremacist, would object to a message rejecting white supremacy?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But if you\u2019ve ever protested racism in Japan, or read comments sections in Japanese media, you\u2019ll know these reactions have been old hat for nearly two decades.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, this column will argue that online intolerance and attack have been Japan exports.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s talk about the old hat. It\u2019s been well established in both articles and lawsuits that Japan\u2019s online bullying is rife (see \u201d2channel, the bullies\u2019 forum<\/a>,\u201d JBC, Feb. 3, 2009), with people libeled and doxxed, and many a personal and professional life destroyed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not limited to Japanese-language forums. Anyone critical of Japan gets it, and in English, too.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, my blog recently critiqued a Japan Times article on the internationalization of Japan\u2019s youth (\u201dComing of age: 1 in 8 new adults in Tokyo are not Japanese<\/a>\u201c). As usual, somebody trolled:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is this a good thing? Japan needs to stay Japanese. Keep your Leftist, neo-Marxist ideology out of Japan. Japan does not want to go down the same Leftist road as Canada, UK, Europe, etc. Japan must remain an ethnostate. Keep the poz (HIV-positive) out. We see how that it\u2019s destroying the West. Multiculturalism and diversity are a cancer, and I hope to never see it in Japan.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This supremacist bile is common in the Oort cloud of online haters \u2014 the habitues of message boards such as 4chan and Reddit, who swarm, thrive and mobilize in anonymous echo chambers.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Like their Japanese counterparts, they consider the racial \u201cother\u201d the enemy, and find inspiration in Japan both as an online community (4chan is in fact the English version of 2chan, and is owned by 2chan\u2019s founder<\/a>) and, as noted above, as an \u201cethnostate.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider the notable white supremacists who are Japan fanboys:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jared Taylor<\/a>, author and guru of America\u2019s so-called alt-right, is a fluent speaker of Japanese<\/a>, born in Kobe to missionary parents and schooled in Japan until high school. A self-described white separatist, he believes Japan will be more successful this century than mongrel America due to its \u201dracial and cultural homogeneity<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Spencer<\/a>, the white supremacist leader who coined the term \u201calt-right,\u201d advocates America\u2019s \u201cpeaceful ethnic cleansing\u201d into a \u201cwhite ethnostate.\u201d Cloaking ethno-superiority as \u201didentitarianism<\/a>\u201d (which means, \u201cyou identify with your race, with your people, with your culture\u201c), his spokesman claimed, \u201cEveryone in Japan is an identitarian.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

William Daniel Johnson<\/a>, chairman of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, wrote a book (and a proposed constitutional amendment) advocating the deportation of all nonwhites from America. Majoring in Japanese in college<\/a>, he is fluent in the language after his Mormon mission in Tohoku, and prospers under what The Guardian<\/a> calls \u201can uncanny connection between Japan and white nationalism in America.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, the neo-Nazi who killed 69 people at a Labor Party island youth retreat in 2011, is an ardent Japanophile<\/a>. In his manifesto, he specifically praised Japan as \u201ca model country\u201d for avoiding multiculturalism.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Supremacists see Japan as a viable national alternative, not only because Japan can get away with policies that embed racism and keep immigrants out, but also, more importantly, because Japan gets the acceptance and respect of other rich countries regardless.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s incubators of hate have returned the favor, offering templates for supremacists worldwide to convert their trolling into real political power.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Bannon, the engineer of Donald Trump\u2019s successful presidential election strategy, is another Japan fan. He was here last December<\/a> at the Japanese Conservative Political Action Conference, proclaiming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the pioneer of Trumpism \u2014 \u201dTrump before Trump<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Joshua Green, in his bestselling book<\/a> \u201cDevil\u2019s Bargain,\u201d Bannon harnessed the power of online white male hate, \u201ca rolling tumbleweed of wounded male id and aggression.\u201d Recruiting \u201crootless white males\u201d from the online gaming community into propaganda outlet Breitbart (the \u201ccrown jewel of the alt-right\u2019s media universe\u201d<\/a>), he is now spearheading an international racist social movement.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

These rootless white males find succor in Japan. They enjoy one of the world\u2019s largest gaming communities. They are taken in by narratives of subservient women digging white men (The New York Times opined<\/a>that \u201cexclusively dating Asian women is practically a white-nationalist rite of passage\u201d<\/a>). And in the land of the hikikomori (extreme antisocial recluses), they find a society making allowances for awkward, introverted people who communicate best without ever leaving their room.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They also find purpose. As noted above, if anyone is critical of Japan\u2019s nerd terrarium, they pile on, like white samurai. Even though by doing so, they encourage the discrimination that affects them adversely.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The white samurai now join the ranks of the other historical figures who have defended Japan from charges of institutionalized racism.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They join the academics, who are compelled (by the \u201cchrysanthemum club\u201d old guard who explain away Japan\u2019s racism as misunderstood cultural foibles, and by the Japanese institutions that fund their departments) to stick to talking about the \u201cnice things\u201d about Japan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They join the international diplomats and businessmen who seek to preserve \u201cthe relationship,\u201d and prioritize trade over human rights.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They join the Japan culture fans, who know a lot about a stripe of Japanese culture (e.g., anime and manga, martial arts, etc.), but don\u2019t want the overall reality of inequality and exclusionism to darken their dreamy day. As cottage-industry \u201cJapan experts,\u201d they promote false moral equivalencies, diverting attention from serious stuff and focusing instead on Japan\u2019s exotica and erotica.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They all pile on against the pragmatists, who, as foreign residents of Japan, are just trying to deal with the day-to-day, earn an honest crust and avail themselves of opportunities other Japanese have. But if they ever advocate equal opportunity or access, they face the harshest criticism from their own kind. They don\u2019t belong in the ethnostate.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The white samurai are the most powerful of these detractors: anonymous in identity, instantaneous in response and single-minded in purpose, as the true keepers of a hate-based faith.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest loser in this dynamic is actually Japan. Even the United Nations\u2019 special rapporteur on racism noted in 2005 that Japan as a society is \u201cclosed, spiritually and intellectually centered.\u201d And as its population dwindles due to its antidiversity policies, its economic power and international clout will too.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And the biggest takeaway from all this is that one cannot ignore racism. As argued umpteen times before, ignoring discrimination only helps it spread. Likewise, ignoring Japan\u2019s incubators of hate for all these years has finally culminated in its watershed moment: Online hate helped America elect a racist president<\/a>. Now it is undermining liberal democracies worldwide.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/em><\/p>\n

==========================================<\/p>\n

This will be the anchor site for discussion about the article on Debito.org. Thanks for reading, everyone. Dr. Debito Arudou<\/p>\n

PS: \u00a0If trolls show up here, as they probably will, as per Commenting Guidelines<\/a>, Debito.org reserves the right to make public their IP addresses.<\/p>\n

============
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WHITE SUPREMACISTS AND JAPAN: A LOVE STORY
\nJBC 111 for the Japan Times Community page
\nBy Debito Arudou, Thursday, March 8, 2018
\nOpening paragraphs: <\/p>\n

The Washington Post reported something interesting on Feb. 14: A farm put up a sign saying \u201cResist White Supremacy.\u201d And it incurred a surprising amount of online backlash. Calls for boycotts. Accusations and recriminations. One-star Facebook reviews that had nothing to do with their products.<\/p>\n

The article pondered: Who, other than a White Supremacist, would object to a message rejecting white supremacy? But if you\u2019ve ever protested racism in Japan, or read comments sections in Japanese media, you\u2019ll know these reactions have been old hat for nearly two decades. In fact, this column will argue that online intolerance and attack have been Japan exports\u2026<\/p>\n

Read the rest in the JT at https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/community\/2018\/03\/07\/issues\/white-supremacists-japan-love-story\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,18,43,36,22,34,50,52,20,5,12,26,21,4,14,16,15,13,56,48,64,7,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-academia","category-bad-business-practices","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-gaiatsu","category-hate-speech","category-history","category-human-rights","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-21","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-labor-issues","category-lawsuits","category-media","category-nj-legacies","category-shoe-on-the-other-foot-dept","category-sitys","category-united-nations","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912","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=14912"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17749,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions\/17749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}