{"id":17047,"date":"2022-05-23T00:58:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T07:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17047"},"modified":"2022-05-23T10:59:19","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T17:59:19","slug":"debito-org-newsletter-may-23-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17047","title":{"rendered":"DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 23, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

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DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 23, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello Debito.org Newsletter Readers. Here is an excerpt of my latest SNA column, out today.<\/p>\n

This one discusses in part why journalism on Japan has historically had so many topical, “weird Japan” stories. Part of it is because some commentators on Japan remain willfully ignorant of the Japanese language. Others get duped by the industry of “Gaijin Handlers” designed to steer foreign perceptions of Japan in the “right direction”. And some commentators, like the late Henry Scott-Stokes, former Tokyo Bureau Chief at The Financial Times, Times of London, and New York Times, become willing abettors of the Japanese far-right, selling their reputations to maintain their privilege.<\/p>\n

Have a read. It resolves one mystery I always felt when meeting numerous veteran foreign correspondents during the Otaru Onsens Case. They would often arrogantly question my standing to work within the Japanese system as resident, Japanese citizen, and activist. Yet they could barely read the menu. Time for me to question their standing too:<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\nVisible Minorities: Henry Scott-Stokes, Sell-Out to Gaijin Handlers<\/strong>
\nShingetsu News Agency, May 23, 2022, by Debito Arudou<\/strong><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 Henry Johnstone Morland Scott-Stokes, patrician among Japan\u2019s foreign correspondents since 1964, recently died in Tokyo at the age of 83, but not before he did untold damage by performing as a foreign handmaid to Japan\u2019s fascists.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A man described as \u201ctweedy\u201d and \u201centertaining and congenial,\u201d Briton Scott-Stokes was nonetheless a man of privilege, lucky enough to land in Japan as Tokyo bureau chief of the Financial Times only three years after graduating from Oxford.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Becoming bureau chief of a major newspaper at the wizened old age of 26 might seem odd today, but back then foreign journalism in Japan had lower standards, and the field was infused with neocolonial attitudes towards the \u201cnatives.\u201d Fluency in your assigned country\u2019s language was not required.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nor was Japanese required at the other \u201cBig Three\u201d English-language newspapers in Japan, as Scott-Stokes later became bureau chief of The Times of London and the New York Times through the 1970s and early 1980s. For a man described as \u201csomeone who really understood Japan,\u201d he spent his entire 58 years in Japan as a functional illiterate, unable to fluently read, write, or speak Japanese…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Most hacks in his station moved on to other countries or settled into a quiet life in Japan, living a harmless twilight existence as cottage consultants in their cups.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott-Stokes didn\u2019t. He didn\u2019t just continue to rely on his privileged access to Japan\u2019s elite for his income; he decided to embrace their fascist tendencies…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Entire article at
\nhttps:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/05\/23\/visible-minorities-henry-scott-stokes-sell-out-to-gaijin-handlers\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Debito.org anchor site for commentary at
\nhttps:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17038<\/a><\/p>\n

Now on with the Newsletter.<\/p>\n

Table of Contents:<\/em><\/strong>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

1) My SNA Visible Minorities column 32: \u201cOn the Naomi Osaka Heckling\u201d at Indian Wells tournament (March 21, 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n

2) Kyodo: \u201c63% of people with foreign roots in Japan questioned by police\u201d, part of systemic racial profiling by the National Police Agency<\/strong><\/p>\n

3) My SNA Visible Minorities 31: \u201cShintaro Ishihara: Good Riddance to an Evil Man\u201d, an honest obituary. Feb 20, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\nBy Debito Arudou, Ph.D. (debito@debito.org, www.debito.org, Twitter @arudoudebito)
\nDebito.org Newsletters as always are freely forwardable<\/p>\n

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

1) My SNA Visible Minorities column 32: \u201cOn the Naomi Osaka Heckling\u201d at Indian Wells tournament (March 21, 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note: This is the column that caused a backlash because I’m a white man writing it, and that backlash inspired my latest column above. As Shingetsu News Agency President Michael Penn noted:<\/p>\n

\u201cDebito found a way to provoke them again, and I must say that I don\u2019t understand the way a lot of people think these days. Those who read the article and interacted with what was written tended to say on social media that they largely agreed with it. But there was a more vocal cohort who, not really disagreeing with any specific arguments made, were outraged on the basis that Debito, a white man, had dared to give any advice to Naomi Osaka. Apparently, we are now supposed to live self-contained within our own little tribal identities, and universal humanity is no longer recognized as sufficient grounds to express an opinion, even for a news columnist whose job is to comment on public affairs.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s what I wrote:
\n==============================
\nSNA: At a recent tournament in Indian Wells, California, Japan tennis champion Naomi Osaka was heckled by some troll in the audience who shouted out \u201cyou suck!\u201d while she was playing on court. That reduced Osaka to tears. She asked the referee if she could address the crowd, then asked to have the troll ejected. Both requests were denied, and play resumed. Osaka then lost in straight sets.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In post-game comments, Osaka tearfully noted the distraction and compared her situation to a 2001 incident where Venus and Serena Williams faced crowd abuse, again at Indian Wells. The Williamses boycotted the venue for more than a decade after that. Fortunately, this time Osaka\u2019s heckler was the outlier. The audience at the venue, fellow players afterwards, media and internet chatter were overwhelmingly supportive of her.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, others noted that Osaka needs to develop a thicker skin. I\u2019m afraid I agree. Osaka has been around on this circuit for quite a while. She\u2019s now 24, and obviously has the talent to be world champion. Now the question is, does she have the mettle to maintain it? [\u2026] At some point in time Osaka has to stop letting hecklers take her focus away. This is that point in time\u2026<\/em><\/strong>
\n==============================<\/p>\n

The full text of the article is at https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17021<\/a><\/p>\n

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

2) Kyodo: \u201c63% of people with foreign roots in Japan questioned by police\u201d, part of systemic racial profiling by the National Police Agency<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kyodo: A total of 62.9 percent of people in Japan with foreign roots were questioned by police over the past five years, preliminary results of a recent Tokyo Bar Association survey showed, with the group saying the outcome is evidence of biased behavior by officers.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The survey on racial profiling drew responses from 2,094 people with roots in foreign countries. The association said it conducted the poll after receiving complaints that many such people had been questioned by police apparently due to their appearance.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Among individuals who were approached by the police over the past five years, 50.4 percent were stopped \u201ctwo to five times,\u201d while 10.8 percent were questioned \u201csix to nine times\u201d and 11.5 percent \u201c10 times or more,\u201d according to the survey conducted between Jan. 11 and Feb. 28\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a free description section, some wrote that after officers learned of their foreign nationality, they showed \u201coverbearing behavior\u201d toward them. The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo had warned on its official Twitter account last year that it had been receiving reports of \u201csuspected racial profiling incidents\u201d with several foreigners \u201cdetained, questioned and searched\u201d by the police.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

COMMENT<\/strong>: More quantifiable grist for the mill for Debito.org\u2019s longstanding substantiated claim that Racial Profiling is standard operating procedure<\/a> for the Japanese Police. Bravo Tokyo Bar Association for getting us some citable statistics.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17026<\/a>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

3) My SNA Visible Minorities 31: \u201cShintaro Ishihara: Good Riddance to an Evil Man\u201d, an honest obituary. Feb 20, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

SNA: Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who died February 1, was an evil man. Any honest obituary would admit as such. Unfortunately, the media\u2019s retrospectives have tended to eulogize him, using weasel words so as to not speak ill of the dead.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the wrong reflex. Evil should never be whitewashed, especially when it comes to a person as evil as Ishihara, and by doing so they are complicit in historical revisionism. I will try to rectify that with this column by recounting Ishihara\u2019s actual record\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A hateful man who poured his hate into concrete policies, Ishihara eventually found himself in a position of real power, elected multiple times to the governorship of the world\u2019s largest and richest city. Ishihara installed Japan\u2019s first neighborhood surveillance cameras specifically in areas of Tokyo he claimed were \u201chotbeds of foreign crime,\u201d and went on TV at regular intervals to propagandize that Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, and Roppongi at night were no longer Japan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He also said that Japanese politicians who support more civil and human rights for foreign residents must have \u201cforeign ancestors\u201d themselves, and abetted political witch hunts and loyalty tests to root out politicians with international connections.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Essentially, Ishihara was trying to ethnically cleanse Japan, undoing the \u201cinternationalization\u201d phase of the 1980s and 1990s of openness and tolerance. In its place, he sponsored overt racism and normalized xenophobia.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And it worked. To this day, entire political parties, candidates, and hate groups publicly rally for the expulsion of foreigners and the extermination of Koreans. That\u2019s why current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can\u2019t easily lift the world\u2019s longest, most draconian and unscientific Covid border policies\u2013because polls say 57% of the fearful Japanese public want them kept\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Full article at https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/02\/21\/visible-minorities-good-riddance-to-an-evil-man\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Anchor site for commentary on Debito.org at
\nhttps:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17006<\/a>
\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading! Debito Arudou, Ph.D.
\nDEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 23, 2022, ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Table of Contents:
\n1) My SNA Visible Minorities column 32: \u201cOn the Naomi Osaka Heckling\u201d at Indian Wells tournament (March 21, 2022)<\/p>\n

2) Kyodo: \u201c63% of people with foreign roots in Japan questioned by police\u201d, part of systemic racial profiling by the National Police Agency<\/p>\n

3) My SNA Visible Minorities 31: \u201cShintaro Ishihara: Good Riddance to an Evil Man\u201d, an honest obituary. Feb 20, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17047","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=17047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17049,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17047\/revisions\/17049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}