{"id":2696,"date":"2009-03-14T00:17:26","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T15:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=2696"},"modified":"2009-03-14T00:17:26","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T15:17:26","slug":"weekend-tangent-another-blogger-comes-around-sees-beyond-molehills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=2696","title":{"rendered":"Weekend tangent: Another blogger comes around, sees beyond “molehills”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Handbook<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"Foreign<\/a>\"\\\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"JAPANESE<\/a>
\nHi Blog. \u00a0Since weekends are usually times for people to relax (and hits to this blog reflect that; most of the traffic seems to come at the beginnings of weeks, tapering off during Saturdays and Sundays, as people find better things to do than spend their lives behind computer screens), let me devote this Saturday’s entry to a pleasant afterglow I had yesterday morning.<\/p>\n

Linking to Debito.org was a blog by a chap named Kelly Yancey<\/a>. \u00a0He’s going through a bit of a bad patch at the moment, it seems, and I hope he snaps out of it. \u00a0(Kelly, if you’re reading this, things will get better over time — stick with it; avoid grand conspiracy theories, and do what you can to fill your world with sympathetic people and pleasant things.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, the afterglow was from this section:<\/p>\n

Since coming to Japan, I have come to appreciate Dave Aldwinckle’s complaints and the hard work he has been doing to try and bring the injustices in Japan into the forefront. Whenever I get worked up enough about something that I want to bitch about it on my own blog, I just need to go hit his\u00a0<\/em>debito.org<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to commiserate.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>When I was sitting in the comfort of the U.S.A., Debito’s stories seem farfetched and, frankly, unbelievable. More than once I thought he was making a mountain out of a molehill. However, I now realize that he doesn’t have to go digging to find examples of\u00a0<\/em>racism<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>discrimination<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>injustice<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em>hypocrisy<\/em><\/a>…it turns out there is just a lot of material to pull from here in Japan.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Unfortunately, while brave individuals like Debito are trying to recitify the situation, apologists still abound…<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

http:\/\/kbyanc.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/racism-in-japan.html<\/a><\/p>\n

I like hearing that. \u00a0There’s just no convincing some people<\/a> that there are issues that need to be addressed regarding treatment of, and, yes, discrimination towards, people who are NJ or who look NJ. \u00a0Especially when many of the dismissive are either unaware (which Debito.org tries to fix with as much reportage and substantiation as possible), or incredulous because they just haven’t experienced the discrimination for themselves. \u00a0But when it does happen to them here in the end — and it’s systematic enough that sooner or later it probably will<\/a> — then people generally react in two ways: \u00a0either 1) they refuse to believe it out of spite (plenty of people don’t like to admit they were wrong; this is the wrong approach, for it will just make you bitter and eventually drive you out of Japan), or 2) they capitulate, face up to the issue constructively, and find ways to deal with their feelings that bring things to a resolution. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Like Kelly has. \u00a0Thanks for coming out and saying so. \u00a0It makes the years of effort creating and maintaining Debito.org feel that much more worthwhile. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Now let’s do something about resolving things. \u00a0We need everyone’s help, and let’s hope even the diehard apologists come round someday. \u00a0Arudou Debito in Sapporo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a weekend diversion, I discuss briefly what happens when people, who once dismissed the notion of fighting discrimination in Japan as “making mountains out of molehills”, come over here and experience it for themselves. It’s a pleasant thing to hear that Debito.org has been helping people not only become more aware, but offers them an outlet to resolve things constructively. And the occasional capitulation is truly the raisin in the cereal. Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,46,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussions","category-practical-advice","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696","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=2696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}