More on Japan and racism [submission]

I, as well, am not happy with white people jumping in about Japan’s racism. Know your place when you’re talking about primarily POC countries. No amount of traveling to Japan or whatever it is your privilege allows you to do will make you an expert about Japan’s racial hierarchies.

You also need to remember that racism and whiteness operate very differently in other non-western countries, for one. The other poster already laid out some bare bone differences.

And for two, Japan has quite an imperial history, in part because of *ba da bing*, you guessed it, western influences. Who were the people who opened up Japan’s import/export gates, who encouraged them to quickly industrialize? The U.S. is one of them.

And because of this complex imperial history, I *especially* don’t appreciate people using other POC who suffered under Japanese imperialism to make a point about Japanese racism. China for instance has a lot of issues with Japanese erasure of history.

As for other oppressions like heterosexism, also consider whiteness’ history of implanting such oppressions in efforts to stamp out our supposed barbarism. For instance, I (as a Chinese person) am aware of China’s rich history concerning gender-sexuality minorities until the 18th-19th century with our push towards embracing Western ideology.

In short, leave the intra-POC problems like Japanese imperialism and non-Black POC anti-Blackness to POC to call out and correct. It’s not and never will be your place, what with white supremacy exacerbating the problems. Check your neo-imperialist discourse at the door.