One amazing thing Asia has going for it is racism. You can have two atom bombs droped on you, go through Maoism or civil war, and you still come back. Good genes mean success is an inevitability. Bad genes mean the same for failure. Asia got racism right.
What is amazing to me is that Asians in America become race deniers. Even when you read Steve Hsu’s blog you can see the basic endorsement of cathedral leftism and the proposition nation. You could chalk all this up to simple social climbing, but its still such a dramatic shift compared to the home countries.
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In case anyone doesn't understand, "the Cathedral" is a term used by a small handful of reactionary internet tough guys, another one including Chateau Heartiste, to refer to all of said camp's stock pet peeves - i.e... feminism, socialism, anti-racism, and so on. Named such because they perceive liberals to worship said things.
1) And Asia is the only continent to have anything bad happen to it? What about the Americas and the semi-successful genocide of the Natives? Or Africa and the near-complete raping of the whole continent and the destruction of dozens of civilizations? Or the destruction of the Middle East from the late 19th century through the Cold War?
2) What exactly does racism in Asia have to do with Japan becoming an industrial power and China, India, S. Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines being emerging economic powers? BTW, these people aren't even all that ethnically homogeneous. Asia is the second most genetically diverse continent on Earth (Africa being the most diverse and Native Americans being the least).
Contrary to popular believe (East) Asians aren't actually racist. But, what "they" collectively highly value is culture, which is probably a defense mechanism against egocentric Westerners who have well, tried to colonize East Asia. Put simply, if you respect their culture and stay in their culture while you are in their country, you will be accepted and treated as an equal among them, no matter what your skin color is.
The same vice-versa, I've never seen peoples who get deeper into the culture of a host countries than Asians.
To the uneducated Westerner, telling you to fuck off, of course, seems like racism, rather than just being unwelcome until you've proven yourself worthy.
@UHM
I can't speak for all of Asia, but Japan is actually still pretty xenophobic in a lot of ways. You can't move there if you're black, for instance, and you still see a lot of stereotyping that would never get shown in Western media in their media.
@Cloning Blues: Xenophobia and racism are different things. And yes, East Asia is xenphobic. Racism is based on race, xenophobia on being a "xenos" - a foreigner. Though, I do have to admit, I don't know what the situation is exactly like if you're black.
The stereotyping is quite heavy in general, though I'm not a media expert when it comes to East Asia or Japan, but from what I can see it's not just race or nationality, but also sexual orientation (even though that's a rather taboo topic) and gender - hell even cities seem to get their (un)fair share.
@ UHM
Sorry, but you are just dead wrong about this. While xenophobia and racism ARE two different thing, East Asia has it´s fair share of both. Seriously even basic internet search can show you it. While you are right that in Japan there is general xenophobia (they even have law stating that people can call police on foreigners if they are feeling ´anxious´ about them) it is the degree to which different groups are experiencing it that reveals the racism. Westerners usually get off fairly lightly, mostly just being treated as curiosities. Other people not so much. Blacks, hispanics etc. have it MUCH worse. If they live there, they will likely face serious problems with getting a house/job etc. not to mention, well, not really getting treated all that well by locals. And just to drive the point home, recently there was an issue with several bars in China having a ´´no mongolians and blacks´´ signs. Sorry, but there is no way that was xenophobia istead of racism.
@UHM
I agree that racism and xenophobia are different but I think racism is dependent on the racist's perception of race. People can be racist to other people of the same race, providing they perceive them to be different; "mistaken" racist attacks are all too common. Race, as an objective entity does not, of course, exist. #1614731 is certainly right to mention Japanese treatment of Koreans and HEIL SATAN Chinese treatment of blacks, a story that goes back to the days of Mao. Chinese themselves are the victims of racism in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries in South-East Asia.
@HEIL SATAN, 1614731. Hasan Prishtina:
I just want to clear this up, my argument is not that their isn't racism in East Asia, just that East Asian culture isn't predominantly racist*. Sure there is some mistreatment of people of other races, but that does happen pretty much everywhere.
My opinions are based on talking to fellow students of East Asian studies, which was my major during my time at college, who all reported that the racism accusation was bullshit, just that they were cautious with foreigners until they noticed that they actually had an idea how to behave. So it's just the stories of about two dozen people...
*And when I say predominantly racist, I mean America in the 60s.
@Cloning Blues - I haven't heard about them not allowing black people to move to Japan. There's a fair number of white and black people living in Japan right now (though of course they're still a tiny minority). One of Japan's top commercial stars right now, Dante Carve, is an African-American who moved there several years ago. Of course the majority of Japanese people never consider a non-ethnically Japanese immigrant to be "truly Japanese" no matter how long they live there or how much they culturally assimilate.
From what I hear Japan's immigration policies are about as strict or possibly more strict than America's immigration policy towards immigrants from "third world" countries. You pretty much have to already have a job lined up when you move there in order to be allowed to migrate to Japan.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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