• Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    Despite making up only 1% of Japan’s land mass, Ryukyu (Okinawa) hosts 70% of US military bases in Japan.

    US military bases cover about 25% of the land area of the main island of Ryukyu.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    Westerners do not care about indigenous or minorities of other countries. As far as they concerned, they’re all part of the same race/ethnicity/culture. E.g. “Ainu people are still Asians which means it homogenous!!!” or “Pashtun? Tajik? I don’t care! They’re all freaking afghani Muslims!”

    Only the west is “not homogenous” because white people can only tell you apart if you stand next to them and your skin is darker.

    • Hello_Kitty_enjoyer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Only the west is “not homogenous” because white people can only tell you apart if you stand next to them and your skin is darker.

      it’s also because they like making up pretend ethnicities like Moldoslovasconian and shit like that while knowing nothing about the rest of the world

      “uhh…they’re just all Indian!”

      “yea I’m not a huge fan of European food”
      "WTF DO YOU MEAN THERE’S GERMAN AND FRENCH AND AND MACEDONIAN AND

    • arabiclearner [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      It’s like you said in that other post about Japan: this site is weird sometimes. In that post (https://hexbear.net/comment/4649427) people were running around saying “not every person is Japan is XYZ” but in this post all of a sudden it’s “oh yeah Japan is super xenophobic.” It’s not wonder that the western left is completely impotent. It’s this kind of dumb ass flip flopping depending on their own personal emotions…

  • SSJ2Marx@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    Japan: has fully funded social welfare, cheap housing, job placement programs, city services etc that keep desperate people from turning to crime.

    Westerners: “Basically it’s because they’re racist and that’s a good thing.”

    Japan aint perfect but in my eight years of living there I noticed that nobody locked their door unless they lived on an American military base.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      I was able to make a weeb get concerned about yakuza once. I told him that a lot of their money comes from Chinese real estate developers who want land in Japan. I also mentioned most yakuza senior members can trace their ancestry to impoverished Korean immigrants.

      This guy started ranting blood and soil Japanese nationalism after learning that. He’s a white guy from Louisiana.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    I have a Latino friend who lives in Japan. Whenever he goes around the Tokyo area cops will stop and ask him if he’s lost (a way of asking if he belongs in the area). He’s discovered that if he assures the cops he’s actually Latino, not Filipino or Indian, the cops get visibly less tense and let him go.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      I talked to an African American dude who lived in Japan and asked him if getting stopped was annoying. He said something like “yeah, but at least I know the Japanese cop isn’t going to shoot me.”

      Not making excuses for Japanese cops ofc, they should go find something more productive to do than hassle random people.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      The worst part is that the Japanese xenophobia/racism discourse is not focused on Zainichi Koreans/Chinese people, or Burakumin, or South and South East Asian people, or African people, or Ainu and Ryukyu people.

      It’s always drowned out by white guys yelling about how nobody wants to sit next to them on the train and how that’s the real racism.

      • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        One of my first experiences ever with my Host family in Japan was the mother pulling me aside to point out the Chinese tourists and saying like they were lepers. Legit didn’t understand what the problem was or why I should care.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    That one weeb Podcaster Garnt has literally talked about the systemic racism and xenophobia he deals with in Japan, mainly cops, because he’s ethnically Thai.

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      Except it’s not “they didn’t have anyone to discriminate against - so they invented a group”, it was class based to keep people in those jobs be excluded from almost everything else and exploit their labor that way.

      • Bloobish [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        Yup, legit just a group that did the jobs everyone considered “unclean” but was also vital for society (i.e. butchers, tanners, trash collectors, etc). Blood based class systems are legit just old timey artificial racism (i.e. creating outgroups)