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How Homogeneous Is Japan?

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Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#101

"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…

Key word "some". He is talking about far-right politics

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#102
post #87
post #85

Japan is NOT homogeneous. The author doesn't mention that before the Yamato, people already existed within Japan's border. Their descendants are very much alive and form various ethnic groups(Ainu). On the main island you would see less of these kind of diversity but Hokkaido or Okinawa are just another world.

The Ainu are a tiny tiny minority. Even moreso since (Yamato) Japan colonized the island. Okinawans are pretty much culturally Japanese with a different flavor like Kanto is different from Kansai.

Okinawa has its own language. And was assimilated by Japan in the 19 century. Kansai is not a recently added province. Then just look at the policies. How many were built to assimilate Kansai, how many were built to assimilate Okinawa. So difference are bigger that you may think. But i'm trying tell anybody if they are Japanese or not. Japanese people cannot say from one hand that they very different from Chinese people and say Okinawa people are very close to Japanese people. That just doesn't make sense.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#103

"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…

Anyone can be racist. Political opinions need not apply, they might suggest, but that’s not safe route to judge others off of.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#104
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? The census considers anyone with Japanese citizenship to be "Japanese". Therefore it's useless as a measure of ethnic diversity.

I don't think it's useless at all in that Japan is one of the hardest country on earth to get citizenship. I've got family in Japan. All you need to do is to go to Japan to see that it's very "japanese". You can get residency semi-easily but getting citizenship is extremely hard. It's not the EU or the US where a huge lot of "foreigners" can become citizen.

It is actually quite easy to become a Japanese citizen. I’d be interested to hear where you got the impression that it is difficult. It basically requires 5 years of legal residence, a steady job, mediocre language ability, and paying taxes properly. For many people, attaining citizenship is easier than permanent residency.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#105
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note also that Japanese law implements blood citizenship and not birthright citizenship. Domestically born children of immigrants remain immigrants, in general.

If by immigrants you mean immigrant non-citizen residents, that's how it is in most of the world.

Very notably not in the US, however. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#106

"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…

If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racist?

"Conservative".

But in the US for instance, there are very few, say, fiscal conservatives. "Fiscal Conservatism" simply doesn't exist the way that we might have been used to seeing it in the 70's or even 80's. Modern administrations on the right consistently outspend modern administrations on the left for example. Which would have been unthinkable 50 years ago, but happens regularly today because on the right there are now different driving priorities.

All of which is fine. There's nothing wrong with any of that so long as those on the right are representing the interests of their supporters. Like it or not, that's what democracy is about. But it leaves many, many people in society with no "political home" so to speak.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#107

"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…

> what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racist?

I hope I get this right. Everyone is racist, but it's only bad to be a racist if you have power. White people have all the power and so are the worst type of racist. To deny being racist is to be fragile and also proof that you're a racist.

So 'someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racist' doesn't exist.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#108
> If I told you that the U.S. was “93.3% American”, would you conclude that the U.S. is a homogeneous country? Because that’s exactly what everyone who cites the “98% Japanese” statistic is doing for Japan.

I find this mentality to be quite common when talking to U.S.A.-men, the conception that “U.S.A.” is not an “ethnicity” but all other countries are.

I remember a thread on 4chan a while back that asked for the user's ethnicity that had two kinds of replies: A) a country other than U.S.A.; B) a so-called “race”.

That was not the only part that piqued my interest; the other part was there were a great deal of replies that, seemingly correctly assumed that all the replies that listed a race must be from the U.S.A., inciting such vintage 4chan responses as “Race is not an ethnicity, burgerfag. Just say you're from the U.S.A..”.

I have definitely noticed this specific quirk of U.S.A.-men, an assumption that other countries are races, and that when I for instance say that I am “Dutch", that comes with the assumption that I am also “white”.

> Yep, you read that right. Japan’s government doesn’t go around asking people what race they are. A curious behavior for a country that’s supposedly obsessed with racial purity, no?

Such census too seem to be an U.S.A. idiosyncrasy.

Most countries do not track this, as far as I know. There are no Dutch statistics on the matter either because it's pure self-report. There are statistics on how much of the Dutch population is a first generation immigrant, and second generation immigrant, which is more objective, but that's it.

I have been acquainted with the knowledge that when applying for, say, a university position or even a vocational one, that in the U.S.A. one is frequently asked for one's “race”. This would seem highly suspicious in my milieu.

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#109

"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…

> what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racist? I hope I get this right. Everyone is racist, but it's only bad to be a racist if you have power. White people have all the power and so are the worst type of racist. To deny being racist is to be fragile and also proof that you're a racist. So 'someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racist' doesn't e…

I hope you don't believe the absolutism of "white people have ALL the power"...

Re: How Homogeneous Is Japan?

#110

"To some on the Right, Japan is a paradise of racial purity..." Is it now considered a de facto truth that people identifying as "Right" are racists? If not, why bring up the Right in this sentence? When I was growing up, Right overlapped with Conservative, but racists were a discrete group of people. If Right now means racist, what is the label for someone with the political attributes of Right, but who is not racis…

> To Some
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