This post will deal with contentious issues of the way race is perceived and how that perception directly impacts the treatment of various ethnic groups, specifically as I have experienced it in Japan. Please understand that the following is my way of looking at such topics, and I understand it is not the way of everyone. My education is comprised primarily of evolutionary biology, behavior studies, and neurobiology, so I am in no way able to look through a sociological or anthropological lens. If you are qualified (like one of my sisters), please feel free to comment for the benefit of everyone reading this blog.
First, I think it's necessary to state that I believe bigotry and racism exist everywhere, in everyone, to greater or lesser degrees. According to The American Heritage Dictionary online at answers.com, a bigot is someone "who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ," and racism is "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others," as well as the act of "discrimination or prejudice based on race." These are two ugly manifestations of observational traits that I would argue were evolutionarily necessary for survival, and are still necessary in particularly unstable parts of the world.
Before we became forever linked through inventions like 24-hour news networks, we lived in relative isolation in our own countries, warring with neighboring peoples. In such times, it was extremely important to be able to see differences between your own people and others who may be coming to rape/eat/enslave/murder you and your family. While this is still useful at times (because, let's face it, there are those out there of ALL nationalities who will still try to rape/eat/enslave/murder others), it creates immediate dislike and distrust of anyone who is an outsider to your society. That outsider will always be seen as slightly untrustworthy, meriting sideways glances, surreptitious door-locking (of cars and homes), hurried crossing of the street even in front of oncoming traffic, and other such nonsense born out of unsubstantiated fear. I experience this on a daily basis in Japan.
As an outsider in the culture, I actually am able to understand the behavior more often than not. I understand we all have irrational fears, especially of those things or people we don't know. However, the truly cruel bigotry and racism come out when these kind of behaviors are against people who are insiders. Take America, for example. Black and Hispanic people have been living in America since before it was America, and they constantly experience bigotry and racism harsher than what I experience in Japan. Yet they are cultural insiders. Most of them are born American, and yet for the color of their skin or their forefathers' nationalities, are seen as outsiders. THEY ARE NOT. The same happens in Japan with people from the Philippines, China, and Korea, to name a few. This is where the trait stops being useful and starts being incredibly harmful.
Bigotry and racism can exist actively, where people run away from you or attack you, as I've discussed. What I find more interesting is that it can also exist passively. I always understood this to be to case in the back of my mind while I studied race in politics at college and world cultures in graduate school, but I never understood it in practice until now. I will blame being white for this - as a white American, there are many manifestations of racism and bigotry that I never have to deal with - it took coming to Japan for me to begin to truly see this phenomenon. What do I mean? A passive bigot or racist is someone who on the surface appears completely natural and comfortable with others, but who holds unsubstantiated fears and harmful beliefs about those people and the places they are from. I think over the course of our lives we all are passive bigots and racists because I think we all hold irrational fears and beliefs about places or people. This is of no matter if we try to educate ourselves, and leave our minds open to new, improved patterns of thought once we seek out information. This is simply learning. If someone is clearly shown new facts and continues in the thought and action pattern, then he or she is on the path toward becoming an active bigot or racist.
Now I will tell the story of a teacher I work with. He is an English teacher and he speaks English better than most of the English teachers at my school. He always quizzes me on Japanese kanji, desserts, places, traditions, you name it. I always learn something new from him, and I enjoy this. He also often asks me questions about America, or other world matters. He appears widely traveled and highly educated. One day, another ALT informed me that this teacher had never been out of Japan. Upon asking why, I learned it is because he is deathly afraid of all other countries, because they are dangerous. He is convinced he would get robbed, kidnapped, or murdered, probably all three more than once, if he went to another country. He is a classic passive bigot and racist. Some of the things he said to me were downright actively bigoted and racist. For example, he asked how many times I had been robbed at gunpoint (not if, but how many times), and informed me he believed it was more likely to be shot than to be in a traffic accident in America. Well, perhaps in certain areas that's true, but over the great expanse of America it certainly isn't. I suggested he visit urban areas designed for tourists as they are often quite prosperous and safe, and he just sat there with a very mistrustful look on his face, like I was trying to lure him into a life-taking trap.
So I took some time and looked at crime stats. If you don't travel because of crime, the best thing to do is to inform yourself and act with the best judgement possible. Most people don't hurt foreigners on purpose, unless you're unlucky enough to visit a country during its revolution or sail through pirate-infested waters, which are legitimate concerns today. Other than that, you're most likely to experience a natural disaster than anything else, or perhaps a traffic accident. Brutal crime is often done to people by people they know, and while this is a horrible fact, at least it should reassure you that given basic safety precautions the worst you'll end up with is a stolen wallet. There are exceptions, of course, but again, not the rule.
Now some facts. Check my sources, do some of your own research. It's important.
It's important to know that Japan is very safe. There is very little crime, especially for a country as developed and prosperous as Japan. I believe this is due to the group mind and to their commitment as a country to staying out of war. It tends to make things more peaceful when you're not involved with world conflicts and your country doesn't have a storied history of pushing its mindset down other countrys' throats. Some negatives though: if a crime is charged, it often can't be or isn't challenged, so the first person arrested often serves for the crime. This counts as a crime solved, but very rarely is the right person arrested in the first place. Even more regularly, foreigners are arrested and blamed for crimes because Japanese don't believe other Japanese are capable of committing crime. They are also much less likely to report a crime, especially when the perpetrator is definitely Japanese. If it can be blamed on a foreigner, and often a white person, so much the better. This is problematic because as this article shows, Westerners actually commit the least amount of crimes in Japan, even though they are seen by the general population as the most criminally inclined. By far, Japanese people commit the most crime in Japan, followed by the Chinese. Stalkers are common in Japan, and they do things that range from climbing high buildings to steal underwear to kidnapping and murdering their victims. Young people also commit suicide often, due to the intense amount of pressure they are under at school and afterward.
As for charts and graphs, it's all about how you look at the data:
Japan is 6th on a list of total crimes, but drops to 34th if you look at crimes per capita.
America is 1st on a list of total crimes, but drops to 8th per capita.
The likelihood of getting robbed in Japan is almost zero, according to this chart, which seems to suggest you should never visit a Spanish-speaking country with a wallet. No one I know who visited Spain or Mexico was robbed. Also, rape is low in Japan, unless you count the crazy obsessed stalkers I mentioned earlier (I blame AKB48 and the like for perpetuating the idea of girls as objects, but hey, we have that in America tenfold, too). The rape stats, by the way, suggest women should never travel to South Africa. But my sister did and she came back alive and un-raped, so it's possible.
Here's an actual surprise, and I am being serious: America is NOT THE WORST for firearm murders per capita! Whoo! Let's throw a party! The honor belongs to South Africa (hello, rape and gun murder land) with Columbia coming in second (drugs!). America is down 8th, with a pathetically small number as compared to the top leaders. However, without the per capita filter, America is 4th (the top 3 are the same though). Japan doesn't even register on the list, because there are no guns in Japan. Knives, yes, and you might get stabbed to death with one, but no guns.
America isn't even the worst in terms of all murders. On a per capita level the honors belong to Columbia and South Africa respectively, with America 24th. Removing the per capita filter, America jumps to 5th, with India a surprise front-runner ahead of Russia!
Japan is 11th on a kidnapping chart, which is one of the highest numbers I've seen so far in terms of crime. Given the stalkers, I am not surprised to hear this. Also, sometimes North Korea swoops in and kidnaps a few prominent Japanese people, just for fun. Unfortunately, America isn't listed on the chart, so I don't know how we stack up in comparison. I bet it's safe to say we still have more kidnappings, but we are a thousand times larger.
Which brings me to something interesting: the perception of safety. People may be safer in Japan than in other places, but since they are a skittish and sometimes blatantly racist people living in a country filled with, as aforementioned, relatively calm foreigners, they perceive themselves as less safe. Meanwhile, countries that are more dangerous on paper believe themselves to be safer. America is ranked 3rd on safety perception of walking in the dark, while I've found it at the top of every crime list so far. Japan, however, is ranked 7th. Likewise, on the perception of safety from burglary, America ranks 4th while Japan ranks 15th. I already went over the fact that robbery and burglary are almost nil in Japan (well, at least the reported crime). In America I have to sit through almost 20 commercials for home burglary protection systems each show I watch, which seems to suggest that Americans are actually much more worried about getting burgled than this survey says. And they should be: America is actually 1st on this chart of recent burglaries, but it drops to 17th on this chart, which again calculates per capita. Japan is 8th and 29th respectively.
So what does all this mean? Get your facts, research your opinions, and above all else get out there and meet people! There are bad people everywhere who commit awful actions. Statistics can be misleading, as I've shown with the great disparity between those calculated on as total crime and crime per capita. Don't let your fears get the better of you when you meet someone new or contemplate traveling to another country. If you think you're safer, you might not be (America), but you still aren't likely to be dragged out of your car by people of other nationalities so you can stop locking your doors when they walk by (Japan). Instead of hiding from and making allowances for our inner misinformed and prejudicial selves, let's embrace our inner selves and inform them, so we can stop being bigots and racists of any kind!
First, I think it's necessary to state that I believe bigotry and racism exist everywhere, in everyone, to greater or lesser degrees. According to The American Heritage Dictionary online at answers.com, a bigot is someone "who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ," and racism is "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others," as well as the act of "discrimination or prejudice based on race." These are two ugly manifestations of observational traits that I would argue were evolutionarily necessary for survival, and are still necessary in particularly unstable parts of the world.
Before we became forever linked through inventions like 24-hour news networks, we lived in relative isolation in our own countries, warring with neighboring peoples. In such times, it was extremely important to be able to see differences between your own people and others who may be coming to rape/eat/enslave/murder you and your family. While this is still useful at times (because, let's face it, there are those out there of ALL nationalities who will still try to rape/eat/enslave/murder others), it creates immediate dislike and distrust of anyone who is an outsider to your society. That outsider will always be seen as slightly untrustworthy, meriting sideways glances, surreptitious door-locking (of cars and homes), hurried crossing of the street even in front of oncoming traffic, and other such nonsense born out of unsubstantiated fear. I experience this on a daily basis in Japan.
As an outsider in the culture, I actually am able to understand the behavior more often than not. I understand we all have irrational fears, especially of those things or people we don't know. However, the truly cruel bigotry and racism come out when these kind of behaviors are against people who are insiders. Take America, for example. Black and Hispanic people have been living in America since before it was America, and they constantly experience bigotry and racism harsher than what I experience in Japan. Yet they are cultural insiders. Most of them are born American, and yet for the color of their skin or their forefathers' nationalities, are seen as outsiders. THEY ARE NOT. The same happens in Japan with people from the Philippines, China, and Korea, to name a few. This is where the trait stops being useful and starts being incredibly harmful.
Bigotry and racism can exist actively, where people run away from you or attack you, as I've discussed. What I find more interesting is that it can also exist passively. I always understood this to be to case in the back of my mind while I studied race in politics at college and world cultures in graduate school, but I never understood it in practice until now. I will blame being white for this - as a white American, there are many manifestations of racism and bigotry that I never have to deal with - it took coming to Japan for me to begin to truly see this phenomenon. What do I mean? A passive bigot or racist is someone who on the surface appears completely natural and comfortable with others, but who holds unsubstantiated fears and harmful beliefs about those people and the places they are from. I think over the course of our lives we all are passive bigots and racists because I think we all hold irrational fears and beliefs about places or people. This is of no matter if we try to educate ourselves, and leave our minds open to new, improved patterns of thought once we seek out information. This is simply learning. If someone is clearly shown new facts and continues in the thought and action pattern, then he or she is on the path toward becoming an active bigot or racist.
Now I will tell the story of a teacher I work with. He is an English teacher and he speaks English better than most of the English teachers at my school. He always quizzes me on Japanese kanji, desserts, places, traditions, you name it. I always learn something new from him, and I enjoy this. He also often asks me questions about America, or other world matters. He appears widely traveled and highly educated. One day, another ALT informed me that this teacher had never been out of Japan. Upon asking why, I learned it is because he is deathly afraid of all other countries, because they are dangerous. He is convinced he would get robbed, kidnapped, or murdered, probably all three more than once, if he went to another country. He is a classic passive bigot and racist. Some of the things he said to me were downright actively bigoted and racist. For example, he asked how many times I had been robbed at gunpoint (not if, but how many times), and informed me he believed it was more likely to be shot than to be in a traffic accident in America. Well, perhaps in certain areas that's true, but over the great expanse of America it certainly isn't. I suggested he visit urban areas designed for tourists as they are often quite prosperous and safe, and he just sat there with a very mistrustful look on his face, like I was trying to lure him into a life-taking trap.
So I took some time and looked at crime stats. If you don't travel because of crime, the best thing to do is to inform yourself and act with the best judgement possible. Most people don't hurt foreigners on purpose, unless you're unlucky enough to visit a country during its revolution or sail through pirate-infested waters, which are legitimate concerns today. Other than that, you're most likely to experience a natural disaster than anything else, or perhaps a traffic accident. Brutal crime is often done to people by people they know, and while this is a horrible fact, at least it should reassure you that given basic safety precautions the worst you'll end up with is a stolen wallet. There are exceptions, of course, but again, not the rule.
Now some facts. Check my sources, do some of your own research. It's important.
It's important to know that Japan is very safe. There is very little crime, especially for a country as developed and prosperous as Japan. I believe this is due to the group mind and to their commitment as a country to staying out of war. It tends to make things more peaceful when you're not involved with world conflicts and your country doesn't have a storied history of pushing its mindset down other countrys' throats. Some negatives though: if a crime is charged, it often can't be or isn't challenged, so the first person arrested often serves for the crime. This counts as a crime solved, but very rarely is the right person arrested in the first place. Even more regularly, foreigners are arrested and blamed for crimes because Japanese don't believe other Japanese are capable of committing crime. They are also much less likely to report a crime, especially when the perpetrator is definitely Japanese. If it can be blamed on a foreigner, and often a white person, so much the better. This is problematic because as this article shows, Westerners actually commit the least amount of crimes in Japan, even though they are seen by the general population as the most criminally inclined. By far, Japanese people commit the most crime in Japan, followed by the Chinese. Stalkers are common in Japan, and they do things that range from climbing high buildings to steal underwear to kidnapping and murdering their victims. Young people also commit suicide often, due to the intense amount of pressure they are under at school and afterward.
As for charts and graphs, it's all about how you look at the data:
Japan is 6th on a list of total crimes, but drops to 34th if you look at crimes per capita.
America is 1st on a list of total crimes, but drops to 8th per capita.
The likelihood of getting robbed in Japan is almost zero, according to this chart, which seems to suggest you should never visit a Spanish-speaking country with a wallet. No one I know who visited Spain or Mexico was robbed. Also, rape is low in Japan, unless you count the crazy obsessed stalkers I mentioned earlier (I blame AKB48 and the like for perpetuating the idea of girls as objects, but hey, we have that in America tenfold, too). The rape stats, by the way, suggest women should never travel to South Africa. But my sister did and she came back alive and un-raped, so it's possible.
Here's an actual surprise, and I am being serious: America is NOT THE WORST for firearm murders per capita! Whoo! Let's throw a party! The honor belongs to South Africa (hello, rape and gun murder land) with Columbia coming in second (drugs!). America is down 8th, with a pathetically small number as compared to the top leaders. However, without the per capita filter, America is 4th (the top 3 are the same though). Japan doesn't even register on the list, because there are no guns in Japan. Knives, yes, and you might get stabbed to death with one, but no guns.
America isn't even the worst in terms of all murders. On a per capita level the honors belong to Columbia and South Africa respectively, with America 24th. Removing the per capita filter, America jumps to 5th, with India a surprise front-runner ahead of Russia!
Japan is 11th on a kidnapping chart, which is one of the highest numbers I've seen so far in terms of crime. Given the stalkers, I am not surprised to hear this. Also, sometimes North Korea swoops in and kidnaps a few prominent Japanese people, just for fun. Unfortunately, America isn't listed on the chart, so I don't know how we stack up in comparison. I bet it's safe to say we still have more kidnappings, but we are a thousand times larger.
Which brings me to something interesting: the perception of safety. People may be safer in Japan than in other places, but since they are a skittish and sometimes blatantly racist people living in a country filled with, as aforementioned, relatively calm foreigners, they perceive themselves as less safe. Meanwhile, countries that are more dangerous on paper believe themselves to be safer. America is ranked 3rd on safety perception of walking in the dark, while I've found it at the top of every crime list so far. Japan, however, is ranked 7th. Likewise, on the perception of safety from burglary, America ranks 4th while Japan ranks 15th. I already went over the fact that robbery and burglary are almost nil in Japan (well, at least the reported crime). In America I have to sit through almost 20 commercials for home burglary protection systems each show I watch, which seems to suggest that Americans are actually much more worried about getting burgled than this survey says. And they should be: America is actually 1st on this chart of recent burglaries, but it drops to 17th on this chart, which again calculates per capita. Japan is 8th and 29th respectively.
So what does all this mean? Get your facts, research your opinions, and above all else get out there and meet people! There are bad people everywhere who commit awful actions. Statistics can be misleading, as I've shown with the great disparity between those calculated on as total crime and crime per capita. Don't let your fears get the better of you when you meet someone new or contemplate traveling to another country. If you think you're safer, you might not be (America), but you still aren't likely to be dragged out of your car by people of other nationalities so you can stop locking your doors when they walk by (Japan). Instead of hiding from and making allowances for our inner misinformed and prejudicial selves, let's embrace our inner selves and inform them, so we can stop being bigots and racists of any kind!
I would suggest that your fellow English teacher talk to me about the wide gap between the perception and reality of any region, be it city, state, or nation. I have plenty of stories and anecdotes that I could share with him as an outsider and native of Arizona.
ReplyDelete(Sorry for the briefness, but know that, while I may not have time to comment on every post, I do read them all once they're up.)
I find it interesting that there is such a passive fear and mistrust of Westerners. From what I have seen (from a distance, having never been to Japan) there is a strong interest in Western culture. A fascination almost. How strange that native Japanese want to learn English, appear more Western and consume so many Western products, yet some, like your teacher friend, fear us as well.
ReplyDeleteHave you had many experiences with passive, or even active, bigotry? Does gender make a difference? Do people treat you differently than they treat Matt?
Yes, gender makes a difference. I am often treated differently than Matt. Typically I am treated better, and with less fear, but also a lot more condescension.
ReplyDelete