Racism in Japan: Anti-Korean rhetoric, anti-blackness, and how to make sense of all of it.
Today, critical race theorists understand race as a culturally created invention about human group differences, invented for the sole purpose of justifying slavery in the United States. Anti-racist organizers have defined Racism as racial power combined with racial prejudice.[1] Under this definition, only those with systemic racial power can be racist through their prejudice. For example, a black person can hold prejudice about a white person, but they are unable to be racist because they lack systemic power. This definition is helpful in terms of dismantling the concept of “reverse racism”, however it leaves many questions when it comes to understanding racial hierarchy and the “race spectrum.” For example, what are we to make of the fact that indigenous people in America owned black slaves? How should we understand anti-blackness within non-black communities of color? Is that not also racism, even though non-white people themselves experience racism?
This conversation becomes all the more complex when we move to the context of a non-Western country, particularly those that have global economic power. I will use Japan as an example. Japan, like many Western countries, colonized other countries and used narratives around Japanese superiority and nationalism to justify their acts of violence. Nationalism has persisted from war and colonization, leading to interesting questions about how to understand anti-Korean sentiment (for example) in Japan. Many have questioned whether to name this anti-Korean sentiment “racism”, when the fact is that a Western definition of “race” would certainly lump Koreans and Japanese together.
On one hand, anti-Korean sentiment has many of the qualities of racism. Anti-Korean sentiment in Japan was created through Japanese government narratives of Korean inferiority to justify Japanese conquest. The idea that Japanese “blood” is superior to all others is a strong belief even today, and is used to minimize Japanese war atrocities (see: Korean comfort women).[2]
However, my perspective is that this is an entirely different institutional prejudice than racism. This is partly because Korean people are generally not visually distinguishable from Japanese people (a crucial aspect of race), however it is primarily because Japan’s intense preference for Japanese people is applied to essentially all non-Japanese people. Consequently, many white people who visit Japan claim they experience “racism”, where what they are actually experiencing is nationalism.
I will make a clarifying point that white people continue to observe white privilege even in Japan. Japanese nationalism does preserve a strong preference for Japanese citizens of Japanese heritage, however white foreigners are regularly represented in even Japanese domestic media, and white features are highly desired and valued.
Why do white people get to maintain their white privilege in a country where they do not hold domestic political power? Before I unpack the reasons why white privilege is still maintained in Japan, a history in anti-blackness is in order. Many ask: how did Japanese people adopt anti-blackness,[3] when historically there have been rather few African migrants to Japan?
My position is that racism has been imported. Japan’s first interactions with black folks were as the slaves of white people who traveled to Japan in the 16th century. In the 1840s, blackface was introduced to Japan by Commodore Matthew Perry, who introduced Japanese delegates to an “Ethiopian entertainment” performed by white members of his crew to celebrate the conclusion of a trade treaty. Later, Japan observed the culture of the US military through military occupation, including the way black soldiers were treated compared to whites. Knickknacks depicting black caricatures such as the minstrel were produced in Japan for export to the United States during this time as well, and such stereotypes also made their way into products sold in Japan.
To say this is the only source of Japanese anti-blackness is an oversimplification, however it is a major source of how Japan came to adopt the idea of race. It also explains why many Japanese people view racism as an “American disease” (Amerika byō), though this position is rather uncritical of the ways Japanese people do harbor preconceived ideas about blackness even when it is not motivated by the same kinds of state violence as in the US.
So what about white people? Even if anti-blackness is imported, how is it possible that whiteness is “at the top” of the racial hierarchy in Japan? How is it that Japan can hold preferential treatment for Japanese nationals while upholding white supremacy? Wouldn’t Japanese people be the ones with the most power in Japan, since Japanese people have the greatest access to systemic power in Japan?
My response is that power is always relative. While it may be true that Japan has “power” in the context of it’s domestic racial relations, the U.S. (and most Western countries) has a lot more power in the global arena. In this sense, it is not so clear whether Japanese people actually have “power” over white people. Do Japanese people have the power to carry out systematic discriminatory practices through the major institutions of Japanese society? Perhaps — in the ways that they can systematically discriminate against all foreigners. However, there has been very little to show that Japanese people have systematically discriminated against white people specifically, and even less to show that the West (U.S. in particular) is not able to override any such act of systemic discrimination through global political pressure.
Therefore, while white people are not the beneficiaries of structural power in Japan, ultimately whiteness is tied to global imperialism and power. Therefore, if one contextualizes Japan as a country within white supremacy’s global reach, we can see that Japan does not actively work to oppress and subjugate white people. Thus, the individual decisions of specific Japanese people to exclude white people cannot be characterized as racism, since racism relies on systemic power to exist.
It is also my position that Japanese people have internalized the racial hierarchy of the United States in tandem with maintaining Japanese nationalism. It is the combination of these two histories that Japan justifies a racial hierarchy coded within it’s nationalism, and wields this particular structure of oppression as it sees fit to maintain global power and justify war crimes. In summary, 1) Japanese people can be racist towards black people because of their proximity to whiteness under US racial hierarchy, 2) cannot be racist towards white people although some nationalistic policies (such as immigration) end up impacting white people, and 3) wields nationalism as the primary source of power to justify anti-Korean politics.
My argument is not about semantics, nor is it to claim that just because something isn’t racism (i.e. anti-Korean sentiment), doesn’t mean it isn’t rooted in systemic marginalization. My belief is that in order to dismantle oppression, we need to understand it. We can’t dismantle racism if we don’t understand the way power is at play, which is why we must discard misleading concepts such as “reverse racism.” Strategically, I don’t think we can dismantle anti-Korean sentiment by dismantling racism in Japan: we need to dismantle nationalism. A commitment to race theory, and thus a better understanding of regimes of power, are essential to strategies toward revolution.
[1] See, http://www.clarke.edu/media/files/Multicultural_Student_Services/definitionsofracism.pdf.
[2] See generally: http://fendnow.org/
[3] As recently as 2014, Japanese pop stars have used blackface. http://aramajapan.com/news/tvmovie/musicaward-show/momoiro-clover-z-does-blackface-2/16503/.
