Is your daily paper transvaluing values?

[imomus]

As 2009 dawned, I found myself rearranging my newspaper bookmarks. The website of UK newspaper The Guardian has been my main -- almost exclusive -- newspaper site for years; I hit the front page several times a day. But this year, for various reasons, I've felt the need to see whether I can replace The Guardian with something else. I turned to two rather odd newspapers, The International Herald Tribune and the Japan Times.



These papers are odd because they're, in some way, parachuted into the cities they're based in, Paris and Tokyo. They're both English-language papers in non-English-speaking capitals, and there's a blurriness and precariousness in their identity which I find, actually, very valuable, and which matches something in my own. I also like a certain quietness and restraint in their manner. Until fairly recently, the culture section of the Japan Times, for instance, was dominated by a column on yakimono pottery.

The International Herald Tribune (the only newspaper I've ever heard David Bowie endorse, incidentally) may speak English, but its outlook is cosmopolitan. It's linked with Monocle magazine and The New York Times. But it also covers Paris rather well; there's an interesting video story today (very much in the style of the video reports on the Monocle site) about the progress of new Paris art centre Le CentQuatre. The lead story on the paper's front page this morning was a style story: In the lap of luxury, Paris squirms. The focus was on how the recession is impacting luxury fashion brands, but I liked the way writer Elaine Sciolino presented this: "The recession brings anxiety to France but also a welcomed values debate on the French way of life."

"Only in France is the recession lauded for posing a crisis in values," writes Sciolino. "There is... an underlying satisfaction here that an era of sometimes vulgar high living is over and that a more bedrock French way of life will emerge. Some French intellectuals want to go much further, calling for the death of the entire luxury industry as a sort of national ritual of purification. "Since the ancient Greeks, luxury goods have always been stamped with the seal of immorality," said Gilles Lipovetsky, a sociologist who has written several books about consumerism. "They represent waste, the superficial, the inequality of wealth. They have no need to exist."

This is a post-materialist message, and it's something I don't find much of in the Anglo papers, even The Guardian. On the front page of The Guardian today we had Dan Black, one of the paper's music tips for 2009 -- a somewhat annoying young man who sounds like an estate agent doing karaoke versions of Britney Spears numbers -- telling the paper that in ten years time "I'll either be swimming in a swimming pool full of champagne and diamonds or crying in a gutter trying to get ten pounds to buy a bag of skag." Black, like Britain, is still oriented to America, to consumerism as a selfish "guilty pleasure", to money-as-drugs, to bling. His vision of his future in Britain is a parody of a high Gini coefficient; he'll either be massively wealthy or homeless.

The cultural coverage in the Japan Times is much more to my taste. In the art section we have Donald Eubank on Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and his work with Brazil's catadores, people who recycle rubbish for a living: "An estimated 3,000-5,000 people live in the dump, 15,000 derive their income from activities related to it, and some that Muniz met in Jardim Gramacho come from families that had been working there for three generations. "These people are at the other end of consumer culture," he says. "I was expecting to see people who were beaten and broken, but they were survivors." His aim — besides the creative challenge — was to see... if the experience of creating art could change people".

There's a sense in both The International Herald Tribune and The Japan Times that the papers know what time it is; that they realise a "transvaluation of all values" (in Nietzsche's phrase) is necessary at this point. Even while it reports David Miliband's important public recognition that the War on Terror was a mistake, The Guardian doesn't seem to have taken this transvaluation thing on board. For instance, a story about a minister who said she saw "green shoots" in the UK economy basically takes for granted that green shoots mean economic growth, and that that's good, and its absence bad. There's no actual green perspective in the green shoots story -- it lacks the angle Sciolino wrote into her IHT story about how economic downturn is an opportunity to rethink priorities.

Another Japan Times story I love today is Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people. Here, Gregory Clark plugs -- without mentioning him by name -- the ridiculous Debito Arudou (David Aldwinckle), who has plagued his host country with lawsuits alleging discrimination against foreigners (in, for instance, barring him from certain bathing houses frequented by troublesome Russian sailors). Clark boldly says something I've long believed too: "Japan girai — dislike of Japan — is an allergy that seems to afflict many Westerners here... It is time we admitted that at times the Japanese have the right to discriminate against some foreigners. If they do not, and Japan ends up like our padlocked, mutually suspicious Western societies, we will all be the losers."

What I enjoy here is that an article by a foreigner in a foreign newspaper takes the side of Japanese against foreigners. That seems to express very well the complexity and ambivalence of these cuckoo newspapers, and the awareness, typical of sensitive foreigners, of one's own fragility and awkwardness. This guilt, for me, is at the root of consideration for others. It transcends selfishness, and to achieve it you have to be slightly decentred, as these odd expat papers are. I think their willingness to transvalue values is all tied up with these newspapers' transplanted, lateral, parallax positions in foreign cities.

Comments

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Let me put it this way, do you think there should be just as many aid agencies on the ground in Israel as there are in Gaza? Is it "racial profiling" not to give everybody the same amount of aid money, if Africans need it more?

A world without discrimination is a world without justice. I've always thought it was a particularly cruel irony that Justice is so often depicted with a blindfold. More than anyone else, that beeyatch needs to see.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Well, I think discrimination is generally pernicious, but at the same time, I think we would do well to differentiate between levels of seriousness/severity.

This Abadou guy argues, for example, that "gaijin" is equivalent to "nigger," which is just the absolute height of absurdity. There is absolutely no equivalent historical basis for that kind of comparison.

The sad thing is, I think he has a pretty concrete point, being that he's now a Japanese citizen. But he acts as though he has to go about it in an American Civil Rights Movement style, as though his protest is built on hundreds of years of brutal oppression. It's as though he doesn't care to present his complaint in a way that will stand the best chance of garnering support. He assumes that a brutal pushback will occur, and hits first with his hardest blow. As though Japanese people are just supposed to be conditioned to an American sense of multiculturalism because a few foreigners live there.

In the meantime, it's not as though Abadou is being kept in an internment camp (as the Japanese were in America, one might add) or forced to use separate bathrooms and water fountains. Or worse yet, killed for consorting with Japanese women. Yet for all his outrage, you'd assume that such things were happening routinely to foreigners there.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"Let me put it this way"

Please don't when a much more straight-forward analogy was put to you which you didn't answer. You're being intellectually dishonest.

If you support the right of a Japanese onsen to reject foreigners because they've had a few rowdy russian sailors who've caused problems, then you have to support the hotel who doesn't want to take in blacks because they've had bad experiences with a few black people in the past.

Debito can be annoying, I admit that, and perhaps there are better things to protest against than one wrinkly old japanese women who wont let you use her bath-house, but that doesnt take away from the moral legitimacy of most of his crusades.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

"If you support the right of a Japanese onsen to reject foreigners because they've had a few rowdy russian sailors who've caused problems, then you have to support the hotel who doesn't want to take in blacks because they've had bad experiences with a few black people in the past."

No you don't. It's pretty obvious that the ethical repercussions of the two things would be different due to recent history. Funny how people oscillate between shouting "the law is a blunt instrument" when the manifest failings of any hard and fast rule become apparent, and trying to turn every collection of nuanced scenarios sharing a common feature of necessity into a rule. Generalise; particularise; generalise; particularise ...

All the analogies deployed in this argument to this point are questionable. I can see the Momus view on this issue, and I think it's because (with only a tourist's experience of Tokyo) I imagine the onsen being discussed are rather like clubs, and straddle the boundary of public and private. Similar to the long-running issues about whether men's clubs (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24858166-601,00.html) should start to accept female members. Personally I'm not a fan of groups like the Athenaeum, but I can see how as a member of a men's club you might feel that admitting women would be beside the point.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Precisely. "Integrating" an onsen is like "integrating" men into an all-women's college. Just as there are tons of other colleges to choose from that are not all-women, there are tons of other onsen to choose from that are not all-Japanese. Because such a glut of alternatives exists, there can be no reason for this "integration" other than an obnoxious, spiteful nitpickiness. Kumakouji's attempt to compare it to a black person being turned away from a hotel in America is silly because it doesn't address the fact that the histories and demographics of the two countries are entirely different. In a way, the all-women's colleges are actually worse because there are so many more men to "discriminate" against than there are foreigners in Japan.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I think I pretty much agree, and the other points you raise about availability and historical / social context tend to confirm that thought.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"No you don't. It's pretty obvious that the ethical repercussions of the two things would be different due to recent history. "

Be more specific, saying "it's different." without a valid reason isnt an argument, although can guess where youre going with this -- blacks were enslaved by whites, etc.

"I imagine the onsen being discussed are rather like clubs, and straddle the boundary of public and private"

All businesses operate within the frame-work of a society and wouldn't be able to function if that society wasnt in place. Therefore, that business should have to abide by the laws of the land, which state that discrimination on the grounds of race is unacceptable.

These laws are the result of mob-rule based on subjective preferences on how the majority want their society to run. I happen to agree with this rule that most modern democracies strive to follow. and I think it's completely bogus that you think we shouldn't discriminate against blacks because for example, my great great grand father was a dick to their great great grand father and we're "making up for it", but because the japanese have been isolated for so long and werent caught up in any significantly contentious racial tensions with whites they should be allowed to discriminate.

you're trying to do moral gymnastics over an issue thats very straight forward IMHO. Do you want a society that allows us to negatively discriminate against minorities based purely on the colour of their skin? It's that simple.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Since you could guess where I was headed with my rejection of your analogy, I think I was probably specific enough :-)

Look, I think you have a point. The rule of law and basic principles are important, and it's not super-cool to allow elites to make their own laws for their own circumstances. I'm not going to type out a rabid disagreement to what you've stated above.

But. This reminds me of that old chestnut, "human rights". People are keen on them, but they contradict each other so often that they don't provide a useful framework for real law. Real law itself has to leave huge gulfs of undecided territory to the discretion of judges and officials, because it too can only crudely predict the right course of action in any situation.

This -- the Russians banned from onsen thing -- is a more intimate sort of issue, more akin to when you have a feeling that someone's "screwing up the neighbourhood". The "no foreigners" rule discussed in Clark's article was introduced by an onsen operator who was allegedly near bankrupt as a consequence of his business's problems with drunken Russians. One operator, looking for an ad hoc measure that would actually work -- note the article suggests quite persuasively why various other types of bans would have been ineffective.

Note the rather evident lack of a system of apartheid or a slave class.

"I think it's completely bogus that you think we shouldn't discriminate against blacks because for example, my great great grand father was a dick to their great great grand father and we're "making up for it", but because the japanese have been isolated for so long and werent caught up in any significantly contentious racial tensions with whites they should be allowed to discriminate."

Well, I think it's bogus that you think locking drunken buffoons out of a bathhouse in Japan because they're ruining the atmosphere and driving away the custom is the same as barring blacks from a diner in the Deep South because you think their great-grandparents should never have been freed. It's a stupid argument to be having: you're not even close to apples and apples, you've picked a dumb fucking analogy because it's a much stronger platform from which to argue your point than, you know, the real situation we're discussing. So, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave it alone.

Society, as well as being built on the rule of explicit law as you mention above, rests even more firmly on a fragile and nuanced web of implicit relations and concordant expectations. Instead of wanting to be the white guy who gatecrashes the onsen drunk and not knowing the protocols, how about working a little so that someone Japanese actually wants to invite you in? Staying at a Japanese ryokan or minshuku for the first time you don't have the faintest idea of appropriate behaviour, but it's certainly fascinating to learn about.

"you're trying to do moral gymnastics over an issue thats very straight forward IMHO. Do you want a society that allows us to negatively discriminate against minorities based purely on the colour of their skin? It's that simple."

I like to think of it as more like yoga -- you know, with an emphasis on flexibility. But "a society" -- what society are you talking about here? How does what I want have anything to do with it? I'm not in Otaru! I can tell you one thing though, if you arrived at my doorstep with your top-down-imposition-of-the-roughest-possible-societal-blueprint and demanded entrance to my living room I might say no :-)

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

This is perfectly stated. We're looking at an ad hoc, enforceable response to a clear problem. I guess perhaps the most fair thing the owner could have done was force white foreigners to provide proof that they were not Russians employed as navy or merchant mariners, but enforcing that would have been terribly difficult.

I think the real question we have, and which the broad strokes of "equality" don't really allow to be asked, is to what extent justice is done if we kick down the doors to this onsen with the iron fist of law.

If the condition for allowing peaceful foreigners to use the onsen is that we also have to allow the unruly Russians who instigated the ban in the first place, then we have merely taken the justice from one trough and transferred it to another. We have not achieved any objective increase in justice, and I think we need to ponder this instead of whitewashing it with the self-congratulation of "scoring one against the racist natives," as Arudou seems inclined to do.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"I guess perhaps the most fair thing the owner could have done was force white foreigners to provide proof that they were not Russians employed as navy or merchant mariners, but enforcing that would have been terribly difficult."

The fair thing to do would be to throw people out if they dont behave -- the way it works everywhere. You dont bar an entire race because a few people who look like them were rude.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"Well, I think it's bogus that you think locking drunken buffoons out of a bathhouse in Japan because they're ruining the atmosphere and driving away the custom is the same as barring blacks from a diner in the Deep South because you think their great-grandparents should never have been freed."

It is because not all whites are drunken buffoons and dont deserve to be treated that way. If you cant see that, you have a screw loose IMHO. I believe youre being intellectually dishonest if you refuse to acknowledge the reasons why we outlawed racial discrimination. We never put these laws in place as some kind of token gesture of compensation for bad behaviour against black people, we put these laws in place because we decided that holding someone in a negative regard purely for the colour of their skin is wrong. You know this, I know this.

"Instead of wanting to be the white guy who gatecrashes the onsen drunk and not knowing the protocols, how about working a little so that someone Japanese actually wants to invite you in? "

Thats a little hard when if your host doesnt want to deal with you period because of the colour of your skin. I know the protocol of an onsen, to automatically assume the character of someone because of their race is nonsense.

" I can tell you one thing though, if you arrived at my doorstep with your top-down-imposition-of-the-roughest-possible-societal-blueprint and demanded entrance to my living room I might say no"

Business premises are different to private property. What you're essentially trying to argue now is that people should be allowed to refuse to serve people because of their skin colour or race. You cant justify that, not to me.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

1. My last comments were tongue in cheek, and not an argument at all.

2. I'm not being intellectually dishonest. I've considered my opinion and expressed it.

3. Pulling apart your phrase "we never put these laws in place as some kind of token gesture", (a) I didn't say that "we" did, (b) there is no "we" that includes you, me and Japan, (c) if there were such a "we" it wouldn't be responsible for a single body of law that applied to all of us.

4. The Clark article is about justifying an exception to the application of a wider principle. I liked it and accepted its justification based on my own incomplete knowledge and the information it provided. You didn't. Perhaps you'd be better off refuting the arguments laid out in the article.

5. I think you would probably accept that sometimes when dearly held ideals meet with situations in the real world exceptions can be made, e.g. in the case of the right to free speech.

6. There are all kinds of spaces and privileges that you will be denied on every day of your life, for all kinds of reasons fair and unfair. I suggest that perhaps these onsen "straddle the boundary of public and private" and all you can do is start a bookkeeper's argument about how everything is either public or private and there's nothing in between. I think public / private is more of a continuum than a binary.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

People don't seem to realise that identity is made of a series of exclusions. They think exclusion can only be a bad thing, even if they think that identity -- flavour -- is a good thing. They also don't realise that folk soul does not require Hitler (http://imomus.livejournal.com/308507.html). That folk soul is not the opposite of multi-culturalism, but its essence. (In this sense, the US is the least multi-cultural nation on earth, not the most.)

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Well, and it seems to be an essentially American mindset that, even if one doesn't ever plan on using the services of a discriminatory establishment, for example, one has the responsibility to make sure that this establishment wouldn't discriminate against him/her if, indeed, he/she did plan on using its services.

It's just the most pointless and droll kind of activism, but Americans take great pleasure in it, like jumping in every pile of leaves on a suburban street in autumn.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yup! Occasionally one has to stop to recall that "discrimination" more or less means "choice"*.

* I hope that no one will decide to read into this equation that I'm clearly a racist maniac.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Your analogy is false--as are many such analogies--on the basis of exaggeration. You're never going to convince me that doing stop & searches on black people at a higher rate than other races is the same thing as a few onsen in Japan barring foreigners from entrance. The history of brutality and savagery, on the part of the powerful, is not there, and unfortunately your analogy suffers for it.

I don't have to support one side of your analogy merely because I believe the other. The belief that two responses (which aren't even analogous anyway) must remain consistent, even when we're crossing cultural boundaries, dealing with entirely different socio-cultural situations, is absurd.

In America, there are enough people from all sorts of different backgrounds that one can and should reasonably expect to grow up and live there feeling included in, feeling part of, society.

If you're coming into Japan, as a white American, you may be entitled to enter any public building or acquire the services of private establishments, but you don't have any right to feel included in, to feel part of, society. I think the problem is that a lot of Americans take the gains of the Civil Rights Movement to mean that we now have the right to fit in anywhere in the world, and while I would argue that such an ideal, if it came to pass, would be nice, I recognize and respect that it probably will not. And this doesn't mean that the "offending" countries are ass-backwards, or deserving of American-style litigation-up-the-ass for their "transgressions."

Abadou is a citizen of Japan. I think he should fight to defend his legal right to move freely and take advantage of all the things Japanese citizens can take advantage of. That's his right. But it seems that he has a larger philosophical problem, as I outlined above. He believes (1) that an American style Civil Rights Movement for foreigners is necessary and (2) that he's the guy who's going to make it happen. I've seen so many of this super-activist type here in Korea, too. You know, the ones who think they're going to change the education system, or change the "blandness" of the mainstream culture. They spend their whole day bitching, to the extent that it becomes clear the only reason why they're there is to spite the natives. They aren't happy. They are abject and pathetic creatures. And the sad part is that, unlike American blacks fighting for freedom, they have a citizenship elsewhere, and they can go back whenever they want. Yet they choose to stay and berate the backwardness of a culture which they willingly inhabit. It's a sad thing, probably some kind of syndrome.

I think that the best way for Abadou to work his agenda is to not be so combative. Because I think he's talking to a general audience who are willing to listen to nuanced, reasonable arguments, and to extend favor quite readily, of their own free will, to people who act gently in such matters. Judging from your previous analogies, I'm sure you'll come back with "Yeah, and I guess the blacks should have just gone about it gently, too!" And that analogy will, as usual for you, be utter shit and miss the point completely.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"I don't have to support one side of your analogy merely because I believe the other. The belief that two responses (which aren't even analogous anyway) must remain consistent, even when we're crossing cultural boundaries, dealing with entirely different social-cultural situations, is absurd."

No its not, you just want your double standards. The basic principle underpinning this is that majorities with the majority of the influence in a society shouldnt be able to deny business to minorities purely because the majority feels the minority wouldnt fit in. That's the issue here, nothing else.

"You're never going to convince me that doing stop & searches on black people at a higher rate than other races is the same thing as a few onsen in Japan barring foreigners from entrance. The history of brutality and savagery, on the part of the powerful, is not there, and unfortunately your analogy suffers for it."

The laws we have in place today are to stop the injustices of the past happening again, they're not there purely because these injustices happened! We didnt make these anti discrimination laws as a way of making it up to the blacks as a form of bizarre compensation, they're there to stop the past repeating itself IN ANY FORM because we dont want a society like that.

"If you're coming into Japan, as a white American, you may be entitled to enter any public building or acquire the services of private establishments, but you don't have any right to feel included in, to feel part of, society."

You cant make laws to force people to like you. However, you can deem that someone is a completely cunt if they dislike you purely for the colour of your skin.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

So you're telling me that the existence of two standards in two completely different socio-cultural scenarios is a "double standard"? Unfortunately that's not what the term means. For a double standard to be at work, we have to be talking about the same conditions.

In America, to enforce multiculturalism is to enforce American-ness, because America is a multicultural nation. Perhaps what we need to wrangle with is the distinct possibility that the same impulse -- to enforce Japanese-ness -- might lead some establishments to bar non-Japanese from entrance. We're not creating an equivalent scenario by transferring American multicultural values to Japan. We're actually creating a double standard, by which all nations, regardless of their ethnic demographic makeups are expected to conform to a socio-judicial model that may not even answer any of their national or local concerns.

It would seem that Abadou has already done a good enough job of deeming that the Japanese, as a group, are "cunts." Since when was that right ever denied him?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"In America, to enforce multiculturalism is to enforce American-ness, because America is a multicultural nation."

Some people argue that America was founded by white Europeans, built up by them, and that true American heritage is linked to the the culture of the European forefathers. Why do you think so many right wing Americans have an issue with the mexicans population growing at such a fast rate? its because they see America as White, Protestant and English speaking, not Hispanic, Catholic and Spanish speaking.

However, America on the whole has taken a stand and said "we want an inclusive society because we believe it's right".

"We're actually creating a double standard, by which all nations, regardless of their ethnic demographic makeups are expected to conform to a socio-judicial model that may not even answer any of their national or local concerns."

Hypothetically, If the majority of Americans had an issue with the Mexicans coming over and growing in size, displacing their English speaking, unique variation of European culture, would you support it?

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

"America" does seem to have been founded by white Europeans (notwithstanding the natives who either sold us their land or had it taken through conflict), but we opened our doors, quite knowingly, to everybody, and America is, by the objective facts, settled by a diverse population as a result. The reason why some people object to the growing population of Hispanics is because their "America," contrary to the objective facts, is a monoculture. But this is a monoculture that has, quite literally, never existed in the history of the nation. It was never a monoculture.

The reason why multiculturalism has won in America is because America is a multicultural nation. Do you honestly believe that, if America had been white English people for thousands of years, with a tiny percentage of foreigners among the population, a multicultural mindset would have taken root? By what magic would such a thing have occurred? Because white Englishmen are somehow more prone to such a thing? This multiculturalism is built into the foundation of the country, from the get-go. Early on, it was multiculturalism based on religion that drove the ideal. It took hundreds of years to get where America is at now, and even now it's not perfect. I mean, the Irish and Italians were treated like crap when they came over initially, and they were, at least as policy was considered, "white." People were complaining about them just like the right-wing nationalist types complain about Hispanics now. It's a matter of some people not having a broad enough perspective to see that this is all inevitable anyway, under the American banner.

But is it any real surprise, given that Japan's history is nothing like this, that it doesn't so easily take on this multicultural aspect in every layer of policy? And how fair is it to expect that such a transition, one that is and must be both political and cultural, would occur literally overnight? And how sane is it to treat trespasses of the sort that Abadou notes as though they have anywhere near the same urgency as the American Civil Rights Movement? He has been able to legally obtain Japanese citizenship, when it could easily have been withheld. He has been able to obtain and retain honest work (at a university, if I'm not mistaken), even though he is publicly outspoken against certain aspects of Japanese culture. We're not dealing with a scenario in which doing the right thing can be demonstrated to result in crippling retribution, yet Abadou acts as though all complaints such as his warrant American-style hard-nosery. There is a vast difference here, and it's sad that your obsession with blunt "consistency" prevents you from seeing it.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

""America" does seem to have been founded by white Europeans (notwithstanding the natives who either sold us their land or had it taken through conflict), but we opened our doors, quite knowingly, to everybody, and America is, by the objective facts, settled by a diverse population as a result. The reason why some people object to the growing population of Hispanics is because their "America," contrary to the objective facts, is a monoculture. But this is a monoculture that has, quite literally, never existed in the history of the nation. It was never a monoculture.

Then let me put it this way -- Japan gave up its "right" to be racist when it wanted to be part of the UN. they signed an agreement and they agreed to rules. That's why when the onsen situation happened the onsen owner lost.

The Americans opened their doors and let foreigners in, now they cant expect to stay white and English speaking, thats what you're saying. Then I would argue that the japanese wanted to be part of the UN, they signed an agreement that they'd abide by its laws. If they want to have good relations with the world (thier entire economy relies on exports) then they have to live by the rules the UN deems to be important. Thats exactly why the Onsen owner lost the case.

More importantly, even though America has opened up its gates to "foreigners", whats to stop it from throwing those foreigners out and going back to its "roots"? Would you support that? No because it's morally repunant for exactly the same reason refusing to serve people based on skin colour is morally regunant -- its the principle. i cant believe how intellectually dishonest some of you are being.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

What I was saying about America is that it has never been "all white." The settlers lived among the natives when they got here (at least the "friendly" ones), and of course, early waves of settlers came from different places in Europe. So America was, quite literally, never a monoculture, even in its earliest colonial iteration. Once the country became independent, the open-door system continued as a matter of policy via lax immigration, furthering its multicultural growth. Hence, there are no monocultural "roots" to get back to. The right-wing loonies who dream for that are delusional.

I never disputed the (now proven) legal right Debito has to patronize any onsen he pleases. That is not where I'm taking exception. He decided he wanted that to be his battle. He fought it and won. But what I'm lobbying for is the idea that perhaps he could have shown compassion and understanding, rather than dishonestly lumping the owner's policy together with Jim Crow. It is clear that the owner was attempting to tackle a local problem with the new policy, otherwise why would he, at any point, have allowed foreigners on the premises? Obviously he was not doing this out of racism, but in an attempt to salvage his business, which was being ruined by rowdy local foreigners. Again, it's like a man trying to integrate an all-female college. You can and probably will win, if that's the battle you want to fight. But at the end of the day, what do you gain from it, other than the scoring of a cheap intellectual point?