White privilege

17 comments

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2. When I worked at an eikaiwa, some students refused to take classes taught by my colleague, a woman of Chinese descent born and raised and Canada. They wanted a “real” teacher, and the staff accommodated them.

3. White privilege is a thing in majority white societies or societies otherwise dominated by white people. You should be thinking about majority privilege, and Japan most certainly has that in terms of gender and race.

4. I’d just like a reference to these videos because I haven’t seen anything like it getting made as content.

   I don’t deny it’s a thing.

   I’ve only ever failed upwards since moving here and I doubt it’d have been this easy if I wasn’t a semi decent looking white dude.

5. I wouldn’t call it a specifically a white privilege. But simply those of us non-white folks just got treated worse.

   I am of East Asian origin. Having a ton of troubles finding language exchange partner. Don’t expect a Gaijin card pass if you make any mistake, rather, 〇〇人帰れ is the default.

6. I call it my gaijin power. I use it responsibly.

7. While there are plenty of examples of white foreigners being given preference over other races, I think racism in Japan is not exactly a “black and white” issue. It’s very complicated.

   I think stereotypes of nationality are more important than pure skin color. Add the ignorance of people thinking “All white people are American” or “All brown people are Indian” and you get racism that is often systematic.

8. I wouldn’t call it white privilege. I dislike the term very much as it generalizes.
   This being said, yes the stereotype of white people being more behaved, cultured, educated and of higher standing is very much present in Japan.
   Compare that to stereotypes of other cultures that tend to have more negative aspects and yes you can conclude being white is a bonus.

9. White immigrants are treated as tourists, non-white are treated as immigrants or criminals. Of course that is racist both ways, but a kind of “nicer” racism towards white people – being told “oh, your Japanese is so good” racism is not comparable to having the police called on you every week in the same street where you have to walk to go to work and then being told by the police that “black people look all the same, so the caller may mistake and think it’s a different person each week. But we are required to check anyway, sorry”, as it happened to a Jamaican friend of mine.

10. It’s a loaded concept; traditional societies take privilege as natural and normal. Obviously that is a privelege predominately for whatever the local culture is, not whites universally as some are implying. We problematize it because we aim to a liberal ideal if meritocracy and universal democratic participation. Most societies now and historically couldn’t care less about that and would even find it an absurd demand. This is separate from making a value judgment as to whether this is right or wrong, but pointing out that it is a historically contingent option and not normal. And the narrative that it’s somehow special or unique to whites is politically loaded, one cannot bring assumptions like that into a discussion and expect people to be unanimous about it. If we create (an illusion of) “unanimity” by force, that is a feature of tyranny.

    All that said, I support the American ideal of diversity. But the narrative of white privelege can easily slide into the tradition of singling groups out by color and scapegoating them. That doesn’t really look like progress to ne. You can assume perhaps I’m biased, but I have been arguing against racism my entire career and only object to it when it becomes about aggressively blaming a group of people based on ethnic traits, whether that’s “white color” or anything else. Antiracism should be consistent and practice what it preaches. That is progress, not turning it into a merry go round of scapegoating different groups. Just my 2c, no shouting. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

11. I think white privilege is most obvious when white people complain about how Japan is so racist toward them like they are experiencing a dose of reality for the first time in their life. I can’t believe some white people here think that being ignored or someone not sitting next to them is equal to the struggles that minorities face in their own country.

12. You get awarded a level of unearned respect right off the bat. It’s hard to identify specific examples, it’s just micro things that build up over time.

    EDIT – one example I can think of . . .Long ago on JET I happened to mention I thought Kendo looked interesting at a post-festival party in my local town. A few weeks later I was invited to dinner in the house of one of the aforementioned party-goers and upon arrival noticed an old man was also there that they kept fussing over. During the evening he mentioned he used to teach Kendo and Kenjutsu and said he could teach me if I wanted. I thought it was just one of those situations at drinking parties where someone says something, you agree, and then that’s that – you never hear from them again.

    When the old guy left, everyone else in the room was oohing and ahhhing in hushed tones at how lucky I was.

    Turns out this guy was very respected and quite famous in Japan, and was coming out of retirement just to teach me in the local school gym, one-to-one. A lowly JET punk.

    EDIT EDIT – last laugh was on me, because it was hard work. I was in the non-air-conditioned gym most evenings after work waving a big wooden stick around and being absolutely mauled by mosquitos.

13. The reason you’re seeing these videos is because you’re either specifically looking for them, or youtube’s algorithm is already assuming you’ll want to see them.

    Look hard enough, and you’ll find discrimination in every single little thing.

14. You’ll get a longer visa compared to people from less appreciated country. Someone in my company had to do the process every year while I got a 3 years visa right at the start.

15. An African friend of mine was stopped while biking to work almost every single week by the police to check her bike registration and residence card. It was a small town so it was frequently the same officers! It was so consistent that she started leaving for work 30 minutes earlier every day to ensure she had time for the police to stop her. While I (white person) now have a car, I at the time also rode my bike frequently and wasn’t stopped by the police even once.

    There have been other things, but that one was I felt a particularly egregious example that also impacted her daily life (had to wake up earlier every single day to deal with the issue).

16. Can we keep dumb American politics out of here please?

17. Easier to get apartments in my experience. Especially as a white female (I speak Japanese) never had a prob to find apartment. My Indian female colleague (same age, same Japanese level) had a hard time 🙁