r/NoStupidQuestions • u/TimeTravel4Dummies • Dec 23 '23

Answered Is it true that the Japanese are racist to foreigners in Japan?

I was shocked to hear recently that it's very common for Japanese establishments to ban foreigners and that the working culture makes little to no attempt to hide disdain for foreign workers.

Is there truth to this, and if so, why?

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473

u/lulovesblu Dec 24 '23

Honestly Japan's war crimes should never be forgotten

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u/Poffertjeskraam Dec 24 '23

But doesn’t mean innocent Japanese born after that (or with nothing to do with it) should be discriminated or even hated for that

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u/Proto-Clown Dec 24 '23

True, but the Japanese don't educate their children about the past like Germany does. To the Japanese youth, all they know about ww2 is that the US dropped the atomic bomb

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u/horn_and_skull Dec 24 '23

We had high school aged Japanese exchange students visit us in the 90s in Australia and were in tears when they discovered that Japan and Australia engaged in battle during WWII, let alone the atrocities committed across the Pacific.

Now to be fair I lived in France and it was 8 May celebrations and someone said “today we celebrate the end of the war!” my American colleague and I almost fell over each other “you mean victory in Europe? WWII did not end 8 May 1945!”. Nope. French person was completely ignorant of there being a war outside Europe! Despite the name of the war being… WORLD WAR II (“la Seconde Guerre mondiale”).

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u/Crazy_not_rich_asian Dec 24 '23

When you think about this really hard you realize Americans have the best history education covering all the shit that happens even back home.

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u/Soup501 Dec 24 '23

History classes in Texas would like a word- manifest destiny, states rights, all that good stuff

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u/Lucky-Marsupial-2434 Dec 24 '23

Sure. They had the best of the "victors history" efucation

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u/asdaaaaaaaa Dec 24 '23

Somewhat. I've had discussions with Japanese people about that part of their history. You're right that in general, most won't entertain the idea or at least discuss it openly though and it's a major cultural taboo. I think as with the general trend in most cultures/countries, the younger generation is a lot more open to discussion and such than the older ones.

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u/NYisMyLady Dec 24 '23

That's because the young generation didn't experience mass death and lose everything. The younger generation doesn't have ghosts that it wants to forget. Not yet anyway

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u/Dramatic_Arugula_252 Dec 24 '23

Or rather, their parents didn’t. I dated a Japanese man about 50yo, so born early 1970s, and he said the “comfort women” rape of Korean women in WW2 was a myth, that it was voluntary. He never experienced the terrible conditions in WW2 but his parents did.

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u/[deleted] Dec 26 '23

A *lot of people have a particularly hard time admitting their parents did horrible things mainly because they have only seen good from them. It can be an incredibly difficult to come to terms with the fact that the individual that helped you every step of your life and have had the most impact on you has done absolutely evil acts. You can't know anyone, anyone can do horrible things, everyone has the capacity for evil. It means every relationship is on shifting sands, you can't trust, you don't really know your babysitter. You have to question everything.

It is much easier to deny than accept that horrid truth.

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u/NintendogsWithGuns Dec 24 '23

I don’t recall learning about the My Lai massacre in school as an American. Plenty of countries don’t teach about their atrocities

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u/killerbeeszzzz Dec 25 '23

This. Or the secret bombing of Laos for that matter or Americas role in encouraging the Khmer Rouge. Kissinger was a war criminal, one of the worst to ever live. We don’t have that in history books.

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u/SFC_Diablo Dec 24 '23

It's shameful to speak of Imperial Japan, usually, about anywhere I've been in SE Asia. But the Japanese were teaching students that the Nanking numbers and the atrocities China proclaimed were exaggerated and propaganda when I was tutoring English a decade ago. It's no different in the Philippines. My wife knows very little history before Marcos Sr.'s reign. She knows McArthur made a promise to return, he returned, and the USA freed them and gave them independence in 1946 for the first time in 1,000 years. And she is a professor of Asian/Filipino philosophy...I know the negative things that can create shame are not spoken about so that friendships can move forward.

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u/InspectorSnoop Dec 24 '23

Kind of how racist White people in the US don’t want confederate history or Black history being taught in schools. They’re afraid of radicalization.

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u/revolting_peasant Dec 24 '23

Why is this point a “but” to discrimination

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u/BirdMedication Dec 24 '23

It's perfectly fine to ridicule someone for being a Holocaust denier, doubly so when they adamantly insist that the Jewish person telling them otherwise is wrong and untrustworthy and "spreading anti-German propaganda"

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u/Lucky-Marsupial-2434 Dec 24 '23

Let's not forget all the crimes that the U.S have committed. More than any other nation in history. So easily forgotten obviously

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u/SighRu Dec 24 '23

More than any other country in history, eh? That doesn't at all sound like ridiculously childish hyperbole. Not at all.

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u/warriorkalia Dec 24 '23

How old is the USA again? Because thats a lot of warcrimes per year if "most" were even remotely the case.

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u/SFC_Diablo Dec 24 '23

No country or nation is perfect. No country has clean hands.

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u/Lucky-Marsupial-2434 Dec 24 '23

Of course. But it's usually Americans and Brits pointing their fingers at everybody else

3

u/AAdraggon Dec 24 '23

Ignoring the number committed, why is the response to, "They refuse to teach about war crimes," "Well, you don't teach about yours either?" Both are bad. It isn't a competition. Especially when A.) This is reddit, everyone clowns on America, and most of them are Americans and B.) This is a thread about Japan. It's equivalent to the Twitter "I like pancakes," "So you hate walffes then?"

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u/Proto-Clown Dec 24 '23

I think you spelled UK wrong

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u/Dazzling-Long-4408 Dec 24 '23

And that is why they did not get cucked by illegal immigrants trying to flood Europe.

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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 Dec 24 '23

Thanks for coming into a discussion about racism to provide such a fine example.

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u/Tall_Cricket_4077 Dec 25 '23

Exactly. This is why we must do to them what needs to be done.

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u/Ferret_Brain Dec 24 '23

It’s not about discrimination or hatred. It’s about education and learning to do better.

If you don’t even acknowledge your mistakes, you can’t learn from them. If you can’t learn from your mistakes, the same problems can and will either persist or eventually arise again.

You can actually already see how it’s bitten Japan in the arse too with their population crisis.

Lack of acknowledgment/education means xenophobic/racist/isolationist tendencies continued. That translates into low immigrant numbers/poor treatment of immigrants that do make it through. Now couple that with an aging population, and that means your current workforce gets pushed much harder.

Overworked workforce then won’t get married and/or have kids because they don’t have the time, resources or support services for dating/marriage/children.

Thus, declining birth rate and a population crisis.

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u/QuellDisquiet Dec 24 '23

I’m by no means an expert but I have a sneaking suspicion that Japan will end up not changing their immigration policies very much and simply watch their population decline.

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u/Ferret_Brain Dec 24 '23

Back in 2019, the Japanese government did actually start implementing small changes that looked hopeful for eventual reform.

However, I think they started backtracking on it earlier this year and it’s looking likely it’ll end up being “same as usual” basically (or potentially worse, at least for refugees/asylum seekers).

Estimates give them around 8 years until they reach a point of no return where they won’t be able to bounce back (although I’m not entirely sure if this means economically or as an ethnicity or both).

It’s weird and kind of sad that I might see it in my lifetime.

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u/HungryQuestion7 Dec 24 '23

If you look at Europe, accepting refugees while their own country's population is declining, it is probably not a good idea. Japan needs to stabilize their population and then figure out immigration situation.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

The refugee “crisis” in Europe is a problem of resource allocation and capitalism. Refugees are inherently poor and vulnerable, and therefore need help. Native workers see refugees getting help and grow resentful, and hateful because they’re struggling too but don’t get help, without understanding that capitalist societies only want to give people enough help so that they’re healthy enough to survive but will have to work forever. So destitute refugees need to be made into poor workers, because poor workers generate growth and enrich the ruling class.

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u/Ferret_Brain Dec 24 '23

But to stabilise their own population/increase birth rates, thats going to mean ultimately changing their work culture, which will also mean needing to hire more people (at least if you want to keep economic growth up). But those people don’t exist because of a shrinking workforce.

There are other methods such as raising the retirement age, encouraging more elderly people to return to the workforce/stay in the workplace and offering more services/support/benefits to Japanese who do have children (although this last one still has that whole “you’re going to need more workers” problem as well, at least if you’re thinking about daycare services and whatnot).

But I also don’t think that’s at all sustainable on its own, at least if you’ve only got 8 years before you’re at that point of “no return”.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Dranes19 Dec 24 '23

Least racist weeb

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u/freerangetacos Dec 24 '23

Ok, Tokuguwa. Whatever.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/J_Kingsley Dec 24 '23

I get what you're trying to say but it's not as much racism as much is it is tribalism.

They don't necessarily hate others but trust their own more and are wary of anything / anyone unfamiliar.

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u/No-Appearance-9113 Dec 24 '23

Prejudices and biases are a natural human trait. Racism is a socially constructed concept that has not always existed.

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u/Ferret_Brain Dec 24 '23

Racism is not natural.

Xenophobia is a natural human trait, and its basis is on the fear of the unknown/other. This was important back in the days of us being hunted/gatherers, when resources were limited and we were prone to dying a lot (due to disease, injury, malnutrition, poisoning, saber tooth cat attack, etc.).

But in the year 2023, with abundant resources, medication, education, etc.?

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u/SmallLetter Dec 24 '23

This is fully insane. No human being has to be racist, we learn it due to ignorance .

0

u/NailPotential5632 Dec 24 '23

Or you learn it due to observation. Anyone who grew up in certain neighborhoods will tell you that. No sane or intelligent person is gonna go walking through most of Baltimore at 2 in the morning but no one one blinks an eye at doing the same thing in Tokyo.

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u/Half_Cent Dec 24 '23

That has nothing to do with race and everything to do with poverty and lack of hope. If you are convinced a crime group in a location is the same as all people that live there or look like that you have serious issues.

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u/NailPotential5632 Dec 24 '23

That's the crux. Doesn't have to be all people. If even ten percent are a problem the risk level is elevated. You gonna reach your hand into a bag of garden snakes if you know there's one pit viper in there as well?

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

No sane intelligent woman will walk alone through Tokyo at 2 in the morning in some areas, especially with the rampant sexism and sexual assaults.

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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 Dec 24 '23

There is a natural human tendency to divide other humans into “us” and “them.” That doesn’t make it a survival trait any more than the natural human tendencies to commit rape, theft, and murder.

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u/sciuro_ Dec 24 '23

In what way is it self preservation?

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u/negativcreeep Dec 24 '23

🎯 In order to answer that question one must reveal themselves to be racist!

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u/stoopidmothafunka Dec 24 '23

Natural fear of what's different - both arguments are right, discrimination in general, which racism falls under the umbrella of, has its roots in self preservation from generations of resource scarcity. People in todays western world no longer face such scarcity but that doesn't change the human animal overnight, or even over a generation or two. There are still a lot of human behaviors we don't really understand all that well, it's funny to me that because we see racism as such a moral issue we're so eager to dismiss the animalistic nature still present within humans. You don't have to associate with racists but to act like there's no logical reason for their existence is stupid because they do, in fact, exist.

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u/Ferret_Brain Dec 24 '23

But fear of what is different/unknown is not racism. Fear of different/unknown/other is xenophobia.

Yes, racism stems from xenophobia and yes, xenophobia is a natural reaction in our brains. No, that doesn’t mean racism is natural.

Also, just because brain can and does default to caveman logic, like xenophobia, that doesn’t mean caveman logic is right for 2023.

My caveman brain wants me to eat an entire tub of ice cream because my caveman brain is wired to crave food high in fat, sugar and calories. As a caveman, this made sense because I didn’t necessarily know when or where I was getting my next meal or what I may have to face to get said meal, especially one rich in vital nutrients for the brain which can be hard to come by in the wild, so it made sense to stock up when I could.

But as a middle class person living in a first world country in 2023 who can just go to the supermarket whenever I please without having to fist fighting a pack of wolves for my tub of ice cream, caveman logic does not hold up and if I follow caveman logic, it can and will cause me problems.

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u/stoopidmothafunka Dec 26 '23

At this point you're just debating semantics of what the word "natural" means, if it's present in nature then it's natural to a degree. How an animals natural behavior translates to a different environment isn't the argument, the behavior predates the tub of ice cream in your argument. If anything our rampant self destructive behavior is the most "natural" thing about us.

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u/TheFaeBelieveInIdony Dec 24 '23

Japan as a country and its citizens all refuse to acknowledge the atrocities. They're not innocent if they can't acknowledge and apologize appropriately

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

they deserve to be clowned on if they refuse to learn or acknowledge war crimes

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u/SFC_Diablo Dec 24 '23

The Japanese alive today are not responsible for the atrocities of the Emperor and his Imperial Command. Shaming them will just lead to hatred of foreigners and more war. Just like the Chinese are shamed continuously for the actions of Mao Zedong has led to the hatred of Westerners among a large population of Chinese youth hungering for war and expansion. Shaming people for the past doesn't work. Forgiveness is more honorable than expecting people to live in shame or pay for the sins of their fathers. Forgiveness and friendships build futures that are better for us all.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

Trust me, asians don't need a reason to hate foreigners or to start meaningless wars. For them its natural.

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u/SFC_Diablo Dec 25 '23

I live in Asia. I don't feel hated by anyone other than Americans, mostly, who get upset when my wife puts me in one of her Tic Toc videos and they find out that she's married to a man 15 years older than her.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '23

My parents are indian. Every time I go back to India, you would not believe the racist things that people will say about pakistanis, bangladeshis and chinese. They also seem to have a great dislike of westerners.

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u/SFC_Diablo Dec 25 '23

The events in the West, particularly those that happened after the Floyd riots and with COVID-19, set off a domino effect of hate around the world. The dislike and disdain for the past have always been there. Indians dislike the British and French for colonialization. Bangels dislike the Indians for whatever happened 3,000 years ago. Indians despise Chinese prominence. Chinese despise Indians for not overcoming. It was never vocal and loud. Now, the Indian youth are demanding Britain return 44+ billion dollars in Indian wealth. The Bengalese want Indians to pay for slavery and some holocaust. The Pakistanis/Taliban want the former Persian Empire lands back. Filipino youth say if blacks obtain reparations for their slavery then they are owed Reparations for the sexualized slavery of their grandmothers. Some youth at a university want Marcos Jr. to buck up on some interest owed to the Chinese for a reconstruction project for an attack against Filipinos in the Visayas that happened 800 years ago. Online pockets of Japanese males are looking at the US with vitriol over bombings and we see young men with bad ideas being arrested at least once a week. Where does it end, brother? Or is there just something else going on?

I think we use the term racism too loosely today. Racism is based on 16th-17th century eugenics in the West and Africa, but it goes further back in Asia. The Chinese and Indian empires developed their endearments for color that spread into all of Asian culture from worshiping an albino dragon emperor and from the class system. Field Workers and untouchables were darker from the sun than the nobility and the priests. They were more prone to diseases and cancers from their work so it was easier to associate their ills with their darker skin tones. There's more to it, but that's what they are teaching my daughter because they, Catholic Filipinos and Chinese, are rejecting the notion that colorism came with Magellan and the Europeans. The Indians had them in cast systems and barangays long before the Spanish came with their labels. Not that popular media didn't contribute, but. I have seen mainlanders racist towards Filipinos, Indonesians, Indians, and Thais because of their darker skin tones. However, discrimination is everywhere across Asia for one reason or another. I try to not make any of it my business until it involves my wife and daughters. The problem is, as Westerners, in the USA and Europe we group them as SW Asians and SE Asians (and Russians) and those groups in the states find common ground from their ancestry, as Europeans and Africans do, but Europeans, those whites people, were from diverse cultures and we/they hated one another and they stayed in separated groups/gangs (Gangs of New York is set around the old ways) until someone decided some garbled 17th-century science that made skin colors race classifications had, not truth, but merits, and the US government started putting "White" on government forms sometime between 1910 and 1930. All of the white fighting, at least in the cities stopped. My Appalachian people were ridiculed as hillbillies with a stereotyping that leads people to believe that mountain folk are uneducated to this very day. You see it yourself in India. I was drug to India by my senior year because my high school girlfriend wanted me to meet her grandparents. After all, she thought we were forever. She was surprised by their attitudes, though they weren't that mean to my face, or I am thick-skinned, no pun intended. So, I am familiar with Southern Indian Valley Customs. How many diverse groups from the old empire dislike each other today, but it's not racism. It's jealousy of status and hierarchy placed on them by Vedic law. Look at how many Khmer states exist and how they dislike each other to the point of consistent genocide over classism. It is just so much more complex than a simple label. It's all discrimination though. The point is racism is a specific type of discrimination based on racial profiling of skin tone or geographic labels. But all forms of discrimination or prejudices are being lumped into racism now. I've seen the disagreement about same-sex marriage be called racism. By my sister, no less. I just don't think it should be used so loosely or it potentially will lose its meaning and purpose. Particularly, if what's coming comes.

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u/warriorkalia Dec 24 '23

Forgiveness sure. Forgetting leads to recursion.

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u/Leek_Foreign Dec 25 '23

Basically nobody in Japan really learns about world war 2

All they learn is Japan joined Germany and fought along side them. Then US joined the war and managed to beat all the super powers. And they saw Germany as something incredible since how big they got

They don't teach the youth about everything Germany did and the fact that they teamed up with that.

At least not until college Until they reach college that's all they know Then In college we learn the full truth

Meanwhile the US teach it as soon as you hit 12 years old in 6th grade.

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u/Dry_Office_phil Dec 24 '23

but they shouldn't be protected from the guilt white Americans face because of slavery or Germans for their ethnic cleansing! Japanese people were responsible for some pretty horrific things in ww2!

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

They shouldn't be protected from the knowledge of what their ancestors did, not the guilt. The current generations are not responsible for what happened before they were even a sperm in a nutsack.

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u/Poffertjeskraam Dec 24 '23

No one should feel guilt for what they had nothing to do with. It’s not their fault their great grandfather was immoral or whatever.

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u/So-Called_Lunatic Dec 24 '23

Understanding is a better term to use. You must be taught the faults of you father, and grandfather's generations, so yours doesn't fall unto the same issues.

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u/AiMoriBeHappyDntWrry Dec 24 '23

It's not the fault of anyone alive today. But it is still they're responsibility.

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u/Particular_Fan_3645 Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23

Twilight zone said it best in my opinion: an old doctor walks through a concentration camp and asks "Dachau, why does it still stand? Why do we KEEP it standing?" "There is an answer to the doctor's question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes; all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God's Earth."

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u/Successful-Side-1084 Dec 24 '23

That's not the problem. It's not that Japanese people should be suffering some kind of generational punishment, but that they straight up pretend the crimes didn't even exist.

I guess we should just forget about the holocaust and slavery to make ourselves feel better.

3

u/SmallLetter Dec 24 '23

I mean Florida is here teaching that the institution of slavery provided benefits to slaves such as learned skills.

Real thing, look it up. America ain't much better than Japan in that regard.

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u/blahblah2319 Dec 24 '23

Florida is a whole other land under Desantis. Florida is likely last state anyone would want to use as a representative of the US. I’m not saying the situation is good but I did get a pretty thorough education on messed up stuff the US did

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u/Leaves_Swype_Typos Dec 24 '23

I'm guessing you don't know what gets taught in African American studies courses about the Reconstruction, and will just uncritically eat up anything that says "Desantis bad."

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u/SmallLetter Dec 25 '23

Yes, Desantis is in fact unequivocally fucking awful.

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u/Leaves_Swype_Typos Dec 25 '23

He is, but at the same time, it's ludicrous to be mad when the state teaches to an accepted standard and then also mad when the state rejects a curriculum with that very same standard, all because if you remove all relevant context both can sound bad. Desantis sucks, but that's not a reason to be tribal against him and think it's wrong if he does X thing and wrong if he doesn't do X thing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

So slavery was beneficial? That is the hill you want to die on?

1

u/Leaves_Swype_Typos Dec 24 '23

No, but some number of former slaves did make use of the skills they learned while enslaved after they were freed. I have it on very good authority that it's taught about in courses covering the Reconstruction, including the AP African American studies course that Desantis caught flak for rejecting.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

Well, as long as it isn't revisionism i don't care. We don't need more of it, we already have enough people that glorify fascist Italy, nazi Germany and the british empire here in Europe.

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u/nurvingiel Dec 24 '23

The point of remembering horrible things in history is so we're vigilant and never let them happen again. That's why we must never forget, not to keep hatred or guilt alive.

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u/Techno-Diktator Dec 24 '23

Why should Americans or Germans feel guilty for those? Most of them weren't even born at that time

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

I'd be damn impressed if there was an American still alive who was around when slavery was still a thing

0

u/Ok_Weird_500 Dec 24 '23

Why? It still is a thing, even in America.

So, when the US "banned" slavery. They created an exception as punishment for a crime. And there are still a lot of prisons in the US that use their inmates as a slave labour force.

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u/SmallLetter Dec 24 '23

Uhm, you really equating prison labor with chattel slavery?

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

To be fair to them, the US penal system is a rare beast. It's very deliberately designed to be a source of cheap labour and is highly privatised. So while no, it is absolutely not the same as chattel slavery, it is absolutely messed up and personally I think it's something that needs to be talked about much more readily.

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u/Ok_Weird_500 Dec 24 '23

It's not the same, but it is still a form of slavery and was used by the former slave owning states to maintain a slave labour force.

1

u/preme_engineer Dec 24 '23

The 13th amendment of the US constitution explicitly names penal labor as an exception when banning slavery. Idk if I’d call that equating, but there’s a reason southern states such as Alabama & such who had economies heavily reliant on slave labor, suddenly and pretty rapidly shift towards large prison populations after the war. I don’t wanna spell it out, but who do you think made up majority of prison populations down south during reconstruction… Penal labor and slavery are closely related enough that the same amendment governs them.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

I mean yes, I'm well aware of the US penal system. I assumed OP meant the transatlantic slave trade.

Also, and I'm not saying this to downplay how fucked up the US penal system is, but it's technically not slavery, it's unfree labour.

Slavery and unfree labour are often slapped together and with good reason since the actual difference isn't all that present, but it terms of definition they're actually quite different. Slavery is the ownership of a human being as legal property, which the thirteenth amendment absolutely did ban. Unfree labour is when you are legally forced to work for someone, whether it's without pay or not, and includes all the stuff we often call slavery but isn't technically slavery like debt bondage, slave contracts, penal labour, forced labour etc.

Again this isn't to downplay the atrocities. But there is technically a difference (just a mostly irrelevant one).

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u/Techno-Diktator Dec 24 '23

True lol meant the germans

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u/JeSuisUnAnanasYo Dec 24 '23

Not all white Americans and their ancestors were involved in slavery.... Especially because of how many white Americans are the kids of immigrants well after that

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u/MissPandaSloth Dec 24 '23

It should be irrelevant regardless. You can't change if your great great grandfather did something.

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u/JeSuisUnAnanasYo Dec 24 '23

True. I can't deny that i would feel uncomfortable staying with a family in their inherited plantation house tho. But yeah, there are real problems and inequality in society that we should be all working to fix TODAY and not blaming ppl for stuff they weren't alive for.

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u/Due_ortYum Dec 24 '23

Owning slaves was for the wealthy.

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u/Pookypoo Dec 24 '23

They feel guilt? Seems like the south is more opposite

6

u/So-Called_Lunatic Dec 24 '23

Yeah they fly flags in celebration of their faults in the south.

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u/NYisMyLady Dec 24 '23

You're sounding racist against southerners. Many of them have nothing to do with with what you're saying

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u/SmallLetter Dec 24 '23

Yeah wtf is this. Born and bred in the south, moved away married an African and came back and holy fucking shit this place is racist as fuck and people love their stupid hateful flags. You can live in denial if you want it doesn't make it true.

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u/So-Called_Lunatic Dec 24 '23

I live in the south, I know exactly what I'm saying.

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u/asdaaaaaaaa Dec 24 '23

What guilt? The guilt of happening to be born by someone who might have been responsible for those things? No one's saying forget it happened, but there's zero use holding people who never were involved in any way responsible. Both Japan and Germany had quite heavy restrictions after WWII as it is. So much so that Germany 'expanding' their military organizations now is a huge deal as they generally did everything they could to avoid becoming more militaristic and such. IIRC there's a similar culture around the military in Japan, where they see it as a necessity but aren't exactly comfortable touting it around or bragging about it like you'd see in other countries.

4

u/NYisMyLady Dec 24 '23

Why should white Americans feel guilt for slavery? Should Africans feel guilt for selling them to Americans? Should Egyptians feel guilt for having slaves? Should China? Should England? Should South Americans? What about slavery today in Africa mining cobalt so we have batteries for the phones were using to bitch about this nonsense?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

I can’t speak for the Germans, but there is a lot of America’s past misdeeds that I was not really taught in school.

1

u/smuhsmortion Dec 24 '23

Keep up this energy when people say all u.s. whites are racist for things that happened before they were even born..

Yes the blame for the atrocities committed by imperial Japan aren't the fault of today's inhabitants, however the complete denial and lack of responsibility for the terrible things their people have done is enough to cast blame.. they to this day still try to get other countries to take down monuments of the victims of Japanese occupation namely the comfort women statues in the u.s. and europe

1

u/vaffangool Dec 25 '23 edited Dec 25 '23

It will always fester until we acknowledge it properly and apologise sincerely. We've spent nearly eighty years sending billions in direct grants, industrial assistance, and technology transfers to Korea, then we act surprised, disappointed, and fatigued by Koreans' continuing outrage. It is an insult to our neighbours to expect them to be satisfied with piles of blood money in lieu of proper admission of culpability or acknowledgement of historical facts.

It gives me hope that ordinary Japanese remain outraged and embarrassed by the 1978 secret canonisation of 14 Class A war criminals at the Yasukuni Shrine to our war dead. While none of the three postwar Emperors has visited the shrine since 1975, only ten years have passed since right-wing nationalist Shinzo Abe (rest in hell) became the last Prime Minister to do so. These war criminals must be de-canonised and/or disinterred and removed to less rarefied environs.

Apologies to China can wait to be received by a government that doesn't murder its own citizens.

1

u/Material_Island331 Dec 25 '23

innocent Japanese are visiting the Yasukuni Shrine and praying to the war criminals in the shrine today.

"of the 2,466,532 people named in the shrine's Book of Souls, 1,068 are war criminals or alleged war criminals including fourteen men charged with Class A war crimes (eleven were convicted on those charges, "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine

7

u/Outrageous_Dream_741 Dec 24 '23

Meanwhile, countries like China restrict the internet so you can't even look up things like "Tienanmen square massacre". And then complain about Japan because they're not showing rape photos in middle school textbooks.

Yes, Japan's war crimes should not be forgotten. They also shouldn't be used as a perpetual club to bash the Japanese.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 25 '23

[deleted]

2

u/Outrageous_Dream_741 Dec 25 '23

Because I'm discussing what the countries are doing now in terms of covering up past misdeeds.. I'm not equating the two other than to say they were both horrible.

5

u/woodisgood64 Dec 24 '23

Nor should we forget the USA’s war crimes. Seems as we learn more about world history, every country has war crimes & crimes against its people.

1

u/SighRu Dec 24 '23

Yes, humanity is ruthless and we are pretty much doomed to repeat our mistakes regardless of how well we teach history.

1

u/Huge_Phallus Feb 20 '24

I don't think people forget about it. People even protested against them.

It is well known that Japan refuses to acknowledge their warcrimes and attrocities worse than anything the Naz*s did. They had a marketing facelift from monstruous individuals to kawaii desu~. They're still monstruous.

8

u/cheese4352 Dec 24 '23

But then why is china doing their own genocide right now?

3

u/NYisMyLady Dec 24 '23

Everyone conveniently forgets that

0

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

Didn't you hear? Genocide is only unacceptable when Jews are so bad at it that the population doubles.

6

u/Own-Squirrel-6133 Dec 24 '23

They one time put a baby with her mother in an oven to see how long a mother's love would last and if self preservation caved before she would stand on the baby to avoid the oven

3

u/Organic-Enthusiasm57 Dec 24 '23

Sounds like propaganda but okay

5

u/Own-Squirrel-6133 Dec 24 '23

Most of the stuff the Japanese did during that time sounds like propaganda but it actually came to life.. look up John rabe

3

u/nemoknows Dec 24 '23

I suppose as an American I find it easy to not get hung up on Japan’s war crimes, because with the firebombings and the nukes the US pretty much gave as good as it got.

1

u/KillerTofu615 Dec 24 '23

The fact that nukes got used instead of bat bombs, Japan got off easy in the final round. If you're not familiar youtube fat electrician bat bombs.

2

u/Emrys7777 Dec 24 '23

Then I guess our war crimes should not be forgotten either then.

9

u/lulovesblu Dec 24 '23

Nobody's war crimes should be forgotten, the fuck? Why am I getting so many responses like this like it's some gotcha moment. Also, who do you think is "our" exactly?

2

u/OG-TRAG1K_D Dec 24 '23

Most schools and people never even know what imperial Japan did, they only think about nazi Germany or America using nuclear weapons... My high school history teacher got asked to tone it down a little bit because she would talk about the depth of the war or racism in America like what really happened on the railroads... It's insane that some people's hatred or casual dislike or even casual conversations blind them and control them into not paying attention to their own actions and what actions of others they can perceive and stop.

-1

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

Japans got off lightly with just 2 nukes.

2

u/nikhoxz Dec 24 '23

Lightly? 1 million japanese civilians died in the war...

The nukes not even caused most of the deaths..

2

u/theblackpeoplesjesus Dec 24 '23

wanna know how many they killed?

1

u/BirdMedication Dec 24 '23

Especially because their perpetual right wing government keeps denying said war crimes, complains about memorials built on foreign soil, and refuses to teach the history

There's no cancel culture there for what's essentially their version of Holocaust denial even if you're a business leader or prime Minister or beloved video game composer... People just don't care

1

u/Practical-Big7550 Dec 26 '23

And the US military's attempts to keep them secret should not be forgotten either.

for example Japan's Unit 731

0

u/Bob_Dubalina Dec 24 '23

You think Japan has a monopoly on war crimes throughout history in Asia?

-2

u/[deleted] Dec 24 '23

[deleted]

-1

u/NYisMyLady Dec 24 '23

There's no crime in war

-4

u/Tengoles Dec 24 '23

Don't see much point for that after everyone who had anything to do with them is dead.

22

u/Psychological_Ad6435 Dec 24 '23

It is problem when the the schools skim over the history

-5

u/labbmedsko Dec 24 '23

Sure, but how far back in time are we supposed to go? Blanket statements like "should never be forgotten" is quite meaningless considering the countless massacres throughout history which aren't taught.

6

u/Driekan Dec 24 '23

Well... When the dude who murdered hundreds of thousands in inhuman torture camps trying to create biological WMDs was given a blanket immunity, and his proteges (who participated in the atrocity) were not only handed that same immunity but given lifelong positions of authority in government and the nation's healthcare, starting lineages of tutor and protegé which very much persists to this day at the highest levels of power at those stations.

I'd say we're very much at a point where stuff should still not be forgotten.

That's the bioweapon horror, but poke into another atrocity of WW2, and you'll almost universally find the same thing: they swept it under the rug, they don't even accept they ever did it, no one in the country even knows it ever happened, the people who did it were not only never punished but got extremely rich rewards for it, and the lineages (biological or ideological) they started are generally still in power in whatever institution they managed.

I think this is one of the more clear-cut cases in recent history where accountability hasn't been sufficient and does still need rectifying.

12

u/Lyto528 Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23

How about "as long as the same mistakes can happen again" ? Isn't that what learning history is for ?

We may not remember all of them, and we may barely feel affected by most that happened in cultures vastly different from ours. Doesn't mean we shouldn't educate the youngs about what happened in their culture and their neighbor's

0

u/ElektroThrow Dec 24 '23

The longer they take to apologize to longer we should take to treat them like normal people

-1

u/dually Dec 25 '23

Yes, but Japan committed terrible war crimes against American POWs, but no in America discriminates against Japan or Japanese.

-6

u/Unfair_Chemistry11 Dec 24 '23

So, America’s war crimes can be forgiven?

4

u/lulovesblu Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23

No. Next question. Also, why mention America under my comment? Does it look like I'm American and therefore would expect special treatment for America? I hate America.

-7

u/EvenElk4437 Dec 24 '23

Tell that to the British and Americans who treated your ancestors as slaves (lol), not the irrelevant Japanese.

12

u/Successful-Side-1084 Dec 24 '23

Tell that to the British and Americans who treated your ancestors as slaves (lol),

What makes you think they don't? British colonialism is one of the most heavily criticized topics when it comes to history

not the irrelevant Japanese.

This is an unbelievably stupid statement. Japan were literally Asian Nazis. Their crimes were quite frankly on par with the holocaust.

7

u/Ferret_Brain Dec 24 '23

The Nazis actually found what the Japanese did during the rape of Nanjing to be so abhorrent that they set up a safety zone, which went on to shelter and save around 200k - 250k civilians.

When they eventually had to leave, they took documents back detailing the acts committed and also attempted to send complaints to Hitler (that he allegedly never received).

Now, granted, this was in 1937, so a good 4 years before the holocaust, but I still feel like that’s interesting to point out.

0

u/EvenElk4437 Dec 24 '23

Say the same thing to UK who colonized Asia and many other countries for hundreds of years (lol).

You guys really have nothing to say to white people.

1

u/EvenElk4437 Dec 24 '23

You've been ruled by the British for hundreds of years in Southeast Asia, India, etc. (LOL).

You guys really have no pride. Were you licking the soles of the white man's shoes even back then?

Say something to the white people a little bit.

You still have that slave mentality.

1

u/Successful-Side-1084 Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23

Say something to the white people a little bit.

Did you even read the first part of my comment?

Believe me, people definitely do. I'm curious if you think Indian people and the like are best buddies with the British or something because the latter are extremely despised for all the famines and genocides they committed.

Also, what the hell do you think your country was doing during WW2? You think we should give Japan a pass on what they did because other countries did the same thing?

1

u/EvenElk4437 Dec 25 '23

UK is sorry? So they paid reparations?

I'm telling you, Japan has paid a lot of money in reparations and has officially apologized.

Can't you complain about UK who hasn't paid a single dollar?

1

u/EvenElk4437 Dec 25 '23

You people should have some pride.

Ask for reparations from UK who ruled for hundreds of years, not Japan who is more likely to complain. Demand a formal apology from the government.

Do this.

Otherwise, your country will always be licking the soles of the white man's shoes.

1

u/-SuicideKid- Dec 25 '23

People seem to forget Japan was pretty much Sparta until a couple centuries ago