It's always... fascinating to read of the "Japan is racist, too!" argument because it's so (a) besides the point of the current conversation about race and racism in the West and (b) incredibly ignorant, as you excellently lay out, the influences of the West on 19C East Asian history. I know that white people are geniunely shocked when they find out how complicit and well, not just complicit, but how much of the damage and colonisation of the East by whomever was in direct relation to the powerplays that were going on in Europe and America at the time, being played out in other continents of the world.
The Qing dynasty vs. Japan conflicts that lasted directly involved England, Russia, Germany and France, this was affected by China vs. France wars over Vietnam, China vs. Japan wars ( and sometime, vs. the US) over the then Chosun (which the Japanese renamed "Korea" in English after the occupation and other Asian states), Japan vs. Russia wars (where Japan was ulitimately funded and supported by England and the US) which led to what happened in the first four decades of the 20C in East Asia.
The absolute ignorance and whitewashing of ugly parts of history -- and not just by the Japanese but the West, too -- is, I think, a case of privilege. And the ignorance shown and used as an attack of people wishing to talk about race is, heh, ill-advised at best because it manifests evidence of ingrained privilege.
I think it ultimately ties into why people in the West feel so suprised there is so much anti-US and anti-West sentiment in the world, it's easy to be blinded to history when you get to write the history books and leave out the uncomfortable parts.
I also wanted to say something about anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea and how I don't agree with this being called de-facto racist -- not that I think that you are -- but this comment is already long enough. Just to say, hmm, it all related to how the West lacks specific context because people aren't very interest in history in Asia.
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Fri, Aug. 17th, 2007 12:35 pm (UTC)The Qing dynasty vs. Japan conflicts that lasted directly involved England, Russia, Germany and France, this was affected by China vs. France wars over Vietnam, China vs. Japan wars ( and sometime, vs. the US) over the then Chosun (which the Japanese renamed "Korea" in English after the occupation and other Asian states), Japan vs. Russia wars (where Japan was ulitimately funded and supported by England and the US) which led to what happened in the first four decades of the 20C in East Asia.
The absolute ignorance and whitewashing of ugly parts of history -- and not just by the Japanese but the West, too -- is, I think, a case of privilege. And the ignorance shown and used as an attack of people wishing to talk about race is, heh, ill-advised at best because it manifests evidence of ingrained privilege.
I think it ultimately ties into why people in the West feel so suprised there is so much anti-US and anti-West sentiment in the world, it's easy to be blinded to history when you get to write the history books and leave out the uncomfortable parts.
I also wanted to say something about anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea and how I don't agree with this being called de-facto racist -- not that I think that you are -- but this comment is already long enough. Just to say, hmm, it all related to how the West lacks specific context because people aren't very interest in history in Asia.
Anyway, thank you very much for this post.