The beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself - Polidicks

[QUOTE=jA_cOp;47883234]This just isn't true. Race is separated based on perception, while ethnicity concerns identity and social integration. Ethnicities are not subgroups of races or anything of the sorts. Ethnicity is a useful tool in various sciences, while race is only interesting in science insofar as the notion itself can be studied, usually with a historical perspective. It's true that ethnicity can also concern physical appearance but it is not a requisite of ethnicity in general, while race almost exclusively concerns physical appearance.[/QUOTE] To an extent. Perceptions of race are a social construct, but you can make a case for there being a broader ethnicity as a biological thing. European people can't donate bone marrow to SubSaharan African people and there's problems with organ donation as well. Then you get into the part where there's varying amount of Neanderthal DNA among various regions and how even that small percentile is pretty significant as Humans share something like 99 percent of DNA with Chimps.

[QUOTE=Nikota;47883399]To an extent. It gets fucked up when people misunderstand perception of race as a social construct, and then getting the idea that Race is a social construct. Europeans people can't donate bone marrow to SubSaharan African people and there's problems with organ donation as well. When it comes to DNA, something like 2-3 percent is the amount of DNA from Neanderthals is the amount that Europeans and East Asians have if my memory is correct. Given that something in the high 90 percentile of DNA is shared with chimps, that's enough to say you can differentiate Race biologically.[/QUOTE] Race is a social construct because race was invented before we understood the origin of humans completely. It has no bearing on scientific knowledge today, which is why no-one outside of some fringe scientists takes it seriously as a concept. Europeans can't donate bone marrow to most "Sub-Saharan African people" that's true, but neither can they donate bone marrow to most Europeans as well, and finding a match for someone who is not European is even harder because of how divergent the genetic information is. If that's a rationale for the existence of race, it's a poor one; in fact it's more proof that race is outdated in our current understanding of genetics as there seems to be little similar genetic information holding together the "black race". I think we need to let the old idea of race die already so we can move on from old deprecated science. Haplogroups and phylogenetics are far more useful when it comes to tracing the movement of genetic drift and understanding how human populations developed, but of course it's not useful for political purposes because it puts a big giant hole in everyone's perception of who belongs where and who doesn't.

Doesn't matter how people accept the term or see this or whatever, the fact is people are discriminating "hafus" and that shows that there is a problem that, according to jA_cOp, even Japan recognizes it exists and it needs to be dealt with.

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;47882636]You geniuses on SH love to spout about how 'incredibly xenophobic' Japan is without ever having lived there or even stepped foot in Narita. Some older Japanese folk might be more xenophobic but you'll be hard pressed to find rampant xenophobia within the younger folk, it's not 1942 anymore. Most Japanese people can give a shit less what country you're from.[/QUOTE] Not that I'm involved in this conversation at all, but I think if someone is genuinely misunderstood about a subject, you shouldn't write them off as being ignorant and stupid. Genuine Japanese culture is something that is pretty remote and undealt with in American culture, and all I've ever heard about from people returning from Japan was their xenophobia. I've heard different accounts ranging from small to severe, but to judge me or anyone based on the small amount of knowledge they have as opposed to properly educating them and trying to convince them to think otherwise is counterproductive. This is why SH is toxic. You're not helping.

Related: A black British girl living in Korea talks about xenophobia [hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAHiPievEZ0[/hd] [editline]5th June 2015[/editline] It's a long-ish vid, but pretty interesting.

Funny when Americans start talking about race, ethnicity and nationality and start to mix everything up. The term "American" doesn't really stand for anything, it's just a mix of people, and the rules and logic there don't apply to the countries of the old continents.

[QUOTE=thisispain;47882609]Ariana Miyamoto is ethnically Japanese because she speaks the language and is integrated into the cultural system. [/QUOTE] That's really not necessarily true at all. As Wikipedia describes for the term 'ethnicity': [quote]An ethnic group or ethnicity is a socially defined category of people who identify with each other based on common [B]ancestral[/B], social, cultural or national experience.[1][2] Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, [B]ancestry[/B], origin myth, history, homeland, language and/or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, [B]physical appearance[/B], etc.[/quote] Emphasis mine. Ethnicity is a murky concept tied to a lot of factors but it's an extremely Western view that your lineage is unimportant and only your cultural upbringing matters. In more insular countries, this is not the case. In many parts of Africa, for example, you will likely always be considered something of an outsider to your tribe (an ethnic and political group) if one of your parents is of a different tribe, let alone a different race entirely. When I lived in Kenya I knew a pair of brothers who had a Kikuyu mother and an English father- they'll never be considered 'fully' Kikuyu, they're strikingly physically different, even though they've been raised in a Kikuyu environment. Again from Wikipedia: [quote]Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership, the following types of ethnic groups can be identified: [B]Ethno-racial, emphasizing shared physical appearance based on genetic origins;[/B] Ethno-religious, emphasizing shared affiliation with a particular religion, denomination and/or sect; Ethno-linguistic, emphasizing shared language, dialect and/or script; Ethno-national, emphasizing a shared polity and/or sense of national identity; Ethno-regional, emphasizing a distinct local sense of belonging stemming from relative geographic isolation.[/quote] Again, emphasis mine. Identifying with people who look like you and not identifying with people who look different from you is one of the oldest tribal signifiers of the human race, and has been around for far longer than modern concepts of nationality. American cultural identity is very strongly ethno-regional, but that's not how most of the world works. I'm not saying Japan isn't xenophobic, as the way foreigners are treated attests, but you can't take the specifically American interpretation of the term 'ethnicity' and apply it to other cultures.

[QUOTE=catbarf;47883821] Again, emphasis mine. Identifying with people who look like you and not identifying with people who look different from you is one of the oldest tribal signifiers of the human race, and has been around for far longer than modern concepts of nationality.American cultural identity is very strongly ethno-regional, but that's not how most of the world works. I'm not saying Japan isn't xenophobic, as the way foreigners are treated attests, but you can't take the specifically American interpretation of the term 'ethnicity' and apply it other cultures.[/QUOTE] Right but the idea was to rhetorically create a distinction between race and ethnicity. I'm very well-aware of the fact that American cultural identity and how its experienced differs from Japanese ideas, but the point I was trying to make clear is that this woman is not of American ethnicity. The fact that because of how she looks she's not "fully" Japanese is pretty much the debate topic here, but even though you can say she's not "fully" ethnically Japanese (which you wouldn't be the only one to do so), she is still to an extent ethnically Japanese and not really anything else -- America doesn't consider her an American for the reason you specified. Terminology being Western-centric isn't something we can really get beyond.

[QUOTE=thisispain;47883465]Race is a social construct because race was invented before we understood the origin of humans completely. It has no bearing on scientific knowledge today, which is why no-one outside of some fringe scientists takes it seriously as a concept. Europeans can't donate bone marrow to most "Sub-Saharan African people" that's true, but neither can they donate bone marrow to most Europeans as well, and finding a match for someone who is not European is even harder because of how divergent the genetic information is. If that's a rationale for the existence of race, it's a poor one; in fact it's more proof that race is outdated in our current understanding of genetics as there seems to be little similar genetic information holding together the "black race". I think we need to let the old idea of race die already so we can move on from old deprecated science. Haplogroups and phylogenetics are far more useful when it comes to tracing the movement of genetic drift and understanding how human populations developed, but of course it's not useful for political purposes because it puts a big giant hole in everyone's perception of who belongs where and who doesn't.[/QUOTE] You're on the right track, but you're still letting your dogma influence your "conclusion" If you're actually concerned about the truth, you will have to let go of your politically-correct bias and look at the science. [video=youtube;ZrKrGkgeww4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKrGkgeww4[/video] [video=youtube;teyvcs2S4mI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teyvcs2S4mI[/video] [video=youtube;vVmj8dDx9yY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVmj8dDx9yY[/video]

[QUOTE=thisispain;47883855]Right but the idea was to rhetorically create a distinction between race and ethnicity. [/QUOTE] Right, but my point is that although that is a reasonable distinction in Western and especially American society, in many cultures, including Japanese, that distinction does not exist. Race and national origin are an integral part of ethnicity in many cultures, and in those cultures a mixed-heritage person is not part of the ethnic group. The Japanese ethnic group is defined in part by Japanese racial heritage, not merely living in Japan as Americans might assume based on their concept of ethnicity, and so from the Japanese perspective she is not Japanese. What I'm saying is that it's not implicitly racist or xenophobic to say she's not ethnically Japanese, because that assessment is based on a view of ethnicity that is pretty common outside the Anglosphere. What's racist and xenophobic is using that ethnic identification to treat someone like a second-class citizen, and that's really the core issue here. I think it's an important distinction.

As a hafu myself I feel like a perma-foreigner. Japanese in Europe and European in Japan. But never experienced any strong xenophobia really.

Isn't Japan like.. woefully xenophobic? Most asian countries are from what I've heard.

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;47882636]You geniuses on SH love to spout about how 'incredibly xenophobic' Japan is without ever having lived there or even stepped foot in Narita. Some older Japanese folk might be more xenophobic but you'll be hard pressed to find rampant xenophobia within the younger folk, it's not 1942 anymore. Most Japanese people can give a shit less what country you're from.[/QUOTE] Westerners just make a ton of assumptions about japan from the internet (It's a technological wonderland where everybody loves anime and hates white people!). When in reality, it's as if a European saw a video featuring the KKK, and became too scared to go here because they think it's everywhere. Though, the government there could have some better policies, it doesn't mean the majority of people are going to bully people racially.

[QUOTE=ZakkShock;47884074]Isn't Japan like.. woefully xenophobic? Most asian countries are from what I've heard.[/QUOTE] it's like in most countries; the older generation is generally more conservative and reserved so nooo not really, don't expect a massive demonstration telling you to "go home white pig" the moment you step outside an airport there

fug shes hot

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;47882636]You geniuses on SH love to spout about how 'incredibly xenophobic' Japan is without ever having lived there or even stepped foot in Narita. Some older Japanese folk might be more xenophobic but you'll be hard pressed to find rampant xenophobia within the younger folk, it's not 1942 anymore. Most Japanese people can give a shit less what country you're from.[/QUOTE] It wouldn't so much be a thing that gets shoved in your face as something that gets said in an argument. "You're so stupid, you fucking [i]hafu[/i]." Most people wouldn't say it or intend it that way on an everyday basis. But it's interesting because Japanese people have such a liking for foreign-born folk, but not those who are stuck halfway between "pure Japanese" and "pure foreigner".

[QUOTE=VietnameseCat;47882482]Well she's not really Japanese.[/QUOTE] Alright. Let me explain everything wrong with that. Being born in a country makes you from that country, so if your born in Australia your Australian regardless of your blood however your bloodline would still say that your linage is from this country and that your first generation, second.. etc.

She can't be Japanese. [img]http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/83352000/jpg/_83352832_026590676-1.jpg[/img] Look she's using a fork.

[QUOTE=Passing;47884558]Being born in a country makes you from that country, so if your born in Australia your Australian regardless of your blood however your bloodline would still say that your linage is from this country and that your first generation, second.. etc.[/QUOTE] Again, that makes perfect sense if your country is predominantly immigrants, as in Australia, the US, and most of the rest of the English-speaking diaspora, where your culture defines ethnicity by shared experience and history rather than lineage. But don't assume that that's how most of the world thinks, because it's not. The Japanese define their ethnicity very narrowly owing to a long history of cultural isolation. Being considered Japanese by Japanese has a much more stringent set of requirements than being considered American by Americans. It's a different culture.

[QUOTE=thisispain;47883855]Right but the idea was to rhetorically create a distinction between race and ethnicity. I'm very well-aware of the fact that American cultural identity and how its experienced differs from Japanese ideas, but the point I was trying to make clear is that this woman is not of American ethnicity. The fact that because of how she looks she's not "fully" Japanese is pretty much the debate topic here, but even though you can say she's not "fully" ethnically Japanese (which you wouldn't be the only one to do so), she is still to an extent ethnically Japanese and not really anything else -- America doesn't consider her an American for the reason you specified. Terminology being Western-centric isn't something we can really get beyond.[/QUOTE] I don't know if I'm reading you wrong but America did consider her American at one point, she just chose to stick with her Japanese citizenship and drop the American one.

[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;47884361]fug shes hot[/QUOTE] expected this to come from seano12 honestly, I'm a bit disappointed he hasn't showed up in this thread yet

She looks pretty Japanese to me.

The lineage argument seems silly when it comes to saying whos Japanese or not. I mean as long as you live in Japan, that's already a very strong argument for being Japanese. I consider the Koreans in Japan to be Japanese citizens for instance, along with the winner of this beauty contest.

Being Japanese has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, it's a nationality. You can be of African descent, retain all the cultural heritage of your ancestors, not assimilate any element of french culture, and still have french citizenship.

[QUOTE=_Axel;47886329]You can be of African descent, retain all the cultural heritage of your ancestors, not assimilate any element of french culture, and still have french citizenship.[/QUOTE] And yet nobody would consider you ethnically or culturally French, you'd really only be French in the legal sense. I imagine there'd be a lot of people who would question your identity as French, and if you were selected as representative of France I imagine there'd be some outcry. Nationality is not what's in question when we're talking about cultural and social identity, and this is fundamentally about race/ethnicity in that historical lineage is an important part of tribal identity.

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;47881821]it's bad in a society that doesn't see half-japanese people as "real" japanese people[/QUOTE] Well then who would even want to be japanese? I'd rather be human.

[QUOTE=FFStudios;47884435]It wouldn't so much be a thing that gets shoved in your face as something that gets said in an argument. "You're so stupid, you fucking [i]hafu[/i]." Most people wouldn't say it or intend it that way on an everyday basis. But it's interesting because Japanese people have such a liking for foreign-born folk, but not those who are stuck halfway between "pure Japanese" and "pure foreigner".[/QUOTE] what

Snip I read that out of context.

[QUOTE=ZestyLemons;47881717]I don't really understand the bad thing about being half Japanese. Could you explain?[/QUOTE] Think half jewish. Usually works for NAers as an analogy.

[QUOTE=FFStudios;47884435]It wouldn't so much be a thing that gets shoved in your face as something that gets said in an argument. "You're so stupid, you fucking [i]hafu[/i]." Most people wouldn't say it or intend it that way on an everyday basis. But it's interesting because Japanese people have such a liking for foreign-born folk, but not those who are stuck halfway between "pure Japanese" and "pure foreigner".[/QUOTE] This is based on what experience?