"The Count" <vlad@impaler.com> wrote in message
news:20030612124619954-0500@news.chi.sbcglobal.net...
>
> > Perhaps that's true, but what YOU know nothing about is the difference
> > in racist attitude in Japan between the older and younger generatuons.
> > I have lived there. Have you?
> > I have Japanese friends, do you?
> > What do YOU know?
> > Frankly I think the young Japanese are far less prone to racism
> > towards anyone, korean or otherwise, than their older generations.
>
> No I haven't lived in japan, but I have experienced what you are talking
> about here in America.  I have a japanese friend who has a grandfather
> who is a surviving kamikaze pilot from WWII - a total hate monger who is
> still pro-emperor.  She is actually studying Korean language and culture
> and totally understands how her Korean firends have a deep resentment
> towards japanese.
>
> People become bigots (not racists in this case, since japanese are not a
> "race") because they experienced something negative from the group that
> they are discriminating against.  I agree that all bigotry is bad - but
> look how this came to be.  If someone did something truly wrong to your
> family and never apologized for it and in fact just plainly denied doing
> it, wouldn't you be resentful?

Firstly, I think we should consider Japanese as a race just as much as
Koreans are a race.
Maybe they are not different "races" in the western textbook definition, but
even Europeans
consider themselves "races". But anyway that up to individual interpreation,
but when I use
the word "race" or "racism" I mean it in this sense. Not the Caucasoid,
Mongolid, Negroid type
of classification.

I am in absolute agreement with you that bigotry/racism is bad. And I am in
agreement with you that
many people, not just Koreans, have historical grounds as to how it came to
be.

But lets be honest, a previous generation had good grounds to hate another
group.
Does this automatically justify the following generation or even one after
it to "hate" and display
"bigotry" towards the decendants of those who caused the hate in the first
place?
Isn't this the way hate and bigotry self perpetuates itself?

I personally find this Korean bigotry towards Japanese intersting in another
sense. Maybe in Korea or Japan
that would be fine. But here in the United States you are all "asians". Most
Americans think Japan and Korea
are parts of China.So what I am saying is that, for young Korean-Americans
to "hate" young Japanese-Americans is utterly
absurd and works against all asians in this country.
I believe that first and foremost all Asian-Americans must be Americans
first. If the young Japanese-Americans
were able to fight for their country the United States during WWII in direct
conflict with the beliefs of their
first generation Japanese immigrant parents, then surely Korean-Americans
can set aside the hate from the old
country and be Americans first.
The question I really have in mind is, IF hostilities break out between the
US and North Korea, what are all
these Korean-American North Korea apologists in this NG going to do?