CL wrote:

 > On my planet, in 23 years of residence, I have never been denied
> access to an onsen.  

Well, but he has. And he sued and won:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onsen#Recent_controversy

Even if he went there knowing its reputation and looking for a
confrontation (and I don't know if it was like that, but it seems not
unlikely), hasn't he done a service to us all by highlighting the issue,
winning the case and forcing others to think twice before discriminating
in the same way?

I'm just asking here; if there's a valid reason why it isn't all as it
appears I'm perfectly open to it.


> I've never been stopped by the police in an airport for an ID check.

Neither have I, but I am a white academic. OK, so is he, but that's not
my point here. My point is that the axe he's grinding applies much more
forcefully to other, non-white, minorities. I wonder what sort of
feelings people from Korean, Chinese, Brazilian or other backgrounds
have about him?

> I've never been stopped when on my bicycle for an ownership check

That happened to me. I waved my gaikokujin touroku shoumeisho in his
face, then took out my university ID, saying, "Well? Do you think I
steal bicycles in-between lectures?" and he left me alone.

> Of course, like any large system, Japan has its share of assholes
> who want to protect their little sinecure.  In such cases it is
> best to remember the Japanese proverb that there are ten thousand
> roads that lead to the Buddha.  No need to keep running head
> first into the same closed door.

I'm pragmatic, too, in the face of bureaucratic intransigence (which may
or may not be racially motivated). I'm not on any particular crusade to
challenge the system, but I'll stick an oar in when the opportunity
arises and if someone else is making a full-time job of it my first
reaction is, "More strength to your elbow".

> I've come to believe that some people go through life leading with
> their chin [snip]  Debit has always seemed like someone who
> refuses to let civility and common sense get in the way of a good
> political cause.  He also seems to have things happen to him that
> I haven't seen happen to anyone else who wasn't responding to being
> in a hole by digging it deeper.

If you mean you think he goes out of his way to sniff out racism I'd
say, yes, some of the time he obviously does, although some of the
scenarios he describes he didn't apparently go in search of. And of
course if a racial issue comes up he'll be in there. It may not be your
way of doing things, or mine, but isn't it a good thing that there are
people out there who are saying, "Look, this is discriminatory, it needs
to be dealt with", rather than just skirted round and avoided?

> The way he goes about things and the constant "shooting off" does
> more to engender hard feelings where none need to exist 

Wouldn't another way of putting that be to say he forces people to do a
bit of soul-searching where otherwise they might just blandly carry on
with their discriminatory attitudes? Again, I'm just asking; I'm not
grinding his axe for him.

> -- or to cause serious issues to be dismissed simply because he's
> the one bringing them up 

Is that what's happening? Going back to the onsen issue, I would have
thought his action in suing probably did more to raise Japanese people's
consciousness about the issue than anything else ever has.

> As far as Japanese racism ... what's the problem with simply
> acknowledging the fact and getting on with things?  

No problem. But does that mean other approaches are invalid?

John