Hector Martin

I see a lot of “I’m white + face racism in Japan!” tweets + I understand what they’re trying to say but that’s not it. Housing discrimination is real + terrible but if you get denied an apartment it’s because you’re foreign not because you’re white specifically. That’s Xenophobia

You're right, though it's also worth keeping in mind that people in Japan use race as a proxy for nationality. So you're foreign by default because you're white. Just ask the few white naturalized Japanese citizens whether they get treated as such!

Hmmmmmm i think it’s still a gaijin thing rather than a race thing. You’ll hear “外人がー“ but not often a white person specific “白人がー”

Oh sure, it's a gaijin thing, but gaijin is largely equal to "not of the Japanese race" in practice, and that's the presumed first approximation. So the underlying division may be xenophobic, but race is how it is determined on first impression. So it's kind of both.

My point is that white people dont get discriminated against for being white specifically - just for not being Japanese. whereas black/Arab/Indian gaijin have specific prejudices tied to them being black/Arab/Indian so while I do get what you’re saying that’s not it

But that's like saying "black people don't get discriminated against for their race, just for <stat correlated with race>" when they are racially profiled. My point is it's still a kind of racism when race is what you're using to profile people, even if not the ultimate factor.

Nope, not the same. I've been straight up told by MANY Japanese people that I'm "a good foreigner" because I'm WHITE, THIN, PRETTY & POLITE. I'm pretty sure polite gets thrown in because they perceive me doing something differently than they would if I were Black, or Chinese, etc