[GoNative]

I think I have mentioned before that I believe most of the racism here in Japan is purely out of ignorance rather than malice for any particular race of people (except maybe Chinese and Koreans). Most Japanese people have very little interaction with foreigners and many old prejudices and propaganda that dominated the pre-war education system do persist to this day.

A recent example of the sort of ignorance I'm referring to was about a week ago I was out with a group of friends and the issue of foreigners was being discussed. A Japanese girl asked in all honesty if we knew what colour blood black people have. Such ignorance is almost unfathomable to those of us who have grown up in more multicultural societies.

In regards to the Otaru onsens it was mainly Russian sailors that had caused the issues which resulted in all foreigners in being banned. I think in some weird way the onsen owners thought it would be racist to ban just Russians so banning all foreigners was a less discriminatory way to deal with the problem. I'm sure they probably didn't think their policy was racist at all. Because discriminating against non Japanese is not really unusual or unacceptable here.

People like Debito exist here because discrimination against non Japanese residents and citizens occurs reasonably frequently. Whether or not you agree with his rather in your face methods, like Ronin, I too have never really found any of the issues he champions to be totally without merit.