Japan’s Whiteness Problem, Part 2: The Propaganda Machine

Japan’s Whiteness Problem, Part 2: The Propaganda Machine

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How Japan went from a paternalistic relationship with the US after WWII to a co-dependent one that reified whiteness.

In Part 1 of the “Japan’s Whiteness Problem” series, I discussed Japan’s history of practicing colorism. Contrary to popular belief, Japan favors Whiteness within its own society as a whole, let alone among the foreign community.

While most readers were receptive to my analysis, there were the expected deflections.

It’s like clockwork at this point. Some people yearn to absolve Japanese society of any wrongdoing – sometimes while also defending their own right to discriminate. These people always deploy this line of attack whenever someone attempts a historical analysis.

I and many others found Japan via anime and other pieces of modern pop culture. But I’ve always had a hard time believing these attitudes started with the advent of Cool Japan. According to my research, the infantilization narrative seems to go back decades earlier.

In “Part 2: The Propaganda Machine”, I’ll look at how post-WWII US society forged an allyship with a defeated Japan. I’ll examine how both countries place reciprocal blame when it comes to discrimination, rarely coming to a solution.

A Paternalistic Relationship

The United States developed a paternal relationship with Japan after WWII that put the American public at ease.

Following the end of World War II, the United States found itself in a political dilemma.  Though they had defeated Japan, a new threat loomed: Communism.

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As explained in the 2006 book, America’s Geisha Ally by historian Naoko Shibusawa (affiliate link), Communist ideology has taken root in Asia, especially in the newly formed Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.  To ensure capitalism reigned supreme, General Douglas MacArthur led the US Occupation of Japan in 1945:

“…They focused on their former enemy’s economic revitalization in an attempt to make Japan a model of capitalism in Asia….Intent on strengthening the Japanese economy, the United States also stopped Japan’s reparations to its Asian victims, and coerced Asian nations to serve once again as Japan’s quasi colonial source of raw materials.

Adding insult to injury, the United States refused to have [Emperor] Hirohito tried as a war criminal, thereby protecting the man in whose name Japan had waged a horribly destructive war that brought death and misery to millions of Asians.”

-Naoko Shibusawa, “America’s Geisha Ally”

For the American public to swallow the idea of a US-Japan allyship, the US had to soften Japan’s image.  Government propagandists shifted their focus towards the “passive” women and “innocent” children of Japan. This shifted attention away from the male soldiers who were the main targets of nationalistic vitriol. From this viewpoint, the United States developed a paternal relationship with Japan that put the American public at ease.

“Toylike” Japan

The diminutive gaze did not stop there.  Occupation-era media both implicitly and explicitly minimized Japan’s infrastructure. One September 1945 Newsweek article said that everything in Japan, including the “broken and blasted cities and factories,” had a miniature, “toylike appearance”. Casual travelers had a romanticized impression of Japan as well:

“Travelogues, tales by missionaries, and the accounts of wealthy European and American travelers depicted Japan as small, childlike, and feminized–a dainty place of apple-cheeked children, kimonoed women in jinrinkisha [pulled rickshaw], and peasants in straw hats working in rice paddies.”

-Naoko Shibusawa, “America’s Geisha Ally”

In my opinion, the Occupation-era media portrayal of Japan is an eerie precursor to how we speak about Japan now.  According to popular Western opinion, Japan is a picturesque land of pagodas, cherry blossoms, soft-spoken women, and adorable children. It’s definitely not a place, the consensus maintains, for unsavory discussions about colorism, whitewashing, or other “identity politics”.

This rhetoric is pervasive and feeds into Japan’s self-image. It slows the potential for empathy and understanding down to a crawl. Today, the finger-pointing between the US and Japan about which country is more racist only makes this discussion harder.

The Blame Game

Former Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro. (Picture: Wikipedia)

During Japan’s economic miracle in the 1980s, the country was a juggernaut. It ruled the roost in consumer electronics[1] and car manufacturing. This added to Japan’s collective confidence in its seemingly homogeneous society, especially in opposition to the United States’ multicultural society.

The aforementioned hubris culminated in a controversial quote from September 22, 1986, from then-Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro[2]:

In a highly developed information society and a highly educated society such as Japan, the people require politics that bravely faces problems. In the United States, because there are a considerable number of blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, the (intellectual) level is lower.

When asked to clarify his statements two days later, Nakasone inadvertently reinforced what he said:

What I was saying there was that the United States made great achievements in the Apollo program and in S.D.I., but there are things Americans have not been able to reach because of multiple nationalities. On the contrary, things are easier in Japan because we are a homogeneous society.

As you can imagine, these statements incensed some Americans. It didn’t help that blackface and Sambo dolls were also popular in Japan around that time as well. When coupled with the general dismay surrounding Japan’s economic miracle, it gave Americans the ammunition to accuse Japan of being a racist country.

“An American Illness”

This back-and-forth is further elaborated in a 2015 paper called “The Other As Racist: Contrasted Mythologies of Self and the Other in the Discourse of Racism in the United States and Japan” by anthropologist John G. Russell[3].

Russell argues that the US used inflammatory statements, blackface, and Sambo dolls as examples of Japan’s virulent racism. In turn, Japan argued that racism was purely an “American sickness”. It didn’t exist at all in Japan, its politicians and pundits maintained, because everyone is the “same”.

According to popular Western opinion, Japan is a picturesque land of pagodas, cherry blossoms, soft-spoken women, and adorable children.

Yomiuri Shinbun’s particular response, an editorial titled, “Japanese Are Not Racists”, attempted to reinforce that sentiment. Unfortunately, they refused to focus on Black American and Latinx reactions to Nakasone’s quote. Instead, they zeroed in on America’s racial issues and popular discourse surrounding political correctness and affirmative action. To them, racism was specifically an “Amerika-byo“, or American illness.

Which begs the question. If racism is purely an “American illness”, then why would Nakasone et. al. echo the talking points of white nationalists? Remember, he did not say Americans, in general, were lacking. He said the United States was lacking, and then specifically blamed Black and Brown people as the cause.

This is just one of many examples. As a result, although US-Japan racial dynamics–and therefore discussions surrounding race–have expanded greatly, very little progress has been made. The post-WWII US-Japan relationship started as a paternalistic one. Since then, the two country’s racial dynamic has become co-dependent, with each using the other to deflect racial issues.

Next In This Series

Japan’s Whiteness Problem, Part 3: The Diaspora and Whiteness

Previously In This Series

Japan’s Whiteness Problem, Part 1: Colorism

Sources

[1] How Japan Lost Its Electronics Crown. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444840104577551972061864692

[2] 2 PAPERS QUOTE JAPANESE LEADER ON ABILITIES OF MINORITIES IN U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/24/world/2-papers-quote-japanese-leader-on-abilities-of-minorities-in-us.html

[3] The Other As Racist: Contrasted Mythologies of Self and the Other in the Discourse of Racism in the United States and Japan. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uHLNXvKgxZa_R8NjyVVv-LnZmrWQTPux/view?usp=sharing

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Thalia Harris

Thalia-Marie Harris is a North Jersey/New York native, currently residing in Tokyo, where she works as an ESL teacher and freelance writer. Her previous pieces have appeared in Metropolis Tokyo and pacificREVIEW.

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