'Japanese only' -- except for the players and coach

[wagyl]

This is a surprisingly decisive response. After many years here I would have expected some kind of fudge, or at least some kind of kick into the long grass via an interminable review.

The Olympics are coming in six short years. People be watching.

A seven or eight year interminable review is perfectly possible. Problem solvedpostponed

[kurogane]

As welcome as it is, I can't help feeling that it was because it was at a football game. If it had been Sumo, then I doubt if there would even have been an interminable review. A simple fudge and statements like "It is natural for Japanese to feel ..." would have more than sufficed.

I think you're wrong. I get your point, and if I might (yes, again), in our long and fruitful not to mention fun history, I have always found you delightfully classless (in the good sense), and thoroughly decent. People like you make me proud to have toughed out all those Scottish winters. It wasn't as easy as it might sound, though I did apprecioate the scholarship.

Sumo doesn't attract the sewer dwellers. Footy does. It has the tradition, the culture, and the permissive indulgence. I still play 3 times a week. Many, many strange and often indecipherable peoples are drawn to the crowd. It's anonymous, it's compelling, and it allows those who have no self to transcend it anyway. Watch some Refenstahl. It'll all come back to ya.

They're fascists. They didn't go away just because he shot himself and his dog.

BTW, scored an absolute magical Maradonna level beauty tonight. 3 wrong bounces they couldn't get, and I just ran right through and potted it. Seriously fun stuff.

I am calling for a tidal change. The Olympics don't not count, though. That was a nice point, Mikey. Face is what it is about. They live and die on Face.

Seriously, though. It was an epic strike. Roofed it so hard Gordon Banks would've blinked. And trivia buffs know what happens when that happens. If you kick it so hard it bends shape, it sometimes goes in.

I'm calling this new development a goal.

Yea!!!!!!!!! Our team scored for the win.



Peeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Yokohammer]

More fallout. This issue has really generated some ripples. Very interesting.

Olympic credibility under threat in wake of soccer fans’ xenophobic banner

The recent controversy over the “Japanese only” banner put up by Urawa Reds soccer fans is yet further testimony to the nation’s entrenched insensitivity to racism and threatens Tokyo’s credibility as host of the 2020 Olympics, experts said Friday.

...

Fans who put up the banner told the team they considered the place where they placed it — a spectators’ stand just behind one of the goals — as “sacred territory” where they “didn’t want foreign tourists to come in,” Urawa Reds President Keizo Fuchita told a news conference Thursday.

...

With Tokyo slated to host the 2020 Olympics, it is time Japan “parted ways with such attitudes” and “lived up to its repeated emphasis on the value of globalization,” Yasuda said, adding that measures being taken to welcome foreign visitors, including putting up more English-language traffic signs, are far from sufficient.

Hiroshi Tanaka, a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and a vocal advocate of the rights of foreign residents in Japan, said that the excuse given by the fans who raised the banner seems to imply that they feel foreign fans are by definition “uncontrollable.”

“So is every single Japanese, as they seem to claim, controllable? Certainly not. It’s such (unfounded) categorization that is at the center of the problem of racism,” Tanaka said.

[kurogane]

The recent controversy over the “Japanese only” banner put up by Urawa Reds soccer fans is yet further testimony to the nation’s entrenched insensitivity to racism and threatens Tokyo’s credibility as host of the 2020 Olympics, experts said Friday.

Typical Sycophantic Culture Broker hyperbole, given the triviality of most Entrenched Insensitivity and Racism in Japan unless you are Zainichi (see anything by Debito for examples of Fat White Hysteria), not to mention that 2020 is 6 years away, but it certainly gets my vote for the ripples and the interestingessness, and the Kokoro Nuku Nuku of the popular response. Goodness and decency potted a late winner here!!!!!!

I wonder if the chosen blow boys in that article are so strident and vociferous in Japanese statements. If it's the same Professor Tanaka, he's more of a toady nabob than an expert.

[Yokohammer]

Debito jumped the gun on this one and made a bit of an ass of himself.

[kurogane]

I missed his latest tantrum, and I don't even follow him anymore (if I ever did), but good to hear he's still the same asshole and on a pedantic note your use of the past tense there suggests it's a rare event. I would respectfully suggest the resigned eternal progressive tense

[sublight]

J-League Shames Team for Racist Banner in Most Badass Way Possible

http://tokyodesu.com/2014/03/15/j-leagu ... -possible/

"That all changed when the J-League unleashed an incredible Zinedine Zedane headbutt-level can of whoopass on all involved in the incident, banning the fans who posted the sign for life, forcing the Reds to play their next game in an empty stadium, and banning Reds team supporters from displaying banners of any kind for the foreseeable future. "

[sublight]

The recent controversy... is yet further testimony to the nation’s entrenched insensitivity to racism and threatens Tokyo’s credibility as host of the 2020 Olympics, experts said Friday.

...

"It’s such (unfounded) categorization that is at the center of the problem of racism,” Tanaka said.

Somehow, I doubt the 'experts' will recognize the irony.

[kurogane]

Somehow, I doubt the 'experts' will recognize the irony.

It took me 3 reads to get it!!!!!!

Very clever. Very, very clever.

BTW, that article you linked showed a similar sort of sin: that suggestion at the end that the coach be forced to wear a chicken suit to atone for the sins of people he doesn't even know, and probably wouldn't like if he did. Isn't he an FG too?

Also, the ban was Indefinite, not for life if I read it right (I'll go look). I thought that a touch weak, actually. That leaves it open to management's discretion after this all dies down; giving them a year or three would've been stronger in some ways, in MYHOMO.

EDIT: found it.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/soccer/news/20140313-OYT1T00647.htm

「浦和は、垂れ幕を作成した３人が所属する応援グループの約２０人を、浦和の全試合で無期限の入場禁止処分とした．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．」

So, Indefinite, or Unlimited. I suppose that could be translated as Life.

[sublight]

I don't think the coach did anything wrong, so no, I don't agree with that last bit. The 'fans' that put the sign up and the management that allowed to stay ought to bear the brunt of it.

As the for the 'expert' commentary, it just never fails that the same people who rant and rage at Japanese stereotyping of foreigners will, in their very next breath, make a sweeping generalization about 'the Japanese' without ever noticing that they're doing it. Hell, I've probably done it myself.

[wagyl]

Question: is it a sweeping generalisation to say that the Japanese stereotype foreigners? I am tempted to start a poll.

[matsuki]

Question: is it a sweeping generalisation to say that the Japanese stereotype foreigners? I am tempted to start a poll.

I'm just happy when they use [cuntry]-jin instead of gaijin...

[sublight]

Question: is it a sweeping generalisation to say that the Japanese stereotype foreigners? I am tempted to start a poll.

My answer would be "no, but so does everyone else."

[IparryU]

Question: is it a sweeping generalisation to say that the Japanese stereotype foreigners? I am tempted to start a poll.

I'm just happy when they use [cuntry]-jin instead of gaijin...

not in the near future, but yea, i would be happy if that came close to happening.

Sent from my SC-03E using Tapatalk

[matsuki]

I'm telling you...they say "Obei" you say "Chipan." They say "Ohashi jozu desune!" you say "Fooku to naifu umai desune!!"

[kurogane]

I'm telling you...they say "Obei" you say "Chipan." They say "Ohashi jozu desune!" you say "Fooku to naifu umai desune!!"

Hee Hee. Took me three readings to get that "Chaipan". That asymmetrical unit of comparison thing bugs me too. I find that if one is trying to tease that ilk you and I like to tease, Higashi-Azia or Higashi Ashuu works quite nicely. And the ones that get it and don't mind often turn out to be good ones.

Shouldn't it be Chikopan? Sounds like a Pika-choo character, or a Nagoya area pastry.

[matsuki]

the ones that get it and don't mind often turn out to be good ones.

Exactly...most of them get that "a-ha" moment when they realize what they're actually saying.

Shouldn't it be Chikopan? Sounds like a Pika-choo character, or a Nagoya area pastry.

I figured the whole "obei" thing should be flipped and used the English words for both countries.

[kurogane]

I was politely including the Third East Asian country for which Coligny has so many colourful nicknames.

Plus, it makes it sound Kawaii..................like Jappu.

Chikopan de ha gohan ga shushoku desu.................................nado nado

[wangta]

What ignorant fuckity fucks. It's not even like soccer is a Japanese game. These little racist clowns are pretending to own a sport that is light years away from their own big fat sumo wrestlefests of less than 1 minute a pop.

I'm not optimistic about Japan's future as shown by these kind of antics. If the banner had been pulled down straight away that would be different.

And to think that our missing friend Debbito called for more gaijin refugees, etc and 10 million or so skilled migrants to live in Japan....

Quite apart from the fact they would take job opportunities from the younger J generations who need them, if the Japanese cannot handle token gaijin working and paying tax, the society overall would turn ugly if you had what we have in our countries. People coming in big numbers every year who are recipients of the system, and sometimes contributors only after a long time.

If the Japanese cannot handle gaijin at games that gaijin invented, and cannot handle the minority of gaijin who live here, just imagine what they would be like with even a fairly token immigration program including allowing people with no employment lined up to come here as happens in western countries. I think a lot of gaijin are in denial about the Japanese potential for violence against gaijin and growing discrimination. It's only the small numbers that are keeping it in check.

[kurogane]

You've completely missed the point again.

Time to let Korea go son. You're in the First World now. Assuming you're not Canadian but are a native English speaker, it could well be your first time, so we'll wait.

[Coligny]

You've completely missed the point again.

HEY, THAT'S MAH JOB HERE !!!

[Mike Oxlong]

Dr. Debito in da hizzy!

Debito Arudou, who has just received his Ph.D. in International Studies, is editing his dissertation on racial discrimination in Japan into a book.

Issues| JUST BE CAUSE
Tackling the ‘empathy deficit’ toward non-Japanese
by Debito Arudou

Special To The Japan Times