Secret Files of foreigners' crimes

[craftsman]

'Secret Files of foreigners' crimes' is a new publication in bookshops and convenience stores in Japan and causing a bit of a stir.

As you can see from the front cover there are lots of nasty foreigners with red, evil looking eyes.



Inside it has some impecably researched articles like:

不良外人暴力都市！！
City of Violent Degenerate Foreigners!!

イラン人を捕まえ！！
Catch the Iranian!!

And a whole feature of the crime of foreign men picking up Japanese women with pictures like this:



'Oi Nigger!! Get your ****** hands off that Japanese lady’s ***!!'

Apparently you can find it on the limited shelf space of Family Mart and other convenience stores but also in amazon, kinokuniya, Rakuten and other big book shops.

There is more info at debito, a newspaper article Magazine plays to Japanese xenophobia, and a campaign to boycott Family Mart (uh?) here


So - should such a magazine be published? And if so, should it be so freely available in convenience stores?

[hideway]

It would be funny if is wasn't serious.
Hate speach shouldn't be allowed anywhere.

[doinkies]

It looks like some sort of doinky tabloid...

[Mike Cash]

Not the first time Family Mart has come to attention for something like this:

http://tinyurl.com/yoe234

I clicked on the boycott link.

Interestingly, while everyone is up in arms over the book (and very likely rightly so), I can find no indication that anyone has actually read the thing.

[craftsman]

Originally Posted by Mike Cash

Not the first time Family Mart has come to attention for something like this:

http://tinyurl.com/yoe234

I clicked on the boycott link.

Interestingly, while everyone is up in arms over the book (and very likely rightly so), I can find no indication that anyone has actually read the thing.

I see from your link that you and Family Mart have a history.

In this case, it appears they have agreed to remove the magazine from their shelves over the next seven days - which is actually no different from what they would do anyway with any magazine publications.

I was also wondering just how many people have actually bought it and read it.

[nurizeko]

Interestingly, while everyone is up in arms over the book (and very likely rightly so), I can find no indication that anyone has actually read the thing.

Doesnt stop Black Americans protesting when some white supremacist politician calls for all Black Americans to be enslaved again.

[Mike Cash]

Originally Posted by nurizeko

Doesnt stop Black Americans protesting when some white supremacist politician calls for all Black Americans to be enslaved again.

Who did that? And when?

[nice gaijin]

Quite disturbing behavior, both the treatment described by Mike and the selling of such a clearly hate-filled magazine in a "Family" Mart. Am I to understand that this "magazine" will continue to be published and sold at the convenience store?

Also, does Japanese law cover the freedom of speech and of the press in the same manner as the American constitution? If so, there's no argument for denying even such trash from being produced, but I am disturbed that there seems to be little public outcry outside of the foreign community in Japan.

[UFSI]

the trashy tabloids you see in American supermarkets. Seems hard to believe any crime committed by a foreigner in Japan would be able to be a secret?

[yukio_michael]

Originally Posted by nice gaijin

Also, does Japanese law cover the freedom of speech and of the press in the same manner as the American constitution? If so, there's no argument for denying even such trash from being produced, but I am disturbed that there seems to be little public outcry outside of the foreign community in Japan.

I think it's different in that Japan doesn't recognize anything specifically as "hate speech", whereas in the United States, though still protected by the First Amendment, speech used to incite violence against a particular group or minority is taken much more seriously.

This sort of text is considerably more dangerous in Japan, where there are fewer if any, minorities-rights groups who might speak out against it.

Dis-information like this is dangeous because not only does it distribute a cheap, consumable defamation of foreigners, it also creates fear, distorts reality, and may result in voilence against foreigners.

A good example of speech like this is Shintaro Ishihara's remarks that illegal imigrants might riot if there were another major Earthquake. The speech not only plants the fear of such an occurance, in a way it incites a pretence for violence against such individuals, regardless of any truth of the actual comment.

Edit: I'd like to add also, that another big difference here is that racist-literature typically isn't available in the United States (or anywhere else for that matter) at your local neighborhood convenient store for anyone of any age to buy... It's amazingly irresponsible of Fami-Mart, who now has stores in the United States, to allow this type of literature to be available.

There are 250 fami-mart planned for the United States by 2009, so it's not outside of the bounds for people in the United States to protest against fami-mart for being so irresponsible.

Originally Posted by UFSI

the trashy tabloids you see in American supermarkets. Seems hard to believe any crime committed by a foreigner in Japan would be able to be a secret?

"Batboy", and talking about Tom Cruise's baby and the like are little bit different than a publication exclaiming "Hey Nigger!"... indeed.

[craftsman]

Here's some great pics from the magazine:




It shows a poorly-paid member of the American military robbing a Japanese man. The American says “GIVE ME MONEY!”





A Chinese man picking the lock of someone’s house, while a shocked Japanese woman looks on.

Family Mart have given this reply:

件名　○○様へのお詫び
２００７年２月５日
○○○○様 拝復　平素は格別のお引き立てを賜り、また、この度は 弊社のホーム
ページをご利用頂き、誠にありがとうございました。
さて、この度は外人犯罪裏ファイルに関するご意見を頂 戴致しました。
出版社からは仮タイトルのみの提案で、具体的な内容が 確認できない
状況下で発売してしまった経緯がございますが、１月３ １日（水）に販売
を開始し、その後、確認致しましたところ、当該雑誌に は一部不適切な
表現や内容が含まれていたことが判明したため、２月５ 日（月）、全店舗
に対し、速やかに撤去するよう通達させて頂きました。 この度は貴重なご
意見を頂きましたが、今後も様々なご意見に耳を傾けて まいります。
　最後に、今後とも相変わりませぬご愛顧をお願い申し あげお客様の益々
のご健勝をお祈りし、まずは書中にてご挨拶させて頂き ます。
敬　具

And this is it in English:

Holy ****. Please don't stop buying our stuff. We're so sorry. Pretty please with sugar on top. It won't happen again. Well it might. But keep shopping anyway.

Well...not quite but it does mention that they didn't confirm the contents before displaying, that there were inappropriate expressions and that the magazine was removed. Oh and in future they are going to pay more attention to their customers.

[Mike Cash]

Give them a little more credit than you do with that bogus translation. They stood up and did the right thing. It isn't as though any tiny boycott a thin sliver of the gaijin population could muster against them would hurt their sales in any noticeable way.

[nurizeko]

Originally Posted by Mike Cash

Who did that? And when?

I dont know, but the point is black people who havnt told to their face that they deserve to be enslaved can still find such sentiments offensive.

I dont need to read a racist publication to find it offensive.

[yukio_michael]

Originally Posted by nurizeko

I dont know, but the point is black people who havnt told to their face that they deserve to be enslaved can still find such sentiments offensive.

I dont need to read a racist publication to find it offensive.

Again, I'll say that you shouldn't paint American politicians as explicitly racist without any real citation or proof... David Duke, Yes... Others in the political mainstream, no.

Arguably, some are probably casual racists, but not ones who would advocate slavery. More or less, they are less concerned with the difference between blacks and whites, which is what most people don't understand. When you actually look at the data of income disparity between blacks and whites, its much less important than the overall income disparity between the richest and the poorest...

American blacks are actually the most affluent in the world, you'll pardon me if I don't use such illigitimate words as "African American", which seem to make people more comfortable, but much like words such as "Native American", they aren't in fact, accurate of the demographic they speak of, nor were they created by that demographic.

[doinkies]

Originally Posted by Mike Cash

Give them a little more credit than you do with that bogus translation. They stood up and did the right thing. It isn't as though any tiny boycott a thin sliver of the gaijin population could muster against them would hurt their sales in any noticeable way.

Yeah, they saw they had a キモイ magazine on their shelves, and so they decided to take action about it and stop selling it. It was bad of them to not confirm the doinky content, but now they are removing it and not just letting said magazine sit on the shelf. Hopefully they'll pay more attention in the future.

[nurizeko]

Originally Posted by yukio_micheal

Again, I'll say that you shouldn't paint American politicians as explicitly racist without any real citation or proof... David Duke, Yes... Others in the political mainstream, no.

Again I apologise, I merely took the first example that popped into my head.

I wasnt brave enough to use a Jewish example and an Islamic one wouldnt work because many Muslims find so many things offensive.

[craftsman]

Originally Posted by Mike Cash

Give them a little more credit than you do with that bogus translation. They stood up and did the right thing. It isn't as though any tiny boycott a thin sliver of the gaijin population could muster against them would hurt their sales in any noticeable way.

Mike - you're easily pleased! If they had come back and said that it was their policy to not display rascist or offensive material and in the future publications like this would be screened before hitting the shelf - that would be enough to give them credit.

Of course small boycotts don't matter but negative publicity does and I'm sure they were aware of articles in the British and the Australian press and the article making the rounds at Reuters. There's nothing remarkable about them removing the copies - they are an international company - they have no choice. So I think my mock translation fits perfectly.

Here's some quotes from the publisher from one of the links:

‘We wanted to take this up as a contemporary problem,’ said Shigeki Saka of Tokyo-based publishers Eichi, which also publishes magazines on popular US and South Korean television dramas. ‘I think it would be good if this becomes a chance to broaden the debate,’ he added.


‘This is not a racist book, because it is based on established fact,’ Saka said. ‘If we wanted to be racist, we could write it in a much more racist way,’ he added, saying that the word ‘nigger’ was not considered offensive in Japan.

[Sukotto]

Saka should try using that word to a black man who is visiting and see if it's not considered offensive in Japan. (or hopefully anyone else for that matter)
Maybe the guest would merely be polite and point out it is not a good word?


Family Mart?

You sure it ain't called Wal-Mart?
Their shelves carry plenty of copies of Bill O'Reilly's book, (though it I saw
it with a discount sticker on it when the Wii came out). (fun fact: Hillary Clinton once sat on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors for 6 years)

[yukio_michael]

‘This is not a racist book, because it is based on established fact,’ Saka said. ‘If we wanted to be racist, we could write it in a much more racist way,’ he added, saying that the word ‘nigger’ was not considered offensive in Japan.

This is a pretty lame excuse. It's like saying, oh hey, we don't find diminutive racial insults to be offensive, so, what's the big deal? Also, in context, it's clearly meant as an insult... I hate publishers of works like this, and others like it, such as Hating the Korean Wave, they exploit anger and frustration in youth who may or may not have the same opportunities as the richer and more affluent members of the universal "middle class" that exists nebulously so in Japan.

Then again, I hear time and time again that despite the rumor that these sorts of publications (and at times tv programmes) only play well in the sticks, they still become popular in metropolitan areas of Japan, where you might think people should know better.

[Sukotto]

I looked up the term "Korean Wave" and found a wikipedia entry.

What's wrong with another people's culture, even if it is pop culture.



I wish we could get some of that here in the states.
We've got a "Japanese Wave" of sorts going on with video games, anime (which some people still ignorantly think is for "just for kids" or young adults), j-pop, anything else I'm missing?

Too bad there wasn't an entire tv channel devoted to foreign shows on basic cable. Maybe with subtitles if not straight language. With even the original commercials. I thought the US was the richest country with the most choices available to us?

[Mike Cash]

Originally Posted by nurizeko

I dont know, but the point is black people who havnt told to their face that they deserve to be enslaved can still find such sentiments offensive.

I dont need to read a racist publication to find it offensive.

I quite agree.

But when you say:

Doesnt stop Black Americans protesting when some white supremacist politician calls for all Black Americans to be enslaved again.

the wording leaves one to infer that you are referring to a specific event/politician.

Even George Wallace wasn't that bad. (In fact, he was the ultimate pragmatic politician. He reportedly once said in reference to himself, "When blacks get 51% of the vote, you're gonna see an integrationist.")

[yukio_michael]

Here is an article, in Metropolis magazine, written by the actual editor of Foreigner Underground Crime File, describing in his own words, "why he did it."

I haven't read it yet, but the article is here.

edit: Oh yes, you can also listen to a discussion of the article itself in the latest Metropolis podcast.