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How do you deal with everyday discrimination ?

Actually having that kind of crap done to you over and over again
What kind of crap? You're still being vague. You clearly classify the first story somehow, but you're not explaining what that classification is.

Are you talking about people near you moving? People near you standing against a wall? People near you looking like they "probably had a bad day"? Getting the impression for any reason that someone you don't know might possibly be bigoted against you? I'd just like something concrete here.
 
Why should he describe the crap to you, when you'll just pooh-pooh it on the grounds we aren't telepathic?

If you've never experienced discrimination, you don't know what you're talking about. Of course you don't.

How could you, when you're not telepathic?
 
JuliMaruchan , to be honest, this thread is full of examples of what Mike called "crap". Of course, cases of perceived discrimination are often based on misinterpretation or oversensibility or groundless, but once you discern repeating patterns you start scratching your head in confusion and doubt. Just like you I always try to take the charitable approach, but self-deception has its limits.
 
I'm not asking for examples. I'm asking for a classification. If the classification is "discrimination", he need only say so. However, as I've already said, I contend that it is not discrimination, and my case for it not being discrimination has not been refuted in any way.

To make that case crystal clear, the definition of "discrimination" I am using is "the act of discriminating". The specific definition of "discriminate" I am using conforms to this definition from Merriam-Webster:

to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit
Source: Discriminate | Definition of Discriminate by Merriam-Webster

My case, therefore, is that moving around in an elevator (which is the only thing of substance that actually happened in the first story) is not any sort of treatment of others who happen to be occupants at all, unless the act had some tangible effect on such other people. Therefore, even if we assume that the action was motivated by bigotry, it is still not discrimination.

From this follows the other contention I have: I think it is unwise to allow non-discriminatory bigotry, or potential bigotry, to bother you. I don't.

self-deception has its limits.
I find that my charitable assumptions often work like self-fulfilling prophecies. Even when they don't, it usually doesn't matter because the bigots will avoid you, and that's something to rejoice over. I've literally only ever had one person who was really a problem, and that was because she was my boss (which meant we couldn't get away from each other). It was a workplace I hated overall anyway, so I eventually left it for my current, much better workplace. Problem solved.
 
Hmm, I suppose a simpler question to ask here would be whether it's more important that someone's actions are intended as discriminatory or if they are perceived to be as such? I would say it depends on who you ask, but in this case, us gaijin are mostly on the receiving end, and so it's how we perceive these actions that have a greater effect (on us).

Creating narratives that explain the behavior can be helpful only in how they may affect your perception of those behaviors. A good example of trying to use this mental exercise of narrative-building to improve your perception can be found in the late David Foster Wallace's "This is Water speech," which was abbreviated and turned into a compelling little video:



It's important to point out that despite coining this phrase and sharing this technique with us, it unfortunately was not enough to save him from his own depression. In this way, I feel like narrative-building has kind of a placebo effect on us, because they are only as powerful as long as we can believe in them. The nature of intelligence is to raise doubt and question whether what we're experiencing is truly real, and so goes the story of the tortured artists that fall victim to their own uncertainties.

As an aside, Mike, I really am just curious as to how you would phrase yourself when addressing a situation like the one described. I just realized that in my own example above, my phrasing would be more appropriate had the cashier responded in English (or even worse, said something like "sorry, no English"), rather than checking with the "obvious" native speaker .
 
Why should he describe the crap to you, when you'll just pooh-pooh it on the grounds we aren't telepathic?

If you've never experienced discrimination, you don't know what you're talking about. Of course you don't.

How could you, when you're not telepathic?

JuliMaruchan , to be honest, this thread is full of examples of what Mike called "crap". Of course, cases of perceived discrimination are often based on misinterpretation or oversensibility or groundless, but once you discern repeating patterns you start scratching your head in confusion and doubt. Just like you I always try to take the charitable approach, but self-deception has its limits.

I'm cool with the idea that others can know me better than I know myself. Not all the time in in all ways, but a lot of the time and in a lot of different ways, and more so than I'd maybe want to admit. And the corollary: that I actually am blind to who I am, in the same way that I don't know what I look like from behind.

It's often those around me who know me well (wife, kids, colleagues) but it's also people you've just met--they can often making strikingly accurate conclusions based on a few short minutes of contact. And that's not telepathy, it's a skill (or an intuition) that has been bred into us over the last couple hundred thousand years.

E.g., the waitress in the video on page one--a flagrant example, but you watch that and you definitely know her better than she knows herself.

Or, tho I only know him on this forum, I'd characterize @Mike Cash as a gruff, grouchy, sort of opinionated kind of guy, tho he likely doesn't know himself that way.

I'm guessing, but I think @JuliMaruchan is female. Given that that is true, she is probably far ahead of the males on this board (even tho she hasn't been to Japan), on things that compare to the minor slights (referred to above as "crap") that have been mentioned as happening in Japan to foreigners. (Try being a woman anywhere!)
 
It is extremely obvious in Japan. You notice that no matter what you do the Japanese people just treat you differently. When I was there for the short time that I was I would notice people edging away from me, trying to not make eye contact, assuming that I spoke no Japanese. Just little things like that, it didn't bother me I was having the time of my life since I was on vacation. But I'm going to assume living your life in the country and being fluent in the language makes these things hit home a little harder. You would probably feel that even though Japan is your home you know to the Japanese they will always view you as an outsider.

(Try being a woman anywhere!)
This seems like cognitive dissonance to me.
 
Creating narratives that explain the behavior can be helpful only in how they may affect your perception of those behaviors. A good example of trying to use this mental exercise of narrative-building to improve your perception can be found in the late David Foster Wallace's "This is Water speech," which was abbreviated and turned into a compelling little video:
That's different from what I'm talking about. I don't consider possibilities for what could be happen to every single person. I just, in the absence of evidence of malice, make charitable assumptions. You don't need to craft narratives in order to do this; just assume that they are having a bad day, that they misunderstand something, that they made a blunder, etc.

Also, I never claimed, nor would I claim, that making charitable assumptions about people is a viable treatment for depression. It isn't. Depression is far more complex than that, and it necessitates the help of a therapist and possibly other treatment (as it did in my case).

I'm guessing, but I think @JuliMaruchan is female. Given that that is true, she is probably far ahead of the males on this board (even tho she hasn't been to Japan), on things that compare to the minor slights (referred to above as "crap") that have been mentioned as happening in Japan to foreigners. (Try being a woman anywhere!)
I am not interested in identity politics. Please do not use me as ammunition for that nonsense.
 
That's different from what I'm talking about. I don't consider possibilities for what could be happen to every single person. I just, in the absence of evidence of malice, make charitable assumptions. You don't need to craft narratives in order to do this; just assume that they are having a bad day, that they misunderstand something, that they made a blunder, etc.

Also, I never claimed, nor would I claim, that making charitable assumptions about people is a viable treatment for depression. It isn't. Depression is far more complex than that, and it necessitates the help of a therapist and possibly other treatment (as it did in my case).
I agree that of the options available, it's more productive to give people the benefit of the doubt. That said, telling yourself that someone might just be having a bad day is still narrative building, as I see it. It's not an elaborate narrative like the ones David Foster Wallace might craft, like the man rushing to the hospital, but it's still rationalizing the actions of others, rather than examining your own reactions to them :emoji_slight_smile:
 
I used to work in the US, and we hired a new guy many years younger than me. We interacted, but we didn't have to work closely. About six months later we had gotten to know each other fairly well, and he mentioned in passing that in the first couple of months, he thought I didn't like him because of the way I acted in the morning. He admitted that it took that long for him to realize that I wasn't a morning person, and I merely appeared grumpy for that reason. Perceptions are everything.

Why did the woman turn around in the elevator? Perceptions.

There is a term called "micro-aggressions" making the rounds. I hate it. Yeah, sure, we all have little things that bother us about other people and the way they act. Being in a foreign land, you have that magnified due to cultural differences. The OP said he had been here a long time, I think. If micro-aggressions are still bothering you, I suggest you step back and take stock of what's important in life and whether you are truly seeing what you think. Also, if they are so "micro", are they really worth stressing over?
 
micro-aggression is the new term for things that bother the perceiver, while still putting the blame on the "aggressor," who may not be even aware of how their actions are interpreted. It's either conscious or unconscious behavior. If you can discern that in yourself, you can see it more easily in others.
 
micro-aggression is the new term for things that bother the perceiver, while still putting the blame on the "aggressor," who may not be even aware of how their actions are interpreted. It's either conscious or unconscious behavior. If you can discern that in yourself, you can see it more easily in others.
If you see these "micro-aggressions" literally everywhere in the country that you've decided to live in, then why would you want to live there in the first place. The "aggressor" isn't aware of any of this "interaction" at all so the only one it's affecting is yourself.
 
Using the political term "micro-aggression" usually means "I disagree with the ancient wisdom that sticks and stones may break my bones but words can't hurt me".

For all the talk of discrimination in Japan, it's always interesting to note the percentage of male expats versus female ones (and we all know why), or the ease of getting an English teaching job that pays well above minimum wage. Kind of reminds me of the Louis CK joke about "but that's only ninety-niiine percent of what I waaaant!".

I found that Debito guy especially amazing on that front -- you don't commit yourself to expatriating to a country and getting fluency in a difficult language like Japanese, and naturalization, without there being something significantly attractive to you about it. And for there to be a significant difference in attractiveness, there is logically a significant difference in the place. And then you demand you be treated exactly the same as a local, and see no irony in that.

Japan didn't end up super unique without an attitude of self-exceptionalism, there's nowhere else that can preserve "Japanese-ness", hence their amusing immigration numbers by western standards. So take the good with the bad, otherwise you might just get your wish that "it be the same as where I came from". The severity of their "discrimination" is nothing more than a cold shoulder here and there.
 
If you see these "micro-aggressions" literally everywhere in the country that you've decided to live in, then why would you want to live there in the first place. The "aggressor" isn't aware of any of this "interaction" at all so the only one it's affecting is yourself.
Well, I don't actually live in Japan, I've just spent a lot of time there. And while I'm there, I don't really waste much attention or energy on what other people would call micro-aggressions, which is more to the point I was getting at:

You can either act consciously or unconsciously, and the same goes for other people. In the circumstances we're talking about in this thread, they may be acting unconsciously, with their ignorance or fear of foreigners guiding their actions without their awareness or any introspection. If you are acting consciously and recognize this in other people, you can choose whether you want to react to it, and if you do, you can control the manner in which you respond, depending on your desired outcome. If you act unconsciously, you may fall victim to having a negative reaction that only drives them to be further suspicious or fearful of foreigners, reinforcing the behaviors we want to guide them away from because they are harmful both to others and their own mentality. When responding to aggression with understanding, it's called non-complementary action, and it can be very powerful.

How Flipping The Script Can Improve Relationships : Shots - Health News : NPR

How Flipping The Script Helped Keep Young Muslims From Joining ISIS : Shots - Health News : NPR
 
Out of interest, am I being "aggressive" (or "micro" aggressive) when I choose McDonald's over Burger King? After all, it hurts Burger Kings profits. You might even say I'm "micro-stabbing" their livelihoods by my aggressive act of not eating one of their burgers :emoji_sweat_smile:. I hear people say things like this all the time, "oh no I don't like their burgers". Appalling characters!

And of course it plays no part in why any foreigner might move to Japan... I've never heard them express contempt towards their home countries, their home people, their home politics, their home culture, their home women, and so on... :emoji_sweat_smile:

To coin my own new term, perhaps this is "selective observation of micro-aggression micro-aggression". Or a higher order, whereby drawing attention to someone's selective observation of micro-aggression micro-aggression is itself a micro-aggression :emoji_sweat_smile:

Or perhaps what these Japanese are doing isn't "aggression", which they must be cured of with 21st century western university political techniques and jargon, but they're just abiding another ancient wisdom: "birds of a feather flock together".
 
The old Rocky & Bullwinkle thing...

One side has a missile, so the other side gets an anti-missile missile. So the first side gets an anti anti-missile missile missile. To counter that, the second side gets an anti anti anti-missile missile missile missile...
 
The old Rocky & Bullwinkle thing...

One side has a missile, so the other side gets an anti-missile missile. So the first side gets an anti anti-missile missile missile. To counter that, the second side gets an anti anti anti-missile missile missile missile...
I'm taking that as a micro-aggression against my anti micro-aggression micro-aggression. An anti anti micro-aggression micro-aggression micro-aggression. You should be ashamed of yourself!
 
I'm taking that as a micro-aggression against my anti micro-aggression micro-aggression. An anti anti micro-aggression micro-aggression micro-aggression. You should be ashamed of yourself!
I'm micro-aggressed that you would be micro-aggressed at that.
 
Out of interest, am I being "aggressive" (or "micro" aggressive) when I choose McDonald's over Burger King? After all, it hurts Burger Kings profits. You might even say I'm "micro-stabbing" their livelihoods by my aggressive act of not eating one of their burgers :emoji_sweat_smile:. I hear people say things like this all the time, "oh no I don't like their burgers". Appalling characters!
hmm, no I think you are elaborating unnecessarily. Choosing one restaurant over another isn't an act of aggression without some really convoluted narrative.

And of course it plays no part in why any foreigner might move to Japan... I've never heard them express contempt towards their home countries, their home people, their home politics, their home culture, their home women, and so on... :emoji_sweat_smile:

To coin my own new term, perhaps this is "selective observation of micro-aggression micro-aggression". Or a higher order, whereby drawing attention to someone's selective observation of micro-aggression micro-aggression is itself a micro-aggression :emoji_sweat_smile:

Or perhaps what these Japanese are doing isn't "aggression", which they must be cured of with 21st century western university political techniques and jargon, but they're just abiding another ancient wisdom: "birds of a feather flock together".
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
 
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