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sj_zero /
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2025-01-02 23:12:02

sj_zero on Nostr: There's been a growing cabal of idiots trying to force Japanese media to follow ...

There's been a growing cabal of idiots trying to force Japanese media to follow western sensibilities and points of view, and I find it really frustrating. There's a million youtube videos looking at certain Japanese ads through a US lens and going "How offensive they are being!", I find it really annoying.

I feel like certain people think the entire world is and should be Southern California.

It's like... Japan is a different country than the US. For most of the history of slavery in the US starting almost a century before 1776, Japan's borders were closed and they were an isolationist nation, until they were ordered at gunpoint by the American Commodore Perry's black ships, so they had bigger problems than worrying about American slavery or how they treated black people.

Slavery was ended by the beginning of the Meiji period after the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate which marked Japan's "coming out" into trying to start integrating the new reality from the west, which began after ratification of the 13th amendment banning slavery, and they were far more focused on not getting the same treatment China was getting by updating their military than worrying about how to be racist to black people "In the American style".

It's like "Why are you trying to export American prejudices to other cultures?" and the answer is I think my opening statement. Everywhere is Southern California, and everywhere should be Southern California.

And people might go "Oh, shouldn't the Japanese know that the Americans have this thing with gorillas and black people?", to which I'd strike back "Oh, shouldn't the Americans know that the Japanese have this thing with burakumin?" And of course 99.9% of Americans don't, disenfranchisement against those who aren't high enough in the the caste system during the edo period isn't something they really know much about.

Symbols mean completely different things in different cultures. In Asian cultures, white flowers are often associated with funerals, so giving someone white flowers is saying you wish harm on someone. Should we ban white flowers in the west? After all, there's a lot more Asians than there are us. Should we find it scandalous if someone gives or gets white flowers in the west despite us having no such cultural artefact? I would say of course not unless the person giving or receiving them is from one of those Asian cultures.

Anyway, that's my rant. It's really frustrating seeing cultural imperialism from Southern California, the one place on earth that ought to know better.
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