I don't know enough about Japan to say how accurately it reflects the reality there.
But my gut instinct is similar to strangedave's: discriminating on behaviour so incredibly difficult as to be unfeasible as a solution, so discrimination on race is therefore justified? It's not far from "It's ok to ban black people from this building because as we all know they're dirty and it's easier than banning dirty people".
I do know that it gives a flawed explanation of "positive discrimination". As I understand it , in the US these laws just work to prevent injustice by stopping people from not hiring black people for no reason etc. In Malaysia they're actively prejudiced and deliberately disenfranchise chinese people (to give a very dodgy analogy, they're more like American jews than white people. They may have a bit more money on average, but they're hardly the dominant ethnic group) I had some chinese indonesian friends who had to come to Australia to get any decent education at all thanks to similar legislation there.
Now are the japanese (and malasians) right to make these laws? I don't know, I'd want to read up on it from a less dodgy seeming source. Given that this guy isn't even japanese it sounds like someone using a complicated situation in a culture not their own as "proof" that it's ok to discriminate against people based on country of birth.
There are discussions on these topics, but I think unless the people having the conversation can get into a space where they can communicate about basic simple issues they're not going to be able to approach the more subtle ones. One of the motivations behind me reading up on and talking about racism is to gain a solid understanding of it so I feel able to approach these more complex issues properly (ie without flailing and making an idiot of myself) It's taking a long time because it's a tricky subject.
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But my gut instinct is similar to
I do know that it gives a flawed explanation of "positive discrimination". As I understand it , in the US these laws just work to prevent injustice by stopping people from not hiring black people for no reason etc. In Malaysia they're actively prejudiced and deliberately disenfranchise chinese people (to give a very dodgy analogy, they're more like American jews than white people. They may have a bit more money on average, but they're hardly the dominant ethnic group) I had some chinese indonesian friends who had to come to Australia to get any decent education at all thanks to similar legislation there.
Now are the japanese (and malasians) right to make these laws? I don't know, I'd want to read up on it from a less dodgy seeming source. Given that this guy isn't even japanese it sounds like someone using a complicated situation in a culture not their own as "proof" that it's ok to discriminate against people based on country of birth.
There are discussions on these topics, but I think unless the people having the conversation can get into a space where they can communicate about basic simple issues they're not going to be able to approach the more subtle ones. One of the motivations behind me reading up on and talking about racism is to gain a solid understanding of it so I feel able to approach these more complex issues properly (ie without flailing and making an idiot of myself) It's taking a long time because it's a tricky subject.