Can I encourage you to get in the habit of phrasing this in terms of "many (but by no means all) Japanese people", "many Japanese institutions", "many Japanese people in positions of authority", or similar? I think we probably see eye to eye on the scope of the problem, but it is unfortunate to turn it into Japan's problem, because it is very, very important that folks are not presented with the choice "You can either be authentically Japanese or reject racism _but not both_." There are a number of people who believe and instruct that that is a choice; people of good will should give them no aid or comfort.
We should see perfectly eye to eye on this, because you're who I learned this from. At any rate: that's what I meant by the word "society".
When someone composes an appeal to the tranquil monoculturalism of Japan, the thing they should be immediately confronted with is the fierce racism that makes up the core of that culture. Cultures change; Japan's inevitably will get to where ours is today (hopefully we'll keep making it hard for them to completely catch up).
If you would (sensibly) like to dispute Japan's tranquil monoculturalism on a message board thread or elsewhere, a better approach to take is "Japan is often described as a monocultural country but it is not." This is true, novel, and gives you the opportunity to drop e.g. a citation for Sugitomo's An Introduction to Japanese Society, which is a really excellent academic text, or Making Common Sense of Japan, which is sadly out of print but a fantastic book qua book. (30 second example: Japan has large ethnic minorities like e.g. Koreans whose experience is often materially different than that of people who are ethnically Japanese; the discourse of Japanese monoculturalism margainalizes their experience and, for bonus points, makes their lives materially worse. Japan has religious minorities; you might sensibly predict life is difficult for them; you might sensibly predict this implies that e.g. no Japanese PMs come from religious minorities; you got one of those two predictions correct.)
I'd politely double down on encouraging you to not attempt to win this argument by saying "Japan actually is a monoculture and that culture's core is racism." People will believe you. This is materially less true than the not-a-monoculture argument and, separate from the truth of it, it is internally and externally a dangerous thing to have be believed.
I literally don't understand what you are trying to say. Again: you are the person who informed me of this --- in fact, almost the exact words I used in my earlier comment have come out of your mouth, multiple times.
Can you give me a single sentence that you think is closer to the truth, without examples or citations to books?
Would the sentence "Japan is way way more racist than America" work? If not, I'm going to express further surprise, because that is a sentence you have used before.
I'm splitting hairs, perhaps unnecessarily so, about exact word choice used to communicate the ground facts. We agree about the ground facts.
>> Would the sentence "Japan is way way more racist than America" work? If not, I'm going to express further surprise, because that is a sentence you have used before.
Is this a quote or a paraphrase? I'd be mildly surprised if I said those exact words and did not do an immediate verbal retraction. I have recollection of writing e.g. "[I]s racism a bigger problem in Japan than e.g. in the United States? Yes."
Consider it from the perspective of a government bureaucrat who has the brief Protect Japan From Threats. In the formulation "Japan is a fiercely racist society", and his goal is to protect Japan from threats, anyone opposing racism is a threat. In the formulation "Racism is a big problem in Japan", his goal can plausibly be "Reduce racism in Japan", much like it could be "Reduce poverty in Japan" or "Reduce unemployment in Japan." I like making/keeping space available for people to embrace that second interpretation.
> Japan has religious minorities; you might sensibly predict life is difficult for them; you might sensibly predict this implies that e.g. no Japanese PMs come from religious minorities; you got one of those two predictions correct.
Being a religious minority in Japan can be challenging in a variety of ways; at least 3 Japanese PMs have been Christian (Catholic x2 Baptist X1 off top of head). This is a deep topic of narrow interest; ask me over drinks sometime if you want the full geekiness about it.
Edit window has expired, I went to check, the few in particular were born and raised in japan. I'm debating whether or not to give these channels more exposure at the moment, they're not particularly large and won't be ready for what will happen.