"Some Americans, even some scholars, will argue against this view of anime. They want to think the Japanese worship America or worship whiteness and use anime to prove it. But they seem to be driven more by their own racism and nationalism than anything else."
It's a red flag when you preemptively declare all of your opponents racists before they've even had a chance to respond.
Maybe someone will disagree for a non-racist reason? Just maybe?
Because it is such an inflammatory statement, it should be better supported, if that was the author's main point, or omitted, if it wasn't.
There's something else at work, though. I think that as soon as many readers read "racist", they mentally shut down as a defence mechanism.
"B ... b ... but it's an axiom that I can't be racist, so any argument that might cast me as racist must be wrong, without further consideration." It's the same thing you're arguing against.
I read your reply earlier and didn't quite get it, but I think now I see your point.
My response would be that it's okay to unequivocally declare a class of arguments as wrong. "Wrong" in the sense of a bad argument that doesn't hold up, it could still (coincidentally) reflect the correct position. What the author does is different though, he simply declares an entire side wrong on the assumption that they all must be using a certain class of arguments.
But the example you offered does demonstrate an equally important point: There are correct and incorrect reasons to rule out a class of arguments. Clearly "if this were true I'd be bad person, therefore this is false" is one of the bad reasons. The technical term is "argumentum ad consequentiam": appeal to consequeces.
So you're absolutely right to preach caution here.
It's not racist as in kkk-style, overt hatred of another race, it's more like culture-blindness, or ignorance, or a misplaced belief that one's culture is dominant in an area where it is not.
I'm not complaining about the type of racism, but the general trend of presupposing that all arguments against you will be of a certain misguided type and therefore illegitimate.
Like if I said "Mac is better than PC, and if anyone disagrees with me, it can only because that person is a pedophile". Obviously that example is unrealistic, but you see the issue.
That's a non-sequitur. In the context of racial appearance of drawn characters, and the incorrect attribution of race based on the viewers biases, it's an appropriate, if somewhat incendiary, term.
If someone counters that Japanese definitely draw white people because Japanese people think Americans are awesome (and there are some arguments of this type floating around out there), then it's a culturally myopic, borderline racist stance.
Sigh. Alright, last try, then I'm done with this time-sink discussion.
Forget racism. I said nothing about whether "racist" was an appropriate term for the kinds of people he has in mind. The problem is in equating "the people I have in mind" with "everyone who could possibly think I'm wrong". The problem is that he has assumed, before anyone has even had the chance to argue with him, that any arguments he gets will be motivated by some particular flaw he expects to encounter. The problem is that he dismisses all disagreement as "racist" before even hearing that disagreement.
Yes, if a bunch of people speak up and disagree with his points, some of them will probably do so because of some underlying racist beliefs. But that doesn't authorize him to declare that everyone who disagrees with him must therefore be a racist. That's wrong, descriptively and normatively.
For example, if I linked to an article where the top 50 Japanese anime authors had explicitly stated "Yup, we just draw white people", that wouldn't make me a racist. It would make him wrong, and me right to disagree. I don't expect to find an article like that, and I find the author's main point in the article quite plausible. The issue is just that there are conceivable legitimate objections (particularly any based on actual evidence, which, as has been noted, this article lacks), a possibility he has refused to even acknowledge with a wave of his hand.
I seem to be talking right past you, but I don't know how to spell this out any more plainly.
The author states in the last paragraph that he is referring to the Americans who make that argument. Perhaps that was not clear to you, but it was clear to me.
Bah! Why the scare quotes? You insist on facts, but then don't provide any of your own.
I found the article very interesting. I'm not white. I was raised in and live in a white culture, and interestingly, I make the same assumptions the author attributes to American social conditioning.
It's sad to reject useful or interesting information just because it's not well cited, or perhaps because the author used the dreaded "R-word."
Agree. The basic premise is that we're all sort of racists, and therefore we think any other generic-looking person is just like us. I don't see much data to support his conclusion.
Also, is this question the same as why do British singers sound like Americans in their songs? Just asking...
The assumption of whiteness does NOT make you a racist, any more than the assumption of Japanese-ness makes a person living in Japan a racist. This is not the behavior the author is calling out as racist.
"Some Americans, even some scholars, will argue against this view of anime. They want to think the Japanese worship America or worship whiteness and use anime to prove it. But they seem to be driven more by their own racism and nationalism than anything else."
It's a red flag when you preemptively declare all of your opponents racists before they've even had a chance to respond.
Maybe someone will disagree for a non-racist reason? Just maybe?