"Given America's willingness to avert its eyes from the most troubling chapters of its history and to resist critical self-evaluation and discussion of the country's atrocities against native Americans and African Americans . . ."
Suppose I were the New York bureau chief of a major Japanese daily and sent a dispatch containing these words. My editor would surely, and hastily, strike them out in order to forestall any protest from readers. And if I continued to file similar dispatches, he would realize he had grievously misjudged my competence and recall or dismiss me.
Yet filing such reports is exactly what Howard French, the Tokyo bureau chief of The New York Times, does, with obvious impunity. For the record, French has actually said: