Regarding the recent flap over Debito Arudou's Aug. 5 article, "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " and, more specifically, the Aug. 10 letter response from Sandra Graves-Takahashi, "Unlikely material for a revolution": I must concur with Arudou regarding the treatment of foreigners in Japan.
Certainly, the rebuttals of his article make valid points, but the underlying truth cannot be ignored: Foreigners ARE treated like second-class people, because equal rights only apply to Japanese, and the law is on their side.
Try to exercise what little rights you have here, and you will be met with protest, anger and maybe even police harassment. Most foreigners have experienced this treatment at one time or another, and have made the wise choice of returning to their homeland. Most foreigners who move here initially to make a new home end up moving back. Quite the opposite is true for immigrants to the United States.
Japan's very culture is steeped in racism and distrust of all "gaijin," and the media only fuels the fear of an otherwise gullible public. If you need more proof, just ask any returnee from Japan what he or she thinks about discrimination there. You will get the same answer over and over.
Graves-Takahashi's declaration that the "oppressed white man's revolution will definitely NOT be televised" and her (sarcastic) remark that "Japanese-speaking foreigners on TV" represent the best of the gaijin achievers merely validate Arudou's point: That's about all the "multiculturalism" that foreigners will ever be allowed to have here. Personally, I cannot wait until I go back to the U.S.