Whitewashing Non-white Countries

[ohmypizza]

I hope that this doesn't only bother me.  I'm not talking about Studio Deen whitewashing Seychelles, Egypt and Turkey, since someone already covered that.  I'm talking about the fans not doing their research and rendering a lot of non-white countries lily white.  I've seen too many examples of this.  People who make Greenland OCs tend to especially

Comments

[angstlich]

Oh, you are spot on, actually. The Japanese do not have the same negative history with other minorities like the western world has had. They had no years of African enslavement, they didn't pull a Romania and keep the Roma and Sinti Gypsies as slaves for nearly 600 years, and they did not commit genocides on the horrific scale that Germany and Russia did.

And, because of this, things that would seem offensive to a westerner do not even occur to the Japanese. You know the whole Jinx thing with Pokemon? How Americans complained that it looked like it was in black-face? Since they did not have years of racism in that way, they would not have even thought of how offensive it would seem to Americans. A lot of the things they do that seem offensive probably mean no harm.

But that does not excuse western fans for doing the same thing. They know what kind of connotations these things bring and they need to avoid it. Whitewashing Seychelles? It is just part of the Japanese aesthetic. Offensive, yes. Intentionally so? Probably not. So, even though I'm possibly the quintessential example of a minority, I don't get terribly offended by what the Japanese do. I do get offended when the western fans act like idiots.

So, yeah. You're not wrong. Hardly every Japanese person is 'racist,' as some people would put it. I would say that they are more ignorant of how offensive what they do can come off as. I think this wank is mostly about western fans wanting to ignore the ethnic groups of certain nations when making them OCs. That is very offensive.

[whittertwitter]

The Japanese do not have the same negative history with other minorities like the western world has had. They had no years of African enslavement, they didn't pull a Romania and keep the Roma and Sinti Gypsies as slaves for nearly 600 years, and they did not commit genocides on the horrific scale that Germany and Russia did.
They may not have negative history with the same minorities the West has, but they have had plenty of negative history with the Ainu, the Koreans, the Chinese, etc. And it might not have been the same in terms of scale, but what Unit 731 did was just as horrifying as the Nazi death camps and the gulags.

Since they did not have years of racism in that way, they would not have even thought of how offensive it would seem to Americans. A lot of the things they do that seem offensive probably mean no harm.
They didn't have the history, and they probably didn't have anyone who would object to it. I think about 99% of Japan's population is ethnic Japanese, and there are very few blacks among the other 1%, so there probably wouldn't be anyone who would find it offensive until it was brought to other countries for dubbing.

[angstlich]

My palm just met my face.

I'm so sorry, I don't know as much about Japanese history as I do about European history. I know they've done some very sketchy things, but I meant that in the context of offending westerners.

I do know about the Ainu and kind-of-sort-of taking their land away a la the Native Americans, but I didn't think it was terribly relevant to the wank, so I didn't mention it. I know the Japanese were/are hardly saints, what with raping and murdering so many Chinese women and other atrocities, but I was just trying to stay relevant T_T Sorry if I came off as an ignorant lout.

[angstlich]

Oops, that wasn't supposed to be anonymous. Forgot to log in, like a derp. Sorry about that.

[whittertwitter]

It's alright!

I'm sorry I made you feel that way; I didn't mean to! I figured you already knew about that; I was just trying to clarify for anyone reading the comments.

Sorry, again. I'm notoriously bad about missing the point.

[mizu_takishima]

Ah okay! I figured that was the case, (also knew the stuff Whittertwitter said) but I wasn't sure |D;;;

For all I knew there was some kind of underlying issue, but I'm glad I'm knowledgable at least when it comes to everything you guys have said so far :'D (I'm also super glad nobody got offended by my questions either)

Thanks again!

[angstlich]

you are extremely ignorant, Japanese war crimes in China rival those of Germany and Russia and possibly surpass them. And what does that have to do with race? Russians for instance did not go after a specific race, they mostly killed their own people who disagreed with the regime. And while Germany did persecute the Jews, the biggest loss of lives at the hands of the Nazis still happened in Eastern Europe, which is mostly blond and blue-eyed.