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Comment by jacalata | Hacker News Reader

There is an even faster growing trend of people who campaign on really explicit "stop immigration, prevent foreigners from ruining our culture" platforms turning around and saying 'how dare you call me racist!'

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Do people call Japan's immigration policy racist? Or do people not bemoan China controlling Tibet because, among other things, Tibet'd lose their cultural identity (this is separate from the valid argument about annexation and human rights issues). What about Bhutan, should we propose they go full globalization and either take on western culture, or Japanese or Korean culture?

Fundamentally countries have a right to self determination and that includes the future direction of the countries, culturally, economically, etc. So long as it does not encroach on other countries' sovereignty.

Do people call Japan's immigration policy racist? No because it applies to everyone equally. They call it xenophobic because that is exactly what it is.

In the US we actually had a racist immigration policy, the Chinese Exclusion Act [0] because it was actually applied to a single race created by actual racists. Do you see the difference?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

Not sure why you're stating things about the US when we're talking about the UK and their policies --which apply to Europeans as well as people from other countries.

And yes, the Chinese exclusion act was by definition racist... But no one in any major western country is talking about excluding one race or even nationality of people outright (Trump talks about "pausing" immigration from conflict zones).

People do speak about controlling their legal immigration and deterring illegal/undocumented/etc. immigration (but pretty much all countries do have visa requirements (or inter country-region agreements) --even those who mainly export workers.

I was just pointing out a flaw in your argument.

I don't actually consider the UK's immigration policy as racist. Short-sighted, definitely. but racist? Definitely not

I'm pretty sure most people familiar with Japanese ethnic views & policies consider them racist. The difference is that Japan doesn't have the same stigmas against racism. In western countries where other freedoms are preached and valued, racism is much more hypocritical.

But these immigration and cultural issues aren't necessarily racist. The weight behind anti-immigration movements includes other social/cultural/economic opinions, in addition to flat-out racism.

Is it though?

There are aspects of their history which was racist and the treatment of people of Korean descent living in Japan for generations is debatably racist (more ethnicist than racist) but their immigration policy, I don't think is racist just because they are very strict about accepting new immigrants and naturalizing people.

Predominantly white countries are not permitted self-determination due to innumerable arguments referencing Hitler and slavery. Protection of cultural integrity is permitted for everyone else.

I don't think "foreigners have a different culture that I don't like" is a racist statement. For a US citizen it's certainly a hypocritical statement, but the case isn't as clear to me for Europe.

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