THIS is why white people are out of control:

This guy lives in the same prefecture as me and all the way up to Halloween was posting Facebook status updates excitedly talking about how he was going to dress up as a "ghetto black guy because in jland that's okay." The comment he left under the top picture was, "damn you cant tell we both are coated in black oily camouflage makeup, i like how akinas lipstick is way overdone hahaha."

This is the kind of shit that is very obviously NOT okay, and obviously, this white guy (from the U.S.) knows it, but he's taking advantage of the fact that he's living in a country where people don't care.

This is what people are talking about when they say they're wary of comedians of color making fun of people of color because, even though it's funny as an inside joke, white people end up flocking to those kinds of comedic shows so they can laugh at people of color, too, and not feel guilty about it, because "hey, they said it themselves."

This is also why it's hard to think of white people as more than drifting entities without any time-hardened set of values to anchor them and keep them from simply floating from one thing that makes them happy to another. It's hard to think of them as mature or as having any real conception of the world outside themselves.

When I see this kind of stuff, it just reinforces in my head that yes, white people are always on the lookout for any chance to do what feels good to them. This guy was in a country that doesn't have a problem with blackface, so he decided he would do blackface, too, not even for any real reason except that he can. And I think again of what seems to be the general guideline for the typical white person: if it feels good, if it's "self-expression," if it means you're "free" to do whatever you want, and if it gets you ahead, it's a good thing.

Not surprisingly, this guy is also constantly putting Facebook statuses up about how frustrated he is with his job as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) on JET and how backwards Japanese people are. This considering he signed up to do two years of the job and makes about 3,000 dollars a month doing nothing, as any ALT can.

I understand that this entry might offend some of my friends and readers, and in the past I've refrained from putting up entries that expressed frustrations like these in the interest of not upsetting anyone, but the pictures I posted up above are of things that really happened, and my frustrations with them and the system that continues to cater to and elevate white people across the world, producing and justifying these kinds of situations, are real and valid.

No, this one white guy is not an exception to the rule that most white people understand the way things are now but every now and then you just get one of those bad ones. He's not an anomaly. His behavior is completely in line with the attitude I've seen exhibited by nearly every white person I've met while in Japan - that since they aren't confronted with racism in the way they used to be and since they now see themselves as "the minority" (It's amazing how fast they take it upon themselves to adopt this label) they don't need to give much thought to racism. This white guy is only another example of how many white people do not have any concern for the way racism affects peoples' lives and, without being forced to behave in a civil way or at least pretend they care, will sink to the lowest levels without reflection or remorse.

(Also, I know it's also important that the girl, Akina (?), is also doing blackface, but I think she might be Japanese, as in lived in Japan up to this point, which incites a whole different kind of frustration that is different than what I've expressed above.)