It's funny watching my friend in Hokkaido, the naturalized Japanese American, and his activism against store and bath house racism where he lives. He actually took a pubic bath house to court in a lawsuit and won! He's always causing trouble there all around the country challenging and almost always winning his little battles with larger implications. He even had a book about racism there published in Japanese. I think I'll buy it. I had my own battle with a snack bar once which I pursued to a point, but I'm not made of stuff to be a professional troublemaker.
Japan is a moderately racist place and I admire his efforts. Its funny though, most of the racism where he lives involves the behavior and actions of Russians, of which there are quite a few in Hokkaido due to trade. They, and to an extent South Americans and Africans have it rough there. There is a large difference between the treatment of people who speak Japanese well and those who don't. Perhaps more than any other place, acceptance in Japan comes with a linguistic price tag.
I have no idea what the Russians DID in the bathhouses there but they SURE pissed a lot of people off. They have special "Japanese Only" signs written in Cyrillic.
His adventures are at http://www.debito.org/
D.
