It’s still there at an institutional and cultural level - I think the most glaring example of this is the amount of landlords who either openly or discreetly (with a phone call to your realtor) will not rent property to foreigners.
Language is always used as an excuse, but language doesn't seem to be a hindrance in any other country.
Unmerited animosity towards foreigners is called xenophobia, not racism.
If this kind of thing would bother you, I would strongly recommend not considering moving to Japan.
Yep. That's what racism is.
You can call it whatever you want, but it's part of being a foreigner. If you don't like it, then stay in the country of your citizenship/heritage.
This is absolutely the root of racism. Acting out of fear and self-preservation in a self-sustaining loop.
The most insidious kind of racism to me isn't the mindless hatred that you sometimes see. It's the thoughtful, logical-sounding explanations that justify the behavior.
Welcome to systemic problems!
"Data Driven Decisions" are almost always about "this consumer/user group will probably do X". This is discriminatory against people in the group who don't/won't do X. Insurance companies (and college admissions boards, and police deciding where to send officers) do their best to try and remove broad categories (race, sex, etc) and tailor their data to a specific outcome, but that doesn't mean data can't be used to discriminate. "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" after all.
There is a line, but it moves, and it's blurry, and sometimes it's not really a line but more of a circle. The point is, sometimes these things are bad/discriminatory but they're allowed to keep happening because that's how we've always done things or something to that effect.
Dealing with people as groups is at the heart of -isms and stereotyping/discrimination. It's also how data/statistics tend to treat people.
If a landlord doesn’t want me because I’m a foreigner, that’s fine with me. If I ask why and he explains the risk profile, I can offer to pay for my 2-year lease up front to mitigate the risk.
I don’t understand the obsession with wanting to force people into economic transactions they don’t want to participate in.
Fortunately for me, I’ve literally never been denied an apartment or a service or anything at all due to my race in Japan. But hypothetically, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Discrimination laws are a violation of freedom of association and they increase the cost of transactions because people can’t state their prejudices publicly.