“There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese.”

That’s what a tearful Carolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.

The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.

She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.

While some recognised her victory as a “sign of the times”, others have said she does not look like what a “Miss Japan” should.

  • Schmidtster@lemmynsfw.com
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    7 months ago

    Their pageants no longer exist…. They had to go and remake their own and call them “native” since they aren’t Americans since they are white washed by people like you.

    I love how I’m apparently racist for pointing out white washing…. And no I didn’t say I forget them, I was pointing out people like you did, and yet you latch onto that as your fallacy. Fucking despicable attitude.

    • 520@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      Have you considered maybe that the Japanese are nothing like the Native Americans, and that what’s happening in Japan has nothing to do with racism against the Japanese?

      • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        Right? They invoke the genocide of Native Americans to defend the idea of Japanese racial purity being threatened by a single beauty pageant contestant, and I’m the one whitewashing… 🤦‍♀️

        • 520@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          It’s absolutely insane, especially when it comes from those who claim to want to preserve ethnic identities.

          If they’re gonna invoke other national identities in conversation, the least they could do is learn about them. If anything drawing comparisons to ethnic cleansing over a fucking beauty pageant is more insensitive than pretty much anything else in this thread.

          Other than their connotations that someone cannot be a real Japanese because of their skin colour, that reminds me a bit about America’s history of treating black people.

          • Schmidtster@lemmynsfw.com
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            7 months ago

            I didn’t bring ethic cleansing Into the conversation…… that was their stretch and half from me talking about Native American pageants having to be presented that way.

            Since American pageants are about non-native Americans now.

            How you came to ethnic cleansing from that… fuck if I know, but it’s fallacious at best.

      • Schmidtster@lemmynsfw.com
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        7 months ago

        If you whitewash their culture as well they will be. Of course it’s different… until it isn’t anymore because of whitewashing….