Status Updates From Race for Empire: Koreans as...

Record, this is the second book in three days that I started and stopped because I had no will or time to stomach the auhor's BS. Now he seems to suggest that Japan was less racist because its navy accepted Koreans in 1943 unlike the US. And combine that with prior statements regarding volunteers and he seems to dismiss the actual manpower need of total war and empire building. I will write a preliminary review.

Now he mentions the word discrimination. Took him long enough. And maybe that is not his intention, but he sounds as if he wants to claim that the Japanese empire somehow would give Koreans equality instead of having them as second class citizens at best. In fact, he doesn't just seem to be apologetic about Japan but the USA as well. Or maybe his "big words" just come across as too vague.

Ignoring the fact that I get some serious apologetics vibes from this book and that it barely, or did it ever?, use the term discrimination, what this guy uses several big sentences for could be easily said in one sentence.

This still intrigues me but my radar is on because not only does he attribute Japanese racism in large part an effect of Euro-American discourses on racial difference without addressing the parts that are native to Japan, but when it comes to Koreans he speaks of politicians and voting but never once mentions forced labor or the effects discrimination had, like placing them on the same level as Burakumin.

Since he mentions the recruitment of Indians b the Japanese, guess who also did that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_...

Too bad for this asshole: I read Dower's War without Mercy as well! His statements regarding the Nazis were bad enough as it is, also he seems to claim that Japan was not as racist as claimed. Btw. whoever claimed that in popular media and "common sense?" Can anyone name a film or so that did that? Plus, even by his statements the Japanese were forced into this. And whatever he stated would apply to the Nazis well.

Oh my god!!! He claims that the Nazis promoted an uncomplicated ideology of racial purity and superiority unlike the Japanese regime.... BULLSHIT!!! That might seem to be the case in popular media but I can assure you that the Nazi racial ideology was anything but uncomplicated, that thing was highly contradictory and often motivated by outside factors. So do not trust this author when it comes to the Nazis.

Holy shit, does the author even realize that by what he suggested so far (the whole veiled/changing racism to win allies) by the USA and Japanese regimes (which btw. he seems to be hesitant to fully call an empire), could also be applied to the Nazis, unlike what he states here? The Nazis also adjusted their rhetoric and to a degree ideology to justify their alliances.

That he mentioned the Nazis and placed them in contrast to the Japanese and Americans is perfect, because despite what he suggests here, the Nazis basically did the same: over the course of the war, they included more and more non-Germans into their armed forces. The SS alone had thousands of non-Germans among their ranks, not just ethnic Germans from outside Germany as he suggests here. So one flaw noted.

I don't Like the usage of "ethnic" as synonym for "ethnic minority" but at least the author's usage for the Relation between Japanese and koreans, suggestions consistency and Lack of Double standard.

oh boy, I hope this first passage in the preface is not harbinger of doom, because it sounds like someone who would dismiss critique at affirmative action as racist, even though it actually discriminates against Asian Americans and apparently very often supports "black" Americans who are not descendents of American slaves. But I will see. Wouldn't have been the first book today that I returned after the introduction.