In McDonald’s New Japanese Ad Campaign, The Wacky Foreigner Joke’s on Americans

September 1st, 2009 by Guest Contributor

[Japan Probe: Mr. James: McDonald's Japan has a gaijin clown]

Thanks, Josh!

Update: Jen received a lot of pushback on this post from people who, well, generally don’t think about racism unless it happens to them. In a post titled “We Don’t Care About White People,” Jen responds:

But let’s get back to me not caring. I provided examples of Asian versions of Mr. James in my other post so as not to say, And now we’re even, but rather, Open your eyes, racial stereotyping is all around us, and actually, it’s often tolerated or ignored or dismissed, and yes, it’s sometimes even tolerated or ignored or dismissed by YOU. And that’s why I call Mr. James the face of karma. He’s getting people who don’t want to think about race issues or don’t have to think about race issues to think about them. He’s getting people who can’t be bothered or don’t see what’s wrong with stereotypes so long as they’re stereotypes of other people–the very thing Japan Probe accuses me of–to suddenly declare that negative stereotyping is bad all-around and, by golly, everyone oughta do something about that.

Well good. It’s about time more people did.

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Louise

I love how outraged the white community are over this!It is ridiculous. Talk about double standards!
I won’t deny the unspoken power that just merely appearing “white” holds, and I say this in a non-congratulatory manner.
And don’t even get me started on that Debito dude (he is mentioned in the article). Listening to a white dude living in Japan ranting on about how badly he gets treated verges on the absurd. He wouldn’t know what real racism was if it smacked him in the nose.