- To most Japanese people, a person who looks American is expected to be an “English-only extravert.” Thus, when a Japanese person goes out of their way talk to an American-looking person—well, at least a person who looks American to them—the selection bias is such that the Japanese person is likely to be looking for a stereotypically American interaction. Exemplified here is the general principle that outward signals of the kind of person that you are inwardly, whether choosable or unchoosable outward signals, bring into your awareness, systematically, the kind of people whose expectations would be disappointed if you’re not stereotypical in the regard expected. Being white or black; these aren’t choosable outward signals. If you’re a white or black introvert who can speak Japanese, then in Japan you’ll constantly run into Japanese people who are surprised or even disappointed unless you pretend that you’re somebody that you’re not. Your look pulls them in, but then what you’re actually like is unrelated to that.
- Expectation is thus turned into social pressure, for the kind of people who want you to fulfill the expectation will be (1) pulled into interacting with you and (2) disappointed if you don’t fulfill that expectation, and the kind of people who don’t want you to fulfill that expectation won’t be pulled into interacting with you; the latter kind of people will be by default more hidden to your awareness than the former.
- Words like “white,” “black,” “American,” “Japanese,” “man,” and “woman” can be charged with more or less identity, but words like “lightning” and “thunder” can’t. It would be useful to have separate terminology, e.g. (1) “man” as identity-laden and “adult male” as identity-free, (2) “Scotsman” as identity-laden but “adult male born and raised in Scotland” or “adult male with a Scottish passport” as identity-free.
- Interestingly, a lot of the language used among feminists and in social justice involves stripping away the identity, e.g. “people with a cervix” as opposed to “women.”
More on unfreeness, identity
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