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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 401169" data-attributes="member: 3087">mutters about getting a sharper knife to cut hairs finerInteresting. I recall the dutch having access to a single, very small island off the coast of a lesser port city. It had big doors on either side of a single well guarded bridge. The dutch weren't allowed to leave though later a few medical men would get partial access to make some copies of texts.But its been some while since I took a history course and this is really off topic now.You're right I suppose. I think that tossing the term racism around every time some group of people have a bunch of strange sterotypes about another group of people kind of weakens the effect but if you define it broadly enough then any preconceved notion about someone based on their race (no matter where it comes from or how little exposure the person holding the prejudice has been exposed to the subject of their sterotype) can be called racism.In so far as the average Japanese person had no contact with Western people or their culture in any way (and given that Western itself is so broad as to be a sort of meaningless term) you can certainly say that the had some perposterious notions about non-Japanese.I guess I tend to make a sharp division in my mind between the sort of ignorance of non-Japanese possessed by the average citizen during the Tokugawa period and the attitude of the average citizen during the 30s and early 40s.(random plug: the War without Mercy by Dower, is a good look @ racism & the way it was used by leaders on both sides of the pacific during WWII <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394751728/qid=1033558634/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-0204504-5459901?v=glance" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394751728/qid=1033558634/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-0204504-5459901?v=glance</a>)</blockquote>

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