No, of course it's not racist! Japan has no racism!

"Hey nigger!! Don't touch that Japanese woman's ass!!"

[Shigeki ] Saka (editor of Kyogaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu ---Shocking Foreigner Crime: the Underground File) said that while he knew the term "nigger" is racist, he reckoned it would have a different nuance written in Japanese. "We used it as street slang, writing it in katakana. But if we had known that we would get such a huge reaction from foreigners, we might have refrained from using it," he figured. (From the 26 Feb 2007 Japan Times.)

This is Japan and there is no racism in Japan. I wrote more about this magazine here.
To their credit, the convenience store Family Mart pulled it off their shelves after they determined it to be discriminatory.

Saka claims that he (being a pure Japanese which makes him by nature incapable of being the racist that he obviously is) means no discrimination against non-Japanese. He also said it is not extreme in tone---read the first sentence again and see if that sounds extreme to you.

The secretary general of the UN's International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, Hideki Morihara, says the magazine is only part of the problem and puts much of the blame on the Japanese government---which is where it belongs. Of course, the Japanese media, being nothing but mouthpieces for the Japanese government in most cases, is to blame too.

How much of this report will be printed in Japanese newspapers? Would it be the same, or would it put a different slant on the story? If not, it would be a bit of a surprise.

The Japan Times is not that good of a newspaper, but it is more independent than many since it is only printed in English, and is not in the kisha--press clubs---that the government uses to pressure and control the media.