Washington University Global Studies Law Review Volume 14 Issue 4 Global Perspectives on Colorism (Symposium Edition) 2015 Japan’s Under-Researched Visible Minorities: Applying Critical Race Theory to Racialization Dynamics in a Non-White Society Debito Arudou Hawaii Pacific University Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_globalstudies Part of the Japanese Studies Commons, Law Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Debito Arudou, Japan’s Under-Researched Visible Minorities: Applying Critical Race Theory to Racialization Dynamics in a Non-White Society, 14 WASH. U. GLOBAL STUD. L. REV. 695 (2015), https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_globalstudies/vol14/iss4/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Global Studies Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. JAPAN’S UNDER-RESEARCHED VISIBLE MINORITIES: APPLYING CRITICAL RACE THEORY TO RACIALIZATION DYNAMICS IN A NON-WHITE SOCIETY DR. DEBITO ARUDOU ABSTRACT Critical Race Theory (CRT), an analytical framework grounded in American legal academia, uncovers power relationships between a racialized enfranchised majority and a disenfranchised minority. Although applied primarily to countries and societies with Caucasian majorities to analyze White Privilege this Article applies CRT to Japan, a non-White majority society. After discussing how scholarship on Japan has hitherto ignored a fundamental factor within racialization studies—the effects of skin color on the concept of “Japaneseness”—this Article examines an example of published research on the Post-WWII “konketsuji problem.”1 This research finds blind spots in the analysis, and re-examines it through CRT to uncover more nuanced power dynamics.