Regarding LukeCorrigan's July 14 letter, "Fueling a sensationalist pitch," from The Japan Times Online: Corrigan (in response to Debito Arudou's July 8 Community Page article, "Police 'foreign crime wave' falsehoods fuel racism") seems to be of the view that racists and people who oppose racism are as bad as each other, and that if people didn't try to fight back and keep us informed, the problem would simply go away.

He rightly says that police forces everywhere are racist, but the conclusion he draws makes no sense. Either he thinks that all police forces should be given carte blanche to stir up racial hatred to inflate their budgets, or what? It would seem that he believes that since racism exists everywhere (though it's fought against in most other developed countries), it should be given free rein in Japan.

Perhaps that makes sense to those whose brains are addled by samurai stories and sexist manga, but not in the real world.

jim makin
chiba

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.