‘My friend is gay’ is not an excuse

Recently, when I was talking with my colleagues, one of them said:

My colleague

You know, recently, many foreign people watch ‘Terrace house’. But, I don’t regard it as Japanese TV show as most of the actors in the show are ‘half-Japanese’.

me

What? Then you think people who are born between Japanese and a person from foreign countries are not Japanese at all!?

Ah… I don’t mean that far, I just…, I…

… I have a friend who is ‘half-Japanese’ !!

So what? It has nothing with the fact that what he said is clear discrimination. I gave up talking with him anymore.

Actually, we can hear similar things in the world of LGBT+… if you hear a person say ‘My friend is gay so that I have no prejudice’, I’m 100 percent sure that the person has distinct prejudice against LGBT+ community.

It is because a ‘friend’ who can be used for your excuse is not a ‘friend’ at all. In the novel ‘the Little Prince’, the fox said to the little prince:

To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world….

You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.

Yes, ‘friend’ is the person who changes your point of view, and who you can think it’s OK to take eternal responsibility to them. Friend is not the shield which allows you to escape from your responsibility but the sword which makes you responsible.

Therefore, if you truly have a friend who was born because of international marriage, you would never say ‘you are not Japanese’, and if you truly have a friend who is gay, you would never say ‘I don’t have any prejudice’. Next time I meet the colleague, I will show him the below phrase which is from ‘Ode to Joy’.