Japan's "Civilized" Response to the Earthquake and Tsunami Has Inspired All the Wrong Questions

The overwhelming media response concerning the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan has been generally positive, commending Japan's response. However, there has been both a subtle and overt racism infused into these reports. Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph. D., asserts in the article that the event has been compared to the aftermath of Katrina, where it was purported many "looted" from stores and homes after the disaster, thus reinforcing stereotypes about Americans, predominately blacks. However, Japan has been commended for the complete absence of looting and people working together to survive, which is a very positive thing, but still adheres to the "meek and mild-mannered" stereotype typically placed upon Asians. The media places negative connotations upon looting after the earthquake in Chile and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but instills admiration for people scavenging, as evidenced in the photos depicting a black person "looting," and a white couple "scavenging." Of course, these negative connotations are entirely dependent upon the group in question and the who is looking at it. Either way, trying to find food, water, and shelter is not something that should be looked down upon, and this is not to say that Japan is wrong for not doing so. It is the way in which it has been received, making Japan seem superior to not only to the US but to the world as well. For instance, let's take this seemingly positive review:
"Because Japanese culture, unlike all other modern cultures, is based primarily on honor and dignity. Unlike our Katrina disaster, the Japanese don't see this as an opportunity to steal everything in sight. The so-called civilized world can learn much from the stoic Japanese."
However, this is racist in the fact that it places Japan upon a pedestal and degrades all other cultures. Who has the right to place on culture higher than the other? Japan is neither superior nor inferior than other cultures, it is just different. And as Lyubansky put it, "So, let's keep celebrating Japan's undeniable grace under fire, but let's do it without the not so-subtle anti-Haiti/Black rhetoric about "looting" and "plundering". After all, anything less on our part would be, well, "uncivilized"."