24
Sep
Remember the yo-yo? It was the rave back in day. Anyway, this guy, Black, is pretty entertaining! He even puts one of my favorite comedians to the test. Gotta love those Japanese TV shows.
8
Sep
Rackii (that’s Lucky, for you non Japanese speakers) me, Chicago has an pretty great public transportation system that just so happens to be color coded. When I need to get home, I take the Red Line southbound train to, let’s say, the Harrison stop and bam! I’m at my dorm. It’s sort of the same idea in Tokyo, but entirely more sophisticated and when I say sophisticated, I mean confusing (if you’ve never had to use a metro system before). My wonderful host mother drew out a totally kawaii map for me with perfect directions on how to get to Azubu (where Temple University Japan is located) from Koshigaya and back.
My host mother drove me to Kita-Koshigaya station to meet another home stay student, Hayley, who I’d spoken to for sometime thanks to the genius of Facebook networking. At any rate, we were very surprised at how easily we got from point A to point B. I hear it’s super easy to get lost on a train and end up in the middle of nowhere, but we actually had the pleasure of ending up in the City so my train riding confidence has gone up through the roof. However, I’m still not used to the idea of being so packed in a train I can barely breath. The second train we hopped onto was just that packed. Riding the trains here takes a certain amount of mental fortitude I had absolutely no idea I even had.
Former makuuchi division Russian wrestler, 20-year-old Toshinori Wakanoho (whose real name is Soslan Gagloev), under arrest for possessing marijuana, has told police that he first turned to drugs in his early teens, and that after he entered the sumo world he smoked dope every time he went home to Russia.
According to a statement Wakanoho made to police, he went to a nightclub in Tokyo’s Roppongi entertainment district by himself on June 20, where he was offered marijuana by a Russian man and a black man. He smoked the drug in the club’s restroom using a bong, or water pipe. Wakanoho then bought marijuana, two pipes and rolling papers from the black man for 20,000 yen. Read the rest of this entry »
There has been much debate on the terms “gaijin” (foreign/outside person) and “nigger” lately in Japan among the foreign community. In a series of articles published in the Japan Times, professor, activist, and coauthor of the “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants, Arudou Debito comes out swinging. Here is his latest article: THE CASE FOR “GAIJIN” AS A RACIST WORD: THE SEQUEL - LET’S COME CLEAN ON “GAIJIN” [Published September 2, 2008 as “The ‘gaijin’ debate: Arudou responds”]
Last month’s column (JBC August 5) was on the word “gaijin”. I made the case that it is a racist word, one that reinforces an “us-and-them” rubric towards foreigners and their children in Japan. It generated a lot of debate. Good. Thanks for your time. Now let’s devote 700 more words to some issues raised.
Regarding the arguments about intent, i.e. “People use the word gaijin, but don’t mean it in a derogatory way”. The root issue here is, “Who decides whether a word is bad?” Is it the speaker using the word, or the person being addressed by it?
Ditto for the word gaijin. People like me who have lived here for many years, even assimilated to the point of taking citizenship, don’t want to be called “gaijin” anymore. We can be forgiven for taking umbrage, for not wanting to be pushed back into the pigeonhole. Don’t tell us who we are–we’ll decide for ourselves who we are, especially in our own country, thanks. So stoppit.
Now for the more controversial claim: my linking “gaijin” with “n*gg*r”. Although I was not equating their histories, I was drawing attention to their common effect–stripping societies of diversity.
You can read the rest of the article and numerous comments here.
Here is the response that I (Zurui) sent: Read the rest of this entry »
The secrets out! Joe Biden was critical of Obama at the beginning, stating: “Obama is not ready!” Joe Biden voted for the war in Iraq. Will John McCain focus on these statements. Of course he will. But hey, game on!
Late Friday, CNN reported that Sen. Hillary Clinton had been told she is not the vice presidential choice, Joe Biden will fill the role and the US Secret Service has been dispatched to Senator Biden’s home.
Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joe Biden has extensive foreign policy experience and would help beef up Obama’s relatively light resume on matters of national security. Biden recently returned from Georgia where he met with leaders to discuss the Russian invasion and the volatile region.
Hillary Clinton was not vetted for the VP spot since she is considered not a good match for the VP ticket and Bill Clinton still carries some negative political baggage. Although Obama calls for Change, Biden is a long time Washington insider but Biden brings experience and know-how (someone who can vouch for Obama) plus the all-important foreign policy experience that McCain claims Obama lacks.
Click here to see Joe Biden’s stance on Civil Rights, Defense, and other issues.
Click here to view Joe Biden’s home page.
BTW, Biden’s son serves in the US Army JAG Corps and is about to deploy to Iraq.
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That was the question posed by Jet Magazine in 1953. Many know that the most tenacious form of legal segregation in the United States (US), the banning of interracial marriage, was not fully lifted until the last anti-miscegenation laws were struck down in 1967 by the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. At that time, inter-racial marriage meant marriages between blacks and whites.
Changes in racial attitudes in the US over the last 30 years clearly played a major role in the mushrooming of inter-racial marriages, which were illegal in most states at the end of the 19th century. As recently as 1945, the legislature of California which, next to Hawaii, has become the country’s multi-racial state passed a law that banned marriage between whites and Negroes, mulattos, Mongolians (which included Chinese and Japanese), and Malays.
US Servicemen and Japanese Women
After World War II, however, the law began to change as U.S. servicemen married Japanese women, and as the civil rights movement began challenging anti-miscegenation laws in the courts. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all such laws were unconstitutional, although it took Alabama until 2000 to repeal its ban.
Check out the new updates from Dear Life Japan. The vlogger has finally arrived in Japan!
I look forward to learning more about her experiences in rural Japan. Please be sure to send her your questions and feedback!
YouTube: Play Now | Play in Popup | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download YouTube: Play Now | Play in Popup | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download20
Jul
African-Americans have approximately 900 billion dollars in buying power and are more apt to spend it on fashion than their other cultural counterparts. With that said, here is a very interesting OpEd written by Paul Boakye in response to Italian Vogue Magazine’s all Black issue:
I discovered this video introduction by a new female J.E.T. and look forward to learning more about her experiences in Japan.
Black Tokyo’s post on the eMobile CM has made the Huffington Post. Mr. Earnest Harris in his article, “Mobile Phone Monkey Business: A Japanese Primate Plays Obama” wrote:
“The ethnic tensions stretched taut by the campaign and that have roiled U.S. culture for the last half year rippled across Japan when reports surfaced that a television ad for Japanese cellular telephone provider eMobile starred a monkey as Barack Obama.
“The response from black people in Japan and others, once news of the ad spread, was swift. Cries that the depiction was raw racism and an insult to Obama and all Blacks drew a denial of any knowing wrongdoing from eMobile. Spokespeople for the company assured the press that there was no racist intent on the company’s part and it meant in no way to demean Obama or Black people. The company pulled the ad within hours after the story broke.
One of the first outlets to key on the ad was the website and blog Black Tokyo, which is edited by Zurui, a Black American who has lived in Japan for many years. “While change is good, having the candidate depicted as a monkey is not!” he wrote soon after the ad first aired:
Click here to read the Huffington Post article.
I would like to say ARIGATO for the emails and posts submitted by the various bloggers from around the world (thank goodness for Google Translate). Needless to say, I was happy to see that CNN ran the story on my post questioning whether eMobile’s CM was considered racist: ”Obama is a Monkey in Japan?” It would have been nice for the CNN Japan reporter to acknowledge the website though. Speaking of acknowledgments, I would like to give a big shout out to Ms. Vaughn for voicing her concern on Metropolis Magazine’s MetPod. Also, kudos to the concerned citizens that appeared in the CNN Tokyo interview.
Here is a rehash on what I posted:
“Obama is a Monkey in Japan[?] (Notice the question mark) Well it SEEMS like the ugly head of racism has reared its big head again on Japanese television. E Mobile’s new cell phone commercial SEEMS to depict a presidential campaign with “red” supporters (red is E Mobile’s corporate color and not representative of the Democratic Party (blue) in this case) in the background holding signs the say “Change.” While change is good, having the CANDIDATE depicted as a monkey is not!”
I posed the question:
“Am I crazy to think that the monkey is supposed to represent Barack Obama?”
Then a statement:
“Given the track record for COMPANIES in Japan that used monkeys and blacks or monkeys as blacks in advertisements…maybe not!”
Now the responses from the blogosphere were very interesting, if not sometimes ignorant. Ignorant because some bloggers found it funny to correlate monkeys to Blacks while others felt that the Japanese would not understand the “Western” concept of things related to race and racist imagery. Many bloggers believe that my remarks stemmed from cultural baggage, whatever the hell that means.
The most telltale sign that some people were micturating in atmospheric equations of motion stemmed from the numerous claims of Blacks “screaming” of racism. I would like to believe that the voice on Black Tokyo has been reasonable, measured, and raised in a consciousness that reflects the spirit of those that do not need others to validate or approve of what is deemed racist in depiction or culturally insensitive.
The Guardian and other newspapers have reported that the E-Mobile CM showing a monkey in a suit addressing an election rally was pulled. E-Mobile denies accusations of racism but has decided to pull the advertisement.
E-Mobile stressed it had used the macaque mascot in several other adverts and never intended to insult Obama but had decided to pull the “Change” ad in response to criticism in the blogosphere.
We at Black Tokyo applaud E-Mobile’s decision to remove the culturally insensitive advertisement. No matter what others think, this is not only a Japan issue nor is it an issue that is only important to Black Americans.
Some bloggers strongly disagreed with Black Tokyo’s decision to question E-Mobile’s advertisement. Sites such as Japan Probe believed that the average Japanese viewer could not make a connection between the E-Mobile CM and Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for Change. Instead, it was felt that the Japanese would draw a parallel to the Japanese television drama, Change, starring Kimura Takuya (Kimutaku).
According to UPI Asia Online, “83 percent [of the Japanese] were closely following the election coverage – slightly more than the 80 percent of Americans who took the same survey. Japan’s expat community on a popular blog mirrored the poll’s results: “Interesting how Americans could care less about who’s running for Japanese offices, but Japan is all over American candidates,” wrote one blogger. “America is the focus of attention quite frequently.”
E-Mobile’s chief executive, Sachio Semmoto, told Reuters: ”We had no bad intentions, but this is a cross-cultural gap issue and we have to accept it. There are African-Americans in Japan, so we decided to take prompt action and shut down the ad.”
26
Jun
Wow! I have received many emails regarding my posts on E-Mobile’s commercial (CM) that parodies Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for Change. Many wrote to inform me that the CM is only a parody of a Japanese television drama. I try to keep an open mind but E-Mobile does not get a pass on this one!
As presented in my posts and comments, Blacks have had to combat negative images and stereotypes in Japan (and elsewhere). One can easily turn on the television in Japan to watch a variety of programs that still show the CONTINENT of Africa as some backwards land or Blacks in America and elsewhere as the problem to whatever plagues a country. With that said, there are also some positive portrayals of Blacks on Japanese television. I am just doing my part to make sure that there are more.
Other replies that I received asked: Why don’t you focus on more positive things? My reply: Who say’s that I don’t! Let’s just say that I am doing my part to present a positive image of Blacks and of America. When I proudly wore the US Marine Corps uniform, I presented myself, my service, my nation, and just as important my “image” as a Black male in the most positive manner. Why? That’s how I was raised and “conditioned.” Part of my conditioning comes from understanding the power of an image and power of positive action.
For example, when there is news in Japan on Blacks or negative press relating to the US Forces Japan, I try to get the “rest of the story” from my various sources in and around Japan not only to provide a fair and balance report but to get the ura (behind-the-scenes, on the street, or underground) Japan version. If you have followed the Black Tokyo Discussion Board for the past nine years, you know that I report on both the good and bad and I tend to not sugarcoat things!
Well it seems like the foreign press picked up on my Obama is a Monkey in Japan? story. Addressing the E-Mobile CM is important to me because America, considered the richest and most powerful nation in the free world, is on the path of putting a Black male in the White House. Some folks are eager to point out that Obama is not really “Black” but biracial or multicultural. Some tried to give him the Tiger Woods moniker of self-identity. Some have felt that the one-drop rule can go by the wayside, while others equate the “other” side as being the “reason” for Obama’s successes. One minute Obama is Black, another he is not Black enough.
Now, if you throw a monkey into the mix, whether it was due to racist intent or just plain stupidity on the part of a manufacturer, advertiser, or E-Mobile, then it sort of keeps the kokujin (Black person) marginalized at the highest level. The funny (not really) part is that I have received emails telling me that Obama will have a tougher time dealing with the Republican party in his quest for the White House and that the E-Mobile CM is not a cause for me to get my Afro out of shape. I protested when a Japanese singing group wore blackface (to show their soul) and I got in the mix when the “new” release of Little Black Sambo hit Japan. Color me crazy I guess!
I have talked and blogged myself crazy on issues regarding Blacks in Japan. Blacks share many notable experiences and achievements in Japan but there is still work to be done in improving our image in Japanese society. The Black experience and the use of the Black Other in Japan as a tool, scapegoat, or invisible entity in Japanese media, political circles, businesses, and in other circles is something that must be examined and corrected.
