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!

 

 CNN eMobile Story: Play Now | Play in Popup | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.

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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.”

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