A New Pride in America?
I read the Eugene Robinson (pictured above) piece, “Obama Campaign Instills New Pride” and felt the need to comment here at Black Tokyo. Mr. Robinson writes for the Washington Post. His column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th NW, Washington, DC 20071. You can reach him at eugenerobinson@washpost.com. Please feel free to leave your comments!
Obama campaign instills new pride
Whoever wins this election, I understand what Barack Obama meant when he said his faith in the American people had been “vindicated” by his campaign’s success. I understand what Michelle Obama meant, months ago, when she said she was “proud of my country” for the first time in her adult life. Why should they be immune to the astonishment and vertigo that so many other African-Americans are experiencing? Why shouldn’t they have to pinch themselves to make sure they aren’t dreaming, the way that I do?
I know there’s a possibility that the polls are wrong. I know there’s a possibility that white Americans, when push comes to shove, won’t be able to bring themselves to elect a black man as president of the United States. But the spread in the polls is so great that the Bradley effect wouldn’t be enough to make Obama lose; it would take a kind of “Dr. Strangelove effect” in which voters’ hands developed a will of their own.
Zurui’s comment: Not only white Americans but other Americans that tend to vote Republican and not for a “normal” candidate.
I’m being facetious but not unserious. In my gut, I know there’s a chance that the first African-American to make a serious run for the presidency will lose. But that is precisely what’s new and, in a sense, unsettling: I’m talking about possibility, not inevitability.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Pay Poor Women to Stop Having Babies!
Frickin’ Eugenics or Racial Hygiene is what it is called and State of Louisiana Representative John LaBruzzo (R) is pushing it. This sort of thinking is why America needs CHANGE!
“The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that state Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) said yesterday that “he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.” LaBruzzo worries that people receiving food and housing assistance “are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated residents”:
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )He said he is gathering statistics now. … “What I’m really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare,” he said.
He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men. It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.
Is Gaijin a Racist Word or are N*ggers Over Reacting?
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: (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Chinese Authorities Order Bars Not to Serve Black People
Received this from Lord Phat, our resident Chinese linguist and MIT Sloan School of Management graduate that has lived and worked in China:
“I originally got this from the webmaster of Afroshanghai.com. It is from the South China Post, a reputable Hong Kong based newspaper. The webmaster is asking the Africans living in Beijing to confirm this and if it is completely true it is very disturbing.” Read below.
“Authorities order bars not to serve black people” reported 18 July 2008 in the South China Morning Post by
Tom Miller
In our series looking at preparations for the Games, Tom Miller reports on plans to crack down on “undesirables” in the bars of Beijing
Beijing authorities are secretly planning to ban black people and others it considers social undesirables from entering the city’s bars during the Olympic Games, a move that would contradict the official slogan, “One World, One Dream”.
Bar owners near the Workers’ Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Commentary 1: Strategies of Denial
Black Tokyo will now post commentary received from BT members as a way to present various discussions found on the BT Discussion Forum. The below commentary was submitted by Ruby Baby:
“All the commentary surrounding the E-mobile CM had me feeling a little down.
Why do I feel as though every time black people speak up about racism, there will be a significant number of voices raised to tell us, very basically, that we are merely seeing things? As a black man, I have to tell you that it’s extremely frustrating to have people challenge the legitimacy of my experience by adopting their strategies of denial.
The most pernicious idea I’ve encountered in discussions about race and racism, is the idea that racism, real racism, is something that is actually extremely rare. This is because the bar for what counts as racism has been set extremely high. Unless you’re a skin-head covered head to toe in swastika tattoos, and burning crosses on a regular basis in the front yards of black households, you’re not a racist. Racists have malice in their actions. Racist actions are violent, racist language is spewed forth in diatribes, and both are intended to cause harm. Claims of racism become tantamount to claims that someone has hatred for a particular racial group. If the incident you are talking about does not involve real racists with real hatred, then there can be no racism.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )E-Mobile Pulls Obama Inspired Advertisement
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.”
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Refused a Job for being Half/Biracial/Double, not Japanese?!
I received this from Debito regarding a [World Famous Company] in the Tohoku region of Japan that refused to employ a young Japanese man probably because he’s half/biracial/double a.k.a. in this situation, not Japanese. The [World Famous Company] even retracted their original job offer!
Apparently after the interview, the young man was separated from two other job applicants who also passed their employment and health tests. The two “full” Japanese were given jobs at the main location and the “half” was given a job seven kilometers further away from the place he was promised employment. That place does not even have a dining hall.
Now I do not know if there were only two positions at the main location or if test scores had anything to do with the decision but the young man sensed that he was a victim of racial discrimination. He kept his mouth shut for fear of not getting the “other” job. Mind you that this is not the job that he was interviewed for. The interviewer told the young man that the decision to place him in another location had nothing to do with him being half Japanese. Hmm! That does not seem like a normal thing to tell a person that you just interviewed.
A couple of things stick out: The interviewer knew from the young man’s rirekisyo that he was born in the area, went to youchien, elementary school, junior high and high school in the town the [World Famous Company] is located. The young man was raised as a Tohoku person as can thus speak the local dialect. More importantly he has a Japanese Koseki.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Black Tokyo Report 1
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!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )« 前のページ
Black Tokyo Japan 
Commentary: What Barack Obama means to me
Posted on 11月 6, 2008. Filed under: Black Resources, Commentary, Government, Politics & Security | タグ: abroad, America, american, barack, biracial, black, Blacks, change, children, clinton, culture, election, envy, family, foreign, government, hate, intelligence, interpretation, interpreter, japan, Japanese, jobs, korean, language, learn, media, military, multiculturalism, nationalism, negro, obama, politics, poverty, president, race, racism, relations, rights, stereotypes, translation, Translator, usa, vote, war, women, world |
When President-elect Barack Obama and his family take up residence in the White House it means that he will move into every household in America. He will not be just some Black dude that moved in down the street in a predominately White neighborhood and his family will not become the new Cosby Show. The Obamas move on big time to prime time on the biggest channel watched by millions in the world.
I am a child of the 60’s and a US Marine Corps veteran that served and fought for America much like my father, uncles and cousins did during the Korean War and conflict in Vietnam. The biggest difference in the conflicts during my military service and theirs is that they fought wars abroad only to return home to fight various forms of in your face racism in America.
I am a product of the Detroit public school system and moved from the ghetto to the top flo’ (and at times back down) because others broke various glass ceilings. There was a school house in Little Rock, Arkansas that had its glass ceiling broken by some black children which ultimately allowed people like me, opportunity. There was a young lawyer that had only lost one case out of 30 who went on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice in American history. His tenacity ended segregation in public schools. There was a little ol’ woman that rode a bus and refused to give up her seat (and she was not the only one, just the most famous) that translated into people like her being legally allowed to do more than keep their seat. When I headed to a school full of people that I predominately saw on television, in magazines, downtown or at the “white” shopping center, it was like being in a different country. A glass ceiling broke in my house and let in the fresh air of hope when I accomplished things that a couple of generations in my family had not. They paved the way, I just followed the path. Like a young Barack, I had a mother that shoved when I need a push and a family that supported me when I needed.
As a 16-year-old college freshman exposed to something new, I made the most of it. Barack Obama attended the some of the best schools in America and is headed as uptown as one can go in America. I am sure that he will take advantage of being exposed to something new and that he and the in-coming First Lady, Michelle Obama, will expose something new to many in America and around the world. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )