Author Archives: japansociology

Meaning of Social Movements

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by Kensuke Kubo

Around the world, a lot of social movements are happening, fighting against those who have power. Recently, in the United States, big social movement happened. In 2011, after occurring the Lehman shock, Wall Street was occupied by young Americans against the US government. The reason why they had such a strong social movement was that US government did not take enough steps to deal with the situation of economy or unemployment people after the Lehman shock. The movement is lasting even now. Participants had their common slogan, “We are the 99 percent” which means that since 1970s, the properties of rich people in top of 1 percent in the US has more and more increasing and expand gap between the 1 percent people and the others. Participants wanted to insist such an opinion to government through the social movements.

But, was this an efficient way to send their opinion? I do not think that it is efficient way to insist that. In the case of such social movements, a lot of people fight with policeman, break something like shops, cars, windows and so on. Of course gathering many opinions is important and become strong to protest someone, but participants do not have to be violent in this case.

In Japan, comparing the world, social movements are not active. Many people think that it is one of the cultures of Japanese which means that Japanese people hesitate to insist their opinion in public and tend to become silent. So, I have never seen this before until last year. But, after the big earthquake and the accident in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant happened, demonstrations are increasing more and more in all over Japan. In this demonstration, participants are gathered by using SNS such as Twitter, Facebook, mixi and so on. People from various generation are doing that, especially young or mother who has children are a lot. When I saw the scene, I noticed that it did not relate between the less social movements and specific cultures if people have to protect something like their future or family. All of the participants of the demonstration are hoping to change something, and it is the common consciousness around the world. Even I attached before that social movements is not an efficient way to insist their opinion, I think it is a good for society to be able to share their opinion.

A Demonstration and Cohesion

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by Chinatsu Kitamura

On September 17, 2011, the protest movement started by Wall Street in New York, the United States of America In this movement, since investment company, Lehman Brothers of the United States, will move application of federal Bankruptcy Law of Chapter 11 for a Federal Court in September, 2008, which is called the Lehman shock occurred, not only the United States but also the inside of the world has panted dully. Therefore, influenced people occurred the movement.

Especially, 40 percent of the young men who were 19-25 years old, graduated from high school or university did not have a job and the people participated in the demonstration to appeal to complaint against government which were not successful in Employment policy. However, with increasing the number of people who participated in demonstration, the demand was also diversified and people complained everything, a high improvement demand of an unemployment rate or a pension problem, global warming prevention and to a big-ticket house rent and tuition.

The people who participated in the movement have a common slogan, “We are the 99%.” This expresses the situation that the property which top 1% of the wealthy own in the United States of America is increasing since 1970s. According to U.S. Congress Bureau of the Budget, during in 1979 to 2007, income which top 1% of U.S. averaged increased in 275%. However, the increase in the income of the middle income group occupied 60% in the same period had only been 40% by the lowest income bracket of 20% of the low rank at 18% of increase. However, when the demonstration started, participants were young people but a lot of people who were every generation gather in Wall Street with expanding the demonstration. Many of participants were concerned with the demonstration through social networks, such as a twitter and Facebook.

In actual activities, participants stage the demonstration at 9:00 a.m. which start business of the stock market in New York stock market and 4:00 p.m. which finish it in front of New York Stock Exchange. Action policy is decided by talks by a representative system through a general assembly. And also, it has one of the features to perform systematic activity with dividing of roles such as facilitator group, medical group, food group, media group and so on.

Now, the world depression stuck in the mud. We will not see an end to this depression within a few years. Therefore, demonstration was held in the world. However, I didn’t see the demonstration directly. In Japan, few demonstrations were held and Japanese don’t express their will. So I think Japanese should imitate the United States. If Japanese don’t speak one’s mind, government may take so many liberties. Japan stand on the edge of a precipice and we have to take actions against government.

Reference

http://t21.nikkei.co.jp/g3/CMN0F12.do

Nikkei terekon21

Article of the newspaper

・反ウォール街デモなぜ拡大？――格差と雇用低迷、若者に不満

・ＮＹ「反ウォール街デモ」２ヵ月、排除に反発、抗議激化――「非暴力」から変質。

・危機先人に学ぶ――ハイエク（６）

・反ウォール街デモ、世界に波及、「格差」「反緊縮」

・反ウォール街デモ、世界に波及――ＮＹ、勢い維持。

・反ウォール街デモ、世界に波及――東京でも集会。

Malcolm X -the Radicals and the Moderates-

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by Tomotaka Isono

What is one of the most famous Social Movements in the world and in history? I think some of you answer that is  African-American Civil Rights Movement by leader, Martin Luther King, Jr.. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. However most of Japanese don’t know actuary there is another person who tried to tackle racial discrimination in the same time. His name is Malcolm X. In contrast to nonviolent and peaceful leader, King, Malcolm X is famous for violent and aggressive leader. (Incidentally, the main characters of X-Men, Professor X and Magneto are designed in the motif of King and Malcolm X.)

If you want know more about his life, I recommend the movie “Malcolm X” in 1993, so on this report, I omit the history of Malcolm X.

Now, I sort out the differences between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. King taught nonviolent resistance, and appealed racial integration that white and black will go hand in hand. He said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

On the other hand, Malcolm X accused of King’s ideas and actions as “weak in the knees”. He taught that white is devil, and mentioned that black can’t live peacefully with white.  He appealed complete racial segregation that black should establish new black original country in USA or in Africa. Moreover, he also spoke that in order to protect myself, black also have rights to use several ways like white. And one of his famous quotes is “Black is beautiful”.

Though both of them had the common views that blacks should stand up and call for own rights, however, their each ways and ideas were quite different. These different position between King and Malcolm X are called “the moderates” and “the radicals”. Generally speaking, we tend to regard the radicals as bad and wrong ways to tackle social issue. I think that violence action is wrong way, but there is a reason why the radicals are the radicals, we must consider about that. Giving one of the reasons, “freedom expression”. In the country allow the citizen to have rights to express, if people who want to do social movements publish free-paper, adress the audiences, they will not be arrested or be prohibited. If the country don’t allow freedom of express, people only have way to become more violent in order to be reported truly by foreign media. I think freedom of express make the radicals less violent.

References:

Noboru Uehara, 1994, King and Malcolm X, Koudansha-gendaishinsho

Spike Lee, 1992, Malcolm X (Movie), Warner Brothers

Social Movement in Japan

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by Hana Iwaki

In the world, there are many social movements come to arise.  For example, in Greece, about 13 million people joined the demonstration parade against the government’s tight fiscal policy.  This is very huge demonstration parade and it considerably affect to its policy. While, in Egypt, about hundred million people joined the demonstration and it made the president reignited.  This is called Egypt revolution.  According to these facts, the huge demonstration has power to change any situation.  However, in Japan there is less demonstration than other country.  Of course, I do not mean there is no demonstration in Japan. But its scale is very small.  I know that it doesn’t matter how small it is, if it could change the situation.

The most of the cause of social movements are dissatisfaction to life. But most Japanese people don’t develop this dissatisfaction to the demonstration. There are some reasons why Japanese people do not take action. First, it is said to Japanese character is one of reasons. Basically, people are gentle and they don’t like make a noise.  To say something badly, people are obedient.  They do not claim and just watching what happened in front of them. Many Japanese people are onlookers. And they have mind “self-responsibility” fundamentally; so many think the dissatisfaction to life is one’s entire fault not the government or social situation. Second, this is connected to the first reason, the lacking of interest in the politic of Japanese people.  This is big issue in Japan.  Many people think that the government won’t listen to our voice so the interest decrease and even if we took action and do the demonstration parade, it would no help for them.  And the government should reflect our voice but it doesn’t. It takes time for public opinion to be reflected in the Diet.  So people think the government doesn’t have ability to deal with and they do nothing just watching other people doing the demonstration parade. It’s none of their business.

I wrote about who don’t take action but there are surely many people who doing social movement.  However, it’s a minority group.  I think we have to take action because “Nothing action, nothing started.”

Reference

凛. (2011, 10 21). Why there is less social movement in Japan? Retrieved June 9, 2012, from Something connected to the politic: http://blog.livedoor.jp/amuro001/archives/3620949.html

The Chain of Slavery

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by Moe Kimura

There is a region called “West Indies” on the Earth. However, this region is located in the Caribbean Sea, which is southeast of the U.S. and so far from “India”. Why this region is called “West Indies”? It’s because of a historical reason.

When Columbus reached the Bahamas, in this region, he mistook there for “India” he had longed to find for many years. Therefore, this region is called “West Indies” now. But, in the West Indies, there are real (Asian) Indian people.

How they came the land, so far from India? There is a sad history.

In the 19th century, the Great Britain had huge power in the world and a lot of parts of the world were its colony. West Indies was one of them. There were many sugar plantations and so many black slaves who had been brought from Africa were working there. However, slavery in Britain was abolished in 1833. So the owners of those plantations lost their black labors. So instead of them, people of India, which was in the control of the Britain then, were taken as “coolie” to those plantations. “Coolie” means “laborer” so it doesn’t mean “slave” but in fact, they had to work as slave.

I didn’t know these things at all before I read the chapter “Color and Race in the Indo-Caribbean Diaspora,” in the book Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters. I knew that Britain and other European countries had abolished slavery of black people earlier than the U.S. (which abolished slavery in 1862), so I had an image that the Europe had more humanity or morality, in fact. But the truth was totally different. They just abolished “black” slavery.

And it was just the repeat of the history.

Before black slavery started, there were slaves from “Indio (Latin American Indian)”. They were the natives of the Central and the South America. After Columbus “discovered” Latin America and European countries conquered these regions, many natives of these regions were forced to work for Europeans as slaves. Those Indio had to work in the terrible situation and so many Indio died. Learning this terrible situation, Las Casas, who was a churchman in Spain, insisted on release of Indio. The release of Indio achieved at last, but instead of them, black people were taken from Africa and forced to work as slaves in the US or Europe.

So it was repeat of the totally same thing.

Why people couldn’t stop repeating such terrible history?

Human beings should not repeat the same mistake never again.

Married Women Want (Men) to Work

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by Robert Moorehead

On June 4th, the Japan Times took a bold step in favor of women’s rights by demanding that Japanese society make it easier for women to balance work and family. In its editorial, the newspaper rightly notes that many Japanese women (86% of those surveyed) would like to work and raise their children, but find balancing the two almost impossible.

So, the Japan Times, in all its enlightened wisdom, advocates a “cool modern” solution (to borrow Arlie Hochshild’s term): companies and the government need to make it easier for women to work both jobs.

“In simple terms, women need to leave the workplace to pick up their kids from school and daycare centers, and take care of them at home. Several hours of childcare will not interfere with total working hours if companies find ways to accommodate their female employees.”

What’s missing from this discussion? Men. The words “men” or “fathers” don’t even appear in the article.

“The future will demand more responsiveness in all areas of organization [except from men, who are incapable of picking up their children from school and daycare centers]. For Japan to move forward both economically and socially, companies must organize themselves in new ways [just as long as women still have the entire responsibility of taking care of the children].”

“The answer to the famous question ‘What do women want?’ is clear — to work. [And what do men want? They also want women to work! At home! At school! At work!]” Besides, who wants dad picking up the kids from daycare? They get in the way of his after-work drinking sessions, and he can’t take them with him to the hostess bar … unless he gets the hostess to be his babysitter … Ah, a Japanese twist on the old solution to men avoiding raising their children? Filipinas get to be both hostesses and domestic workers at the same time?

Seriously, the Japanese economy could meet much of its future employment needs by opening its workforce up to the better half of its population. But simply adding a second shift onto Japanese women’s already busy days isn’t a solution.

Different Beauty

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by Akane Yoshimura

Some beauty contests are divided by the race of the contestants. The Miss Bronze beauty contest acted to empower the blacks and show that “Black is Beautiful”. The Asian American Beauty Contest tries to encourage Asian American women to be proud of their culture. Each contests estimates contestants with different criterions, and the definition of beauty is different. This allows various contestants to discover a place to be confident of themselves. However, are the definitions of beauty truly different?

In our discussion, we saw a popular “standard” of beauty, and a tendency of fitting all the contestants into this standard. Does it make sense to divide the beauty contests if there are no differences in the definitions of beauty they make? I think that if the contests are divided, each contest should look into the particular beauty of each group and celebrate those characteristics, and not try to push them in to the only standard.

So, how can these contests be better? Carolyn Fitzpatrick, author of an article “What to judge on in a beauty pageant,” insists that contestants should be estimated based on well set standards. First, the contestant should be naturally beautiful and contests should not be a place to show what surgeries can do. Second, contestants should be valued by natural smiles and movements, not trained uneasy ones. Third, contestants should have the ability to speak up their opinions. With these three standards, beauty contests will become inspiring events, Fitzpatrick says.

However, it might be difficult to achieve these ideals, because the contests are connected with money. When the ideal of beautiful women are made in contests, female viewers of the contest will feel that they need to be closer to the appearance of the contestants on stage. This makes them buy products to change and “improve” their appearance. Though, it is hard to look like a model, and that will cause the dissatisfaction of women’s own appearance. This leads to consumers spending more money on products which will help them change their appearance, and make a large economic effect in the society. As a result, some contests will keep crowning contestants with made-up beauty.

An egoistic facet seems to be hidden in the beauty contests. The beauty contests would not represent the people of the group, and may not give people confidence of themselves and might keep women dissatisfied of themselves. It seems that beauty contests have changed and are not fully acting to celebrate the different beauties of women but to fit them into a standard.

References

How contestants are judged in the Miss America pageant. (2010). Helium.com. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from http://www.helium.com/items/1790757-miss-america-judging

What to Judge on in a beauty pageant. (2007). Helium.com. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from http://www.helium.com/items/758416-what-to-judge-on-in-a-beauty-pageant

Hope for No Separate Contests

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by Yuka Shiokawa

In the chapter “The Color of an Ideal Negro Beauty: Miss Bronze Queen 1961-1968” written by Maxine Leeds Craig, there was a phrase which caught my attention; that is “She said that she hoped for a day when there would not have to be a separate contest for black women”. This was the phrase said by a black woman Stephani Swanigan, who was crowned as Miss Bronze in 1963. She had a light skin tone and middle class background. After she was crowned, she participated in black political activism. She said this phrase when she was asked about her hopes for social change during the contest’s Question-and Answer segment.

It has been almost 50 years since this phrase was said. So I got curious about how far her hope has come to reality. In order to do this, I decided to look at the participants in the Miss USA, which is one of the biggest beauty contests in the United States. It started from 1952, so it overlaps with the time when there were Bronze Queen contests. When I looked at the winners in the past, I noticed that most of the queens are white, especially from 1950s to 1980s. It is not until 1990 the first non-white-woman was crowned. Since then, more black people started to appear in the winners’ pictures. Even the numbers of black winners are way less than that of whites, it can be said that Stephani’s hope has gradually coming true.

However, I noticed one thing after analyzing this result; there are not many Asian winners; I could find only one in the history. Instead, I found the Asian American Beauty Contest, which started from 2006 and its main purpose is “to help Asian America women to increase their cultural awareness throughout the entire country.” As you could see from the year it has started, even today people have different competition depending on races since still there is a strong image that European look is more beautiful and not the others.

After all, people might say they should not judge by their appearance no matter what race they are. Although as long as it is called a “Beauty” contest, it is impossible not to compare them by appearance. What we really need to do from the next generation’s “beauty” contest is not that we do not judge by their appearance but to change the idea of beauty which is more or less controlled by media as European look is better. As a result, we all can create the new image of beauty which has nothing to do with their race, and can finally judge beauty fairly in one single competition.

Discrimination in American Society

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by Alex Yoo

America is said that it is the most developed country by people. However, in this developed country, there is a problem which has not been solved for long time, racial discrimination. The racial discrimination on blacks has started from the slavery in 17th century. America imports blacks from Africa and make them work, mostly at plantations or large farms. The freedom was only possible by running away. The northern America bans the slavery first and the southern bans afterward. But, the legacy of the slavery turns white people to have the concept that they are still superior to black people since they had them as slaves, and they start to discriminate against blacks.

As time goes and starts to have the concept of human rights, the government starts to issue laws for the discrimination. The government issues anti-discrimination laws to have less discrimination in the country such as employment discrimination. However, are those laws really working? Do black people now feel like they are living in a country without discrimination? As it is written in Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, blacks still have different education, occupational status, and different amount of income. For education, expectation on black people at school is lower than whites have and obviously they are graded lower on assignments. Also, whites have more advantages of getting jobs or higher income than blacks have. Even though America has laws for blacks, discrimination is still prevalent.

As we can see, the discrimination cannot be solved only by the government. Then what should we do? The anti-discrimination on black people should be started from people, normal citizens. I believe that no matter what policies or laws the government makes, if the people don’t change themselves, their views on black people, the discrimination will be prevalent as it is currently. First, people should start from kids. To be more specific, kids mostly get influenced by their parents. Kids see and try to copy the thoughts or opinions of their parents. If kids see their parents thinking that they are better than the blacks, they get the notion and turn it into the discrimination like their parents. To prevent it, parents should teach kids that the black people and other races of people are same people. Second, the government should more try making opportunities to get along for blacks and whites. Both of them have their own thoughts on each other, which could be wrong. The government can provide state or city governments with money to make opportunities for blacks and whites get along, and they could start knowing each other and fix the thoughts they used to have. For example, the movie White Men Can’t Jump, there is a scene that blacks and whites playing basketball for the harmony in a city. It turns out to be not satisfying, but I think it would be good to have those kinds of opportunities.

References

Brunner, B. (2007). Infoplease. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtimeline.html

Federal anti-discrimination laws. (2002). Retrieved from http://www.policyalmanac.org/culture/archive/discrimination.shtml

Wikipedia. (2011, November 24). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_Act

Fitting People in Forms

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by Akane Yoshimura

African American women’s skin color influences their lives considerably. Historically, their skin color has been affecting their self-esteem and socioeconomic achievement. However, it is remarkable to see a change in this trend. The surveys carried in the 1990s show that dark skinned teens are more confident about their appearance than before. The author of chapter two “A Colorstruck World: Skin Tone, Achievement, and Self-Esteem Among African American Women” of the book Shades of Difference assumes a reason for this change which is the Black is Beautiful movement. This happened in the 1960s and is still encouraging black people. The movement denies the thought that black feature is ugly, and prevents black people from erasing their appearance by straightening their hair, lightening their skin, and using contact lenses to change their eye color. The author says that this movement is now reflected in the self-esteem of dark skinned teens.

So, how do we feel this change? I realized that this seems to be something happening somewhere far away, for us in Japan. Sure, blacks are a minority group in the population in Japan, but I think we can feel this change through music and other facts. We are all living in a world which is mutually connected, so we can think about this situation as something related to us. As a same gender, I cannot overlook the fact that some women have to think about their skin color when they are thinking about their marriage. As a same teenager, I hope more girls will be happy about their appearance and not estimate themselves with their skin color. I think this is what the Black is Beautiful Movement is doing. So, if the Black is Beautiful movement is changing the feelings of black people from inside, what can we do as people outside? As the author says, the environment around people will give a big influence to what they think about themselves. In the video we saw in class, a teenage girl said if a student wore suits and had an afro-style hair, it will just not fit. Who made this status? Do we have to fit in to it? I do not want to fully criticize the customs and rules in the society, but after doing the presentation, I have a feeling that if we can get rid of the way we try to fit people (including oneself) in a particular form, we can be more free to accept differences.

References

Verna M. Keith. 2009. “A Colorstruck World: Skin Tone, Achievement, and Self-Esteem Among African American Women” in Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, edited by Evelyn Nakano Glenn. Stanford, California : Stanford University Press

Wikipedia. Black is Beautiful. Retrieved May 23, 2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_is_beautiful