by Hironari Shibata

In Japan, skin lightening and skin-whitening products are all over the place when we go to drugstores. It is so widely spread out that even people like me, who have never used skin-whitening products know what they are and how popular it is in the Japanese society. The skin-whitening products are not only sold in Japan, and they are sold in many parts of the world. Why do people use these products to whiten their skin? Is it because of fashion? self-hate? or is it some sort of influence by media? In our class we discussed this question and we said that it was the combination of all of these factors, and that the ratio of each can be different among each individuals, and different among countries.

Even though skin-whitening products are sold in many parts of the world, are the reasons for people to whitening their skins the same between the people in Japanese and the people with dark skin (ex. African-Americans)? The answer is more likely to be no. As for the Japanese people I talked to, they said that they use skin-whitening products in order to make their skin look prettier. In the Japanese society, ‘white’ has represented wealth from the past, and now, ‘white’ is viewed as a part of the Japanese fashion.

On the other hand, people like the African-Americans, who are born with a darker skin color whiten their skin for a slightly different reason. According to Evelyn Nakano Glenn, blackness of African people was seen as dirt in the 1930s, and there were already skin-whitening products from that point (Glenn, 2009, p. 169). This may be related to the reason why people in Africa or the African-American people whiten their skin. In the past, white skin represented higher status and dark skin meant having a low status in the society. Therefore, people with dark skin color whiten their skin because whitening their skin will improve their social status.

However, this won’t be the case for Japanese people. It is because in Japan, skin tone does not matter much on their social status. Comparing the use of skin-whitening products between Japanese and people in African or the African-American people, there is a difference in the purpose of why people use these products.

Reference

Glenn, N. E. (2009). Consuming lightness: Segmented markets and the global capital in the skin-whitening trade. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of difference: Why skin color matters (pp. 166-187). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

by Mayumi Kurosawa

We read and studied skin tone and the persistence of biological race in egg donation in class. Of course, I know that there are many infertile couples want their baby and they choose egg donation as a medical interventions. But, I don’t understand why they choose egg donation and don’t agree with egg donation itself.

In Japan, egg donation is still in a gray zone. The legal system about egg donation has not been constituted enough, so there are few clinics that practice egg donation. Therefore, most Japanese people are not familiar with egg donation. But, in America, it’s not illegal and more egg donations are occurring and accessibility is improving. In fact, Japanese infertile couples go to America to be donated egg. For example, Seiko Noda, she is a Japanese politician, was donated an egg in America and gave a birth to her son.

In addition to the ambiguity of legal system, many Japanese people have traditional ethic of reproduction. They prefer natural way of reproduction. From far past, Japanese people prefer natural to artificial reproduction. It is thought that unnatural and artificial way of reproduction is against natural and it is harmful to women’s body in Japan. For example, many clinics suggest natural childbirth without injection stimulating labor to pregnant women. Injecting drugs and stimulating labor artificially is against nature, and it might bring some bad influence and danger both mother’s body and baby. But, in America, painless or artificial childbirth with injection stimulating labor is popular. In terms of Japanese ethic of natural reproduction, egg donation, picking eggs from donor, fertilizing the eggs with a sperm, and then putting it recipient’s body, is truly unnatural. And, egg donation has very complicated process and it takes long time, which burdens women’s body.

The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (JOGR) pointed out that with egg donation it was difficult to hold anonymity of donors. They also stated that egg donation was admitted on condition of anonymity and egg donation which egg donated from one’s friends or sisters was not be admitted because of difficulty of protecting anonymity. JOGR makes much of anonymity, whereas in America whether anonymity is protected or not is questionable. Egg donation in America, recipients can choose donor from the database in which race/ethnicity are arrayed and academic backgrounds, health conditions, and so on, are listed. If I were a recipient and could choose one donor from broader choices, I think I would not choose a donor with unhealthy condition, criminal record, and no specialties, would choose a smart, good looking, healthy, and no criminal record one. Personally I don’t care much about donor’s race/ethnicity or skin tone, but these four conditions are very important elements for me. I think that choosing a donor is like arranging a child who fits perfectly to your taste.

Also, a business aspect of egg donation is controversy. If there are a lot of demands to certain race/ethnic women donors, they can command more money than other race/ethnic women. For example, according to Los Angeles Times, recently, there a lot of demands to Asian women donors, so Asian women can be compensated more $10,000 to $20,000 for their eggs, whereas women of other ethnic groups typically get about $6,000, but they can’t for lack of demand. I know the balance of supply and demand, but I can’t help thinking that egg donation agencies and fertility clinics decide the price of each race/ethnic.  It may be too idealistic but I do think all race/ethnic should be treated equally and no race/ethnic is superior or inferior to each other.

For these reasons I don’t understand why infertile couples choose egg donation. I don’t agree with egg donation, but I think that the government should discuss and set up legal system of egg donation whether it will be banned or admitted, as long as there are infertile couples who want eggs and bother to go abroad to receive a treatment or egg donation include some problem such as a dangerous to women body and deciding the price of race/ethnic.

References

Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2007). Retrieved June 21, 2012 from: http://www.jsog.or.jp/news/html/announce_05JUN2007.html

Li, S. (2012). Asian women command premium prices for egg donation in U.S. Retrieved June 21, 2012 from Los Angeles Times.

by Hironari Shibata

Egg donation is one of the treatments done to women that want children but they can’t have kids because of the women being infertile. The book that we read talked about egg donation in the United States, and focused on the racial issues that African-American women face in the process of egg donation. However, in this blog, I would like to discuss about egg donations in Japan, and how Japanese (also Asian) women are treated in the United States when they become donors.

In Japan, egg donation is kind of in the gray zone, because law neither accepts it nor law prohibits it. However, paying and receiving money through egg donation is clearly prohibited. Some hospitals practice egg donations in Japan, but the numbers are very low. According to Akiko Okazaki, many young Japanese women go abroad (mainly Korea, Thailand) to donate their eggs and receive money (Okazaki, 2011).

In the United States, where egg donations are more popular, the demand for Asian eggs is now very high. Shan Li explains that Asian donors are paid way higher price for their eggs compared to other women’s eggs of different race (Li, 2012). The price for Asian eggs is high because of mainly two reasons. First reason is that Asian women are thought to have high educational backgrounds, and the child from their egg might have better brains compared to others (ibid.). However, there is no scientific evidence to support this. Another reason is that the supply of Asian eggs is lower than the demands for Asian eggs (ibid.). This can be explained from the Asian culture. I think that Asian people tend to care more about race and moral aspects of donating eggs to another people. Especially in Japan, egg donation is not familiar to most of the people, and they question the morality behind egg donation. Is it okay to donate your egg to someone that you don’t know? Is it okay to receive an egg from someone you have never met before? These feelings make it hard for women to start donating their eggs, even if it’s in a far away country. It will take a lot of time for egg donations to become popular in Japan.

Reference

Li, S. (2012). Retrieved June 12, 2012 from Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-egg-donation-20120504,0,616365,full.story

Okazaki, A. (2011). Retrieved June 12, 2012 from Asahi Shinbun: http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201107270424.html

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.

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

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.

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 17^th 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

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

by Moraima Flores

As written in Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, South America has a way of looking at race by appearance and not by ancestry. This may sound liberal in a way that we don’t have to identify ourselves or be identified in “white or black.” We get many more options, and options are always good.

The problems pointed out in the chapter “The Social Consequences of Skin Color in Brazil,” written by Edward Telles, are those of self-identification, racial mixture, color-blindness, and affirmative action. It is difficult to address such sensitive problems, especially in Brazil, where the criteria for “race” isn’t defined, not even addressed.

When is someone negro in Brazil? Well, we could say someone is black because of its ancestry (the one-drop rule), but then probably more than half the population in Brazil would be black; so what would be the point of affirmative action and quotas? Besides, being Brazil a country with such a large population of black, where the culture is more African than European, it wouldn’t be crazy to be proud of being negro, at least that’s what I would think. Why not apply the one-drop rule the other way around then?

When it comes to affirmative action, we need to have an official, legal criterion to tell who is who. Although I don’t agree with the American way of looking at race, I have to admit that at least they do have it clear(er) and well-defined. However, even if Brazil were to do the same, how can we now tell the ancestry? For starters, I don’t even know mine and although I tried keeping track of it once I started feeling curious about it, I found nor my parents, neither my grandparents know. So, again, how do we define who is what?

In class, during the discussion, someone said that the benefits of affirmative action should be given to the less fortunate economically. Japan does that ―maybe not under the label of “affirmative action” but helps young people afford school, and single mothers feed their children―and I think it is a great idea. However, as Telles says, we can’t ignore that “color” is a factor for the huge gap between light-skin Brazilians and dark-skin Brazilians. Yes, we live in the 21^st century, and we all think that discrimination is in the past, that we are all equal, and that we don’t look at someone by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, but is this true? Maybe for people on the top of the social-class pyramid that’s how it works, but I’m not so sure about how less advantaged people think about this.

References

Telles, E. 2009. “The Social Consequences of Skin Color in Brazil.” Pp. 9-24 in Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, edited by Nakano Glenn, E. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

by Yuka Shiokawa

Until I read and watch the video, I did not know the existence of affirmative action in Brazil and the United States. After I learned a little about it, I start to relate this system to the ethnic minorities in Japanese society such as Okinawans or Zainichi Koreans. Then I thought whether Japan should adopt the affirmative action or not and my conclusion is no, because of the difficulties of categorization and some risks that might be caused.

Before the presentation, I did a brief research about the population in Brazil based on CIA’s data. According to that, there is a clear border between the blacks and whites drawn by Americans. However, in reality, it is not as simple. As it was described in the reading, since Brazil has very mixed colors for the historical reasons, it is hard to distinguish who is black and who is not. In addition, the ways they categorize themselves is totally different and vary for hundreds of types. So it is hard to decide who can be supported by the affirmative action and not.

I think more or less the same thing will happen in Japan too. If we adopt the affirmative action, some people might be categorized in the socially weak position. However, those people may not think they are. In fact, I have many friends who are Zainichi Koreans but I do not see any difference from myself. People around them would not even recognize them as Koreans or Okinawans if they do not claim it. Also, I do not think they would categorize themselves as socially weak people neither. As a result, I think it is going to be hard to draw the line for categorization since the self identification and identification by others varies as it does in Brazil’s color differences.

In addition, I think there are some risks too. Considering this type of situation around me, I am afraid that by taking affirmative action, it emphasizes the difference more than today and it simply ends up labeling them as inferiors. Also, there are some people who are ethically privileged in this society but struggling with some problems. It is possible that those people might get jealous of getting an affirmative action just because of their roots and this could be the cause to create racists. In conclusion, I think Japan should not take affirmative action because I do not think there is such clear distinction between the privileged and non-privileged in a sense of race inside of this country. It might help those who are socially weak systematically, but it can draw clearer borders and widen the distance mentally among people than today.