Neighborhoods of Brooklyn

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Introduction

Do you know the city of Brooklyn? Brooklyn is a borough, which is familiar with its nickname ‘Crooklyn, Brooklyn’, which is located in New York City, in the south west of Manhattan. The independent “city”, with the third largest population after New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, is said to be the most famous city in the United States, and known as the most city of immigrants.

Features

By its history of settlement and city project, the city is consisted of lots of neighborhood of various immigrants, including Caribbean, Russian, Orthodox Jew, Irish, Chinese, Italian, (of course) African American, and more variety of people. As a collection of multi-ethnic neighborhoods, Brooklyn raises many excellent cultures within people’s ethnicity. In addition, they’re different not only in cultural aspect, but also economical, demographical, ethnical and sociological aspect. (Kenneth T. Jackson, Introduction P.2 L.29-32)

Marty Markowitz (Foreword L.5-7) says “The American dream is made up of stories of immigrants who created successful business; in Brooklyn, entrepreneurs built neighborhoods with their dreams.” As he said, many relevant things, for example, art, music, movie, sport, architecture and etc have been fascinating to the world. Brooklyn also brings up one of the most spread cultures in globalization era, which is called hip hop.

So far, I guess your image of this city is like, glittering, fascinating, full of variety, and kinds of these ideas. Yes. This is true; however there is also a difficulty to be in the most immigrants-city.

Multicultural co-existing

One of the merits of being full of variety may be expressed in the word ‘creativity’; however, variety also may cause conflict and trouble. In the movie ‘Do the Right Thing (1989)’, Spike Lee clearly describes this problem, which is the reality of Brooklyn.

In the movie, many types of people (immigrants) like, African American, Italian, Korean, White American and more are living together in one neighborhood. At the end of the story, frustration between people reached to the top, and this led to a riot. African Americans burned Italian’s Pizza store, one African American was killed by the police, and some guys threatened Korean couple by saying ‘Next is your turn!.’ In this scene Korean husband desperately yelled ‘No! We same!! I’m Black!!’

This movie shows the difficulty of multiculturalism or multicultural co-existing. Living together in multiculturalism might cause many conflicts between people with different cultures. Spike Lee describes how various and active Brooklyn is, but also he introduces us how complex and troublesome it is.

“Do the right thing: 11 out of 12”:

Reference & Source

“the neighborhoods of Brooklyn second edition”,
”Foreword” by Marty Markowits,
“Preface” by Osborn Ellion and Micheal E. Clark,
“Introduction” by Kenneth T. Jackson

by Yuki Atsusaka

Kyoto urges more samurai dramas: “Constant production is indispensable”

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Image from the samurai action film “Hisshiken Torisashi”

by Robert Moorehead

According to Kyodo News, officials from Kyoto city and prefecture visited TV network offices to urge them to continue to broadcast samurai TV dramas. Why? Could it be because the dramas are often filmed in Kyoto, at the city’s film studios and the city doesn’t want to lose the jobs?

While that would seem like a reasonable concern, Kyoto officials packaged their concerns in terms of spreading “Japanese culture” around the world. The TV programs are “extremely effective” in teaching Japanese culture, according to the officials. But what version of Japanese culture are the TV shows teaching? The last time I walked outside my home in Kyoto, I didn’t see any samurai walking down the street. Why the insistence on depicting an image of Japan that’s trapped in the era of samurai?

“Constant production is indispensable,” according to Kyoto governor Yamada and mayor Kadokawa, to preserve and pass on the knowledge of staff and artisans. Whether enough people actually watch the shows is apparently less important than keeping people employed in the time-honored, traditional practice of … making a television show. I would like to add that my family also requires “constant production,” that is, “constant employment” to preserve and pass on knowledge, to pay time-honored bills, and to continue the cultural practice of putting food on the table and a roof over our heads. So where’s my TV show?

How about new shows, like a drama about working in the accounting department at Olympus, where fudging the numbers, hiding losses, and padding wallets has been taken to a new level? You could even make one of the accountants dress like a samurai.

Or a show that combines samurai with cosplay?  In which a samurai travels through time to find himself winning a costume competition at Comicon.

Or the samurai get new neighbors from Brazil, and all sorts of wacky adventures ensue? The samurai could drown his sorrows by talking to a hostess from the Philippines at his favorite sunakku.

Or combine shows to make “My Samurai is a Foreigner” (Samurai wa gaikokujin), in which the lovable, romantic Tony Lazlo not only loves kanji but also is a samurai.

Or “My Wife Is a Foreign Samurai” (Okusama wa Gaikokujin Samurai), combining the Japanese pastimes of watching samurai dramas and gawking at foreigners.

Or last, but not least, a brave samurai attacks the radioactive fallout at Fukushima Dai-ichi, repairs the reactors, and then unleashes his wrath on TEPCO. Now that’s a show I’d watch.

Racial discrimination against Korean in Japan

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I’d like to write my opinion why Korean living in Japan was harshly discriminated based on my father’s experience.

My father is Korean with permanent residence in Japan, and so I’m ‘Hafu’ having Japanese nationality. My parents have been hidden the fact that my father is Korean until I discovered his passport when I was about fourteen. Recently my father and his brothers

sometimes start to talk about the story at the time Korean discrimination often occurred which is unimaginably cruel. The reason why they’ve been hidden the fact is that they were afraid of me talking about Korean and being bullied by Japanese. In any case, I’ve never been bullied because of what I am. Even though I was told earlier about my father’s nationality, my ‘Japanese’ friends also knew it, they would never bully me. How and why should I be bullied due to it?

There is not much appearance different between Japanese and Korean. Moreover my father including me cannot speak Korean at all. In my opinion, the reason of the discrimination is the historical problems between these two countries. The hostility between Korean living in Japan and Japanese has been handed down from generation to generation. In fact, I cannot deny that my father doesn’t have good intentions to Japanese. Some Japanese elders may also have the feeling that Korean living in Japan is inferior, because most of them were forced to come to Japan to work by Japanese. But in my or our generation, I think that none of us has hostility each other at all.

In today’s Japanese society, I think more and more Japanese people tend to have good intentions to Korea. Korean thrives in Japanese show business, and both Japanese and Korean travel often each country than before. And I consider or hope that oppositions between Japanese and Korean come to the end in our generation

by Masahiro Hatoyama

Media and Society: A Less Optimistic View

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How many days can you go without watching television or without using the internet? Perhaps our answers would vary accordingly. But if we really think about it and answer with utmost honesty, we would all probably end up with a somewhat similar answer – not very long.

People of today’s generation are, in my opinion, immensely media-dependent. We rely on various media platforms for our daily dose of information, communication, and entertainment. In most countries, most households would probably own at least one television set, and some households would also have access to cable television and the internet. Hence, it becomes quasi-impossible to remain completely uninfluenced by the media’s sometimes subtle and sometimes blatant magnitudes of influence – since most children literally grow up with the television screen as their babysitter.

In short, the media can influence our way of thinking – our concepts of beauty, class, and society; it can shape our political views and opinions on certain issues; it can set the trend for our lifestyles, and mold our choices as individuals and as members of a larger society. At the same time, it can also swerve our attention away from the important issues; perhaps some of today’s teens wouldn’t care about social and political issues for they are too engrossed with the entertainment aspect of the media. As an audience, we mostly have a one-way relationship with the traditional media; we accept what we are given. Hence, we accept the dominant culture that the media spreads upon its audience.

Renowned journalism professor Maxwell McCombs stressed the media’s great potential for agenda-setting. For McCombs, the news media in particular can “set a nation’s agenda, to focus public attention on a few key public issues.” Hence, in my own opinion, the media can choose to magnify and spread a certain culture or ideology while minimizing or completely ignoring the existence of other cultures.

Edward Said, a distinguished cultural critic, wrote the book “Orientalism” wherein he discussed how Asia has been viewed in a certain way – with racism and prejudice. This stereotype is a result of the dichotomy created by the West – wherein the non-Western is called the “Other.” I borrowed Said’s idea and applied it in the context of the media and society – the media created a hierarchy of cultures, hence labeling one as the dominant ideology or the norm, and all the rest as the “other” culture outside the norm, perhaps deemed as the less important one. This is clearly an example of how globalization and its effects on the media can undermine cultural diversity. The way it works is very subtle and yet the effects are tremendous – we go home, watch TV, surf the internet, read, sleep, interact – this cycle may seem normal, but what we don’t realize is that within our daily media consumption, certain ideologies are being inculcated within us. We are heavily influenced and we don’t even realize it.

For many years, it has become apparent that the media has fostered the dominance of one culture – the Western culture – thus, giving birth to the westernization of the global media. Most of today’s media filled with Western tones – values, ideas, and perspectives. This is a manifestation of how globalization was able to homogenize the prevailing media culture. One could even argue that the media was able to spread cultural imperialism, in which Western ideals are strongly represented as universal, hence trampling over local cultures and individuality. Western depictions of non-western imagery can also be flawed and biased. As a media student, I have observed that stereotypes still persist within the popular media – most of which are discrimination based on class, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, sex, and gender. This is highly detrimental because it can lead to a misunderstanding of one’s own culture, hence compromising one’s holistic understanding of the world, in favor of praising and adapting Western ideologies.

Going back to my earlier statement – the media is everywhere we go, each country has its own media empires. If we examine the dominant media culture across the globe, it is difficult to ignore the fact that these media and cultural products may physically exist in different countries, hence within different cultures embedded within different societies; however, their geographic locations do not determine the type of ideology they emanate from, as well as the type of culture they disseminate. Instead of the local contributing to the global, it seems that the global is merely penetrating the local – a one-way process in which Western values are forced upon most societies. It seems that there is a continuous cycle of cultural monopolization within the media industry as a whole.

How long can you go without watching television or without using the internet?

by Fritz Rodriguez

To whom do Cities Belong?

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Do cities belong to those who bring in more money or those who live there? I think the former. I want to illustrate this point with the example of my hometown city; Dalian, China.

Dalian is a coast city in northeast China. It is not very big but kind of developed comparing with most cities in China. Although the economy of Dalian is growing rapidly, it seems that it has little effect on people’s living standard. The wage level of Dalian is not very high, but the price level always stays ahead in China cities price level ranking list. Because of its beautiful coast sceneries and less-polluted environment, Dalian is orientated to be a tourist city. However, I do not think this can be the reason of low income and high consumption.

The high house prices in Dalian should be mentioned. The average wage is 3000 RMB/month, and the average house price is 6000 RMB/square meter. There are many people who come from Dalian who go out and work in some big cities in which they can earn more money and live better, such as Beijing and Shanghai, because they believe they cannot afford the high house rent in Dalian. At the same time, people that are from some smaller cities are trying to live in Dalian, so they come to Dalian and work there. They feel good to live in a relatively nice and developed city and earn more than in their hometown. Their emersion intensifies the reduction of wages, since bosses can give them lower wages than local workers and also make them happy. Thus I feel Dalian people don’t have the ‘right to the city’, because it is not them who can make decisions of the city’s development direction, but someone that have power or money such as the government and investors who set up companies in Dalian.

Moreover, I want to give another simple example. I’m not sure if you know the Summer Davos in China? It is a global economic forum. In the summer of years 2007, 2009, 2011, the Summer Davos is held in Dalian. There were people from the 500 top companies around world coming to Dalian. However, my example is not about Davos but the environment during the Davos period. We can easily find that when Davos is coming, the whole Dalian city will become much cleaner than ever. It makes people feel the clean environment is only made for people who will attend Davos, but not for the people who live in Dalian all their life. In addition, almost all of fairgrounds are forbidden as they are thought to damage the appearance of Dalian city. This makes some inconveniences to people’s living.

Generally speaking, I think the city belongs to the ones who bring in more money and the development of the city is also for them. People who live in a city do not really have a ‘right to the city’.

by Xue Wang

Cardboard beds in the land of high technology

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by Robert Moorehead

I don’t know whether to be impressed or depressed. A cardboard manufacturing company has come up with a way to keep tsunami refugees warm when they sleep in their temporary homes: bed frames made of cardboard boxes. Instead of laying their futons on the cold floor, refugees can now lay them on a bed made of overturned boxes. With their bodies off the cold floor, the refugees can stay warmer when they sleep.

Is this a case of private sector ingenuity? Of concerned citizens filling a gap left by government incompetence? Of people pulling together to help each other in a time of crisis? Of a manufacturer looking to sell more boxes? Instead of a cardboard manufacturer stepping up to the plate, why aren’t Nitori and Ikea donating a bunch of beds?

On the one hand, this is a low tech, environmentally friendly solution. It uses items that are readily available, and costs very little. On the other hand, be careful you don’t spill any liquids on your bed, or it will disintegrate. And sexual intimacy with your partner on a bed made of cardboard? Now that’s romantic. More importantly, why are the temporary houses so cold in the first place? They also leak when it rains. How long will refugees have to endure such a standard of living? And in a land of plenty, why are refugees forced to to emulate the homeless when trying to stay warm?

What’s next? Newspapers make good blankets, so when you’re sleeping on your boxes, cover yourself with newspapers you find in the trash. Is this glass half-empty or half-full?

Source:
“Cardboard Beds to Keep Quake Victims Warm, Comfortable in Winter.” Mainichi Daily News, Oct. 27, 2011.  http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20111026p2a00m0na020000c.html

Occupy Tokyo – We Are the 99%

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Sharing their pain: Participants in the “Occupy Tokyo” rally demonstrate solidarity with their counterparts in New York City during a gathering at Mikawadai Park in the Roppongi entertainment district Saturday. SATOKO KAWASAKI PHOTO

by Robert Moorehead

The Arab Spring turns westward to the United States, and now across the Pacific to Japan, as protestors are occupying public spaces to demand a more just distribution of wealth. In the United States, protestors have decried the dramatic concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the country’s population. While the US holds much of the world’s wealth, recent decades have seen this wealth concentrated in the hands of a select few, while much of the country struggles with long-term unemployment, a housing crisis, and growing poverty. While the nation’s political debate has focused on whether millionaires and billionaires should receive new tax breaks, and how large those tax breaks should be, protestors have occupied a park near Wall Street, demanding a new social contract that focuses on the needs of the many, rather than acquiescing to the luxuries of the few. Protests have also spread across the United States, and to Tokyo, where protestors have added demands for a safer energy supply.

Mass media in the United States have largely ignored the protests, despite the arrests of hundreds of demonstrators. However, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites have filled the void. Gil Scott-Heron told us 41 years ago to not sit back and wait for the revolution to come to us via corporate-run mass media. Instead, “the revolution will not be televised.”

“You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out …
Because the revolution will not be televised.”

But will it be Tweeted? Will it be live-streamed over the Internet? Can social networking sites sidestep the mass media and “televise” the revolution, even if mass media ignore it?

Are you the 99%? Or the 1%?

Student Essay Contest – Reimagining Japan

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This is from nipponnomirai.jp. Contest winners can receive 250,000 yen or an iPad 2.

McKinsey & Company recently convened 80 thinkers in and outside of Japan to share their perspectives on the future of the country. The process evoked candid and creative answers that came together to form the book Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future That Works.

To celebrate the publication of this special book and add to its rich mosaic of ideas, McKinsey & Company is organizing an essay contest. Participants are asked to select one of six essay themes addressing the future of Japan (details below), and submit essays of no more than 2,000 English words or 4,000 Japanese characters. The grand prize winner will be awarded ¥250,000, and five runners-up each will receive an iPad2. Winning student essayists will be recognized at an awards ceremony and their essays will be published on the Reimagining Japan website, http://www.nipponnomirai.jp.

Eligibility

【Student division】The contest is open to individuals of any nationality enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate university program in Japan, and to Japanese nationals enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate university program in abroad as of October 31, 2011

【General public division】The contest is open to individuals of any nationality who are living in Japan and to Japanese nationals who are living abroad under age 31 as of October 31, 2011

Submissions

Students are required to complete the online submission form and submit essays online and also send a copy by postal mail. The contest deadline is October 31, 2011* (submissions must be postmarked no later than October 31, 2011).

* Deadline has been extended to October 31 from September 30.

-Online: Please visit http://www.nipponnomirai.jp and click on the “apply” button to send your essay via e-mail (in .doc or .docx format) with your
①Name
②Address
③Telephone
④E-mail address
⑤Gender
⑥Date of birth
⑦Name of school/company
⑧Faculty&Major/department
⑨Class level(*student only)
⑩Theme
⑪Division（Student or General public)
-Postal address: Essay Contest Office, McKinsey & Company, Inc., Japan Roppongi FirstBuilding, 9-9, Roppongi 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8509, Japan (please include your name, address, and telephone number)

Essays must be prepared in MS Word in either English or Japanese, and be no more than 2,000 English words or 4,000 Japanese characters in length. This count excludes any footnote citations or bibliography. The file size should be 10MB or less. Essays will not be returned after the contest.

Themes

Essays must cover one of the following six themes:

  1. Reimagining Japan “My vision” (the overall theme of Reimagining Japan)
  2. Revamping Japan’s economy
  3. Japan’s role in a globalized world
  4. Recapturing Japan’s leadership in technological innovation
  5. Developing the future leaders of Japan
  6. Revitalizing Japanese society

Judges

  • Tadashi Yanai, Chairman, President, and CEO of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.
  • William H. Saito, President of InTecur Inc.
  • (We are going to expand our list of judges before the end of the contest)

Winner notification

McKinsey & Company will notify winners by post an announcement on the websites in December 2011.

Awards

The grand prize winner will be awarded ¥250,000, and five runners-up will each receive an iPad2. Winning participants will be recognized at an awards ceremony, and their essays will be published at http://www.nipponnomirai.jp and other selected websites of McKinsey & Company.

All participants will be invited to a planned gathering with judges and senior McKinsey & Company consultants.

Conditions

Only one submission will be accepted per student. Students must work independently (no joint submissions). The work must be original and not previously published.

All participants who submit an essay agree that McKinsey & Company is permitted to display their essays on websites, and publish them in upcoming books and periodicals by McKinsey & Company.

The Reimagining Japan essay contest, essay submissions, and contest results are separate and unrelated to McKinsey & Company’s recruitment process. All decisions made by McKinsey & Company in relation to the essay competition are final.

Contact

McKinsey & Company, Inc., Japan, Essay Contest Office

–E-mail: nipponnomirai@mckinsey.com
–Address: Roppongi First Building, 9-9 Roppongi 1-chome Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8509, Japan

Contest organizers

McKinsey & Company, Inc., Japan; Shogakukan

Blackface is back (if it ever left)

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Window Display of Ufu and Mufu

by Robert Moorehead

Imagine my surprise as I walked through Kyoto Station’s shopping areas today, when I came across a large window display filled with cartoon images of blackface children. Skin as dark as night, giant, oval eyes, ruby red lips, and large, bushy afros greet customers to the shop “Mono Comme Ça.” The display announces the release of a sequel to “Little Black Sambo,” called “Ufu and Mufu: The Cute Little Twins’ Big Adventures.” Ufu and Mufu are Sambo’s younger twin siblings. The parents, Mambo and Jambo, are still around, and with Mambo still dressed as a mammy, right down to her plus-size body, red apron, and red bandana. Accompanying the release of the book are a CD-DVD combo, and various merchandise, like pins, patches, dolls, mugs, and purses, all adorned with jet black faces and giant eyes. The DVD features a music video of the whole family dancing in the jungle with wild animals.

So, is this racist? Is it just a cute children’s story about two African children who have an adventure in the jungle? What harm could there be in that? What could be racist about “Little Black Sambo”? I won’t rehash the history of LIttle Black Sambo here, but you can check out the Wikipedia page. I will ask why some people find stories that depict racial others as simple, primitive, and musical so appealing. Why do we still see blackface characters in 21st century Japan advertising products and adorning t-shirts?

Cover of the story of Ufu and Mufu

Before showing my Japanese students the documentary Ethnic Notions last semester, I asked them this question. Several raised the valid point that the images can have different meanings in Japan than in the United States, and that we shouldn’t impose American meanings on the Japanese context. Others noted that Japan lacks the United States’ particular violent history of systematic racial oppression. I agreed, but I argued then (and still argue now) that these images still do the same thing in Japan as they have done in the US: they define a racial other, and thereby help those who are consuming these images to define themselves as superior.  As John G. Russell has argued, Japanese people have historically used these images to place themselves within a global racial order.

Some have used cultural arguments to claim that these images represent long-held Japanese beliefs regarding skin tone, and the valuing of lighter skin. However, this claim fails to recognize the historical evolution of these images in the popular imagination in Japan. The images are not recent imports from the United States (Commodore Perry’s crew performed a minstrel show in blackface for their Japanese hosts upon securing the opening of Japan to US trade in 1854), nor are they simply kawaii (cute) adornments for modern-day children or adults.

As Russell (2008) notes:

The various characters in the story, including Mambo

Japanese attitudes toward black people have been neither static nor universally negative. Rather it appears attitudes evolved in tandem with Japan’s exposure to outside cultures, principally—but not exclusively—those of the West, whose own attitudes toward blacks and other dark-skinned peoples were decidedly negative when it encountered Japan in the sixteenth century. Cultural reductionist models that attribute Japanese antiblack attitudes to deeply embedded, remarkably static traditional aestethics or to a visceral revulsion toward black skin tend toward an ahistoricism that retreats from interrogating power relations in the construction of color prejudice writ large and the role Western racial paradigms have played in the global invention of black alterity. Such models fail to explain why racially ascribed attributes such as laziness, stupidity, and hypersexuality—which Japanese had ascribed to outsiders regardless of skin color—came to be associated primarily with dark-skinned people. Nor do they explain why—unless one is prepared to posit a universal negrophobia—these traits are identical to those ascribed to blacks in the West.

Ufu’s merchandise

Russell connects negative perceptions of Africans with the various historical institutions of slavery, which transmitted images and understandings to Japan. These perceptions were further fed by the import of Western “scientific” racism, and other global discourses on race.

Long story short, these images not only matter, they also travel. Japan doesn’t exist in a vacuum. While we can re-interpret these images in new contexts, those new interpretations often hew closely to their original meanings. Race remains a key social marker, and using images of happy little darkies sitting down to a meal of pancakes after a long day of dancing with tigers and monkeys does little to help us reach the promised land.

This story depicts blacks as primitive and musical—showing them as sexual might be too much for a children’s story. Perhaps we should be thankful they’re not also playing basketball?

So what do you think?

Links:
Wikipedia page on Little Black Sambo.
Russell, John G. 2008. “The Other Other: The Black Presence in the Japanese Experience.” In Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity, 2nd edition. Edited by M. Weiner. London: T&F Book UK.
iPhone App for the book in the Japanese iTunes Store. Write a review.
Facebook page for Ufu and Mufu. Post your thoughts on their page.
Five Foxes Customer Service number: 0120-114563. Share your thoughts with the corporate office.

Window display for Ufumufu merchandise

Robot teachers replacing foreigners?

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by Robert Moorehead

I don’t understand this one, or maybe I just don’t want to. While Japanese researchers focus on building high-tech robots that can provide health care to the country’s growing elderly population, South Korean researchers are building robots to teach English to Korean children. The planet is already teeming with people who can do both tasks, and who could really use a job. So why use robots?

According to the Mung Sam Kim, of the Center for Intelligent Robotics at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea has a shortage of English teachers. Plus, past teachers have suffered from a “moral problem.” These robots have no sense of morality at all–a clean slate! The robots will connect to a call center in the Philippines, where English teachers can help the children without sullying up Korean classrooms with their presence.

The $100 million the South Korean government is spending on robotics grants could hire a lot of English teachers, and the same goes for the Japanese investments into robot caregivers. The children and the elderly would have human contact, and after work the teachers and caregivers could go out into the Korean and Japanese economies and spend money, thereby returning money back into the government pension and health care systems.

But then we wouldn’t have cool robots tell us in lame computerized voices that our English pronunciation is not good.

What does this say about the prospects for integrating foreigners into Korean and Japanese society? Why are robots preferable to people? Should I be replaced with a robot?

Link: The Chronicle of Higher Education