After protests by local non-Japanese residents, the Genky store in Minokamo, Gifu prefecture, has taken down the signs that warned foreign customers that they were being watched as potential criminals.
My Portuguese skills are limited, so hopefully a reader can help translate the video. I am encouraged by the response of the local non-Japanese community in standing up for their rights, and by the fact that the store management responded to those concerns.
Stereotypes are harder to maintain when the person the stereotypes supposedly describe is standing right in front of you. In that case, we sometimes fall victim to what Tim Wise has called “enlightened exceptionalism.” That is, have prejudiced views about a group but making an exception for individual members of that group. This approach lets prejudiced whites vote for Barack Obama, while still holding racist views of African Americans. In this case, clerks at the Genky store might have said to the protestors, “Of course the sign doesn’t describe you. It refers to other foreigners.”
The protestors used the uncomfortable tension the staff likely felt when confronted with protests to their advantage, in demanding that the signs be taken down and in rewarding the removal of the signs with applause. In so doing, they hopefully have taken a step toward turning a foe into an ally. But whether the staff at Genky will still watch non-Japanese customers with suspicion or not, at least that suspicion is no longer publicly posted for all the world to see. The public posting of the signs reproduced and reinforced negative stereotypes of foreigners in Japan.
Here is an update to my recent post on the American teacher who is being challenged for his lessons on racism and discrimination in Japan. Medama-sensei has posted an update, explaining why he will not be taking down his videos. Ganbare, sensei! And thank you for speaking truth to power.
Miki Dezaki, who first arrived in Japan on a teacher exchange program in 2007, wanted to learn about the nation that his parents had once called home. He taught English, explored the country and affectionately chronicled his cross-cultural adventures on social media, most recently on YouTube, where he gained a small following for videos like “Hitchhiking Okinawa” and the truly cringe-worthy “What Americans think of Japan.” One of them, on the experience of being gay in Japan, attracted 75,000 views and dozens of thoughtful comments.
Dezaki didn’t think the reaction to his latest video was going to be any different, but he was wrong. “If I should have anticipated something, I should have anticipated the netouyo” (spelling corrected from original post), he told me, referring to the informal army of young, hyper-nationalist Japanese Web users who tend to descend on any article — or person — they perceive as critical of Japan.
But before the netouyo put Dezaki in their crosshairs, sending him death threats and hounding his employers, previous employers and even the local politicians who oversee his employers, there was just a teacher and his students.
Dezaki began his final lesson with a 1970 TV documentary, Eye of the Storm, often taught in American schools for its bracingly honest exploration of how good-hearted people — in this case, young children participating in an experiment — can turn to racism. After the video ended, he asked his students to raise their hands if they thought racism existed in Japan. Almost none did. They all thought of it as a uniquely American problem.
Gently, Dezaki showed his students that, yes, there is also racism in Japan. He carefully avoided the most extreme and controversial cases — for example, Japan’s wartime enslavement of Korean and other Asian women for sex, which the country today doesn’t fully acknowledge — pointing instead to such slang terms as “bakachon camera.” The phrase, which translates as “idiot Korean camera,” is meant to refer to disposable cameras so easy to use that even an idiot or a Korean could do it.
He really got his students’ attention when he talked about discrimination between Japanese groups. People from Okinawa, where Dezaki happened to be teaching, are sometimes looked down upon by other Japanese, he pointed out, and in the past have been treated as second-class citizens. Isn’t that discrimination?
“The reaction was so positive,” he recalled. For many of them, the class was a sort of an a-ha moment. “These kids have heard the stories of their parents being discriminated against by the mainland Japanese. They know this stuff. But the funny thing is that they weren’t making the connection that that was discrimination.” From there, it was easier for the students to accept that other popular Japanese attitudes about race or class might be discriminatory.
The vice principal of the school said he wished more Japanese students could hear the lesson. Dezaki didn’t get a single complaint. No one accused him of being an enemy of Japan.
That changed a week ago. Dezaki had recorded his July classes and, last Thursday, posted a six-minute video in which he narrated an abbreviated version of the lesson. It opens with a disclaimer that would prove both prescient and, for his critics, vastly insufficient. “I know there’s a lot of racism in America, and I’m not saying that America is better than Japan or anything like that,” he says.
Also on Thursday, Dezaki posted the video, titled “Racism in Japan,” to the popular link-sharing site Reddit under its Japan-focused subsection, where he often comments. By this Saturday, the netouyo had discovered the video.
“I recently made a video about Racism in Japan, and am currently getting bombarded with some pretty harsh, irrational comments from Japanese people who think I am purposefully attacking Japan,” Dezaki wrote in a new post on Reddit’s Japan section, also known as r/Japan. The critics, he wrote, were “flood[ing] the comments section with confusion and spin.” But angry Web comments would turn out to be the least of his problems.
The netouyu make their home at a Web site called ni channeru, otherwise known as ni chan, 2chan or 2ch. Americans familiar with the bottommost depths of the Internet might know 2chan’s English-language spin-off, 4chan, which, like the original, is a message board famous for its crude discussions, graphic images (don’t open either on your work computer) and penchant for mischief that can sometimes cross into illegality.
Some 2chan users, perhaps curious about how their country is perceived abroad, will occasionally translate Reddit’s r/Japan posts into Japanese. When the “Racism in Japan” video made it onto 2chan, outraged users flocked to the comments section on YouTube to attempt to discredit the video. They attacked Dezaki as “anti-Japanese” and fumed at him for warping Japanese schoolchildren with “misinformation.”
Inevitably, at least one death threat appeared. Though it was presumably idle, like most threats made anonymously over the Web, it rattled him. Still, it’s no surprise that the netouyu’s initial campaign, like just about every effort to change a real-life debate by flooding some Web comments sections, went nowhere. So they escalated.
A few of the outraged Japanese found some personal information about Dezaki, starting with his until-then-secret real name and building up to contact information for his Japanese employers. Given Dezaki’s social media trail, it probably wasn’t hard. They proliferated the information using a file-sharing service called SkyDrive, urging fellow netouyu to take their fight off the message boards and into Dezaki’s personal life.
By Monday, superiors at the school in Japan were e-mailing him, saying they were bombarded with complaints. Though the video was based almost entirely on a lecture that they had once praised, they asked him to pull it down.
“Some Japanese guys found out which school I used to work at and now, I am being pressured to take down the ‘Racism in Japan’ video,” Dezaki posted on Reddit. “I’m not really sure what to do at this point. I don’t want to take down the video because I don’t believe I did anything wrong, and I don’t believe in giving into bullies who try to censor every taboo topic in Japan. What do you guys think?”
He decided to keep the video online, but placed a message over the first few sentences that, in English and Japanese, announce his refusal to take it down.
But the outrage continued to mount, both online and in the real world. At one point, Dezaki says he was contacted by an official in Okinawa’s board of education, who warned that a member of Japan’s legislature might raise it on the floor of the National Diet, Japan’s lower house of parliament. Apparently, the netouyu may have succeeded in elevating the issue from a YouTube comments field to regional and perhaps even national Japanese politics.
“I knew there were going to be some Japanese upset with me, but I didn’t expect this magnitude of a problem,” Dezaki said. “I didn’t expect them to call my board of education. That said, I wasn’t surprised, though. You know what I mean? They’re insane people.”
Nationalism is not unique to Japan, but it is strong there, tinged with the insecurity of a once-powerful nation on the decline and with the humiliation of defeat and American occupation at the end of World War II. Japan’s national constitution, which declares the country’s commitment to pacifism and thus implicitly maintains its reliance on the United States, was in some ways pressed on the country by the American military government that ruled it for several years. The Americans, rather than Japan’s own excesses, make an easy culprit for the country’s lowered global status.
That history is still raw in Japan, where nationalism and resentment of perceived American control often go hand-in-hand. Dezaki is an American, and his video seems to have hit on the belief among many nationalists that the Americans still condescend to, and ultimately seek to control, their country.
“I fell in love with Japan; I love Japan,” Dezaki says, explaining why he made the video in the first place. “And I want to see Japan become a better place. Because I do see these potential problems with racism and discrimination.” His students at Okinawa seemed to benefit from the lesson, but a number of others don’t seem ready to hear it.
Here’s my response: I applaud Dezaki-sensei for his efforts to raise students’ awareness of issues of racism and discrimination in Japan. In my classes at Ritsumeikan, I’ve found students very open to learning about Japan’s modern history, of which they are unfortunately often ignorant. Students have told me that they have gone home after class and asked their parents about the Burakumin, Zainichi Koreans, and other groups. The fact that many of these students grew up in the Kansai area, which is home to many Burakumin and Zainichi, shows how students in high school are not being taught even local history, let alone national history. Of course, many of my students also pass as mainstream Japanese, preferring to conceal their ethnic ancestries rather than constantly out themselves as non- or mixed-Japanese.
As for present-day issues of discrimination, we should not confuse the absence of slurs with the acceptance of minorities. Buraku children still face low expectations and stereotypes from teachers. They are also less likely to attend high school, to graduate from high school or university. They are also more likely to receive government welfare benefits. Plus, groups such as the Zainichi, South Americans, Chinese, and Filipinos routinely face discrimination in employment, education, and other realms of social life. Much of this happens discretely, but it still happens. And let’s not forget the right-wing sound trucks and Zaitokukai protests against Zainichi and other non-Japanese.
I also applaud Desaki-sensei for bravely not giving in to the netouyo. Like Desaki, I’m an American teaching in Japan and I consider this place home. And just like sometimes you have to tell to a friend or family member something they don’t want to hear, Japan needs to hear about problems it would rather ignore. As a country with the third-largest economy and tenth-largest population in the world, Japan is not a child that needs to be protected. It can handle the truth, even if the netouyo would rather avoid it.
The parents of a 13-year-old Pakistani junior high school student in Takamatsu have filed a criminal complaint with police, accusing their son’s classmates of bullying and injuring him.
A male Pakistani student at a public junior high school in a town in Kagawa Prefecture was bullied and seriously injured by his classmates, his parents alleged in a complaint filed on Feb. 18 with prefectural police.
The parents requested on the same day that the town’s board of education investigate the case and take measures to prevent a recurrence as they claim the student has been racially abused by four of his classmates since last spring. However, the education board denies bullying took place at the school.
According to the parents who held a news conference, the student was verbally bullied about the color of his skin by four of his classmates ever since he entered school last April. The parents claim that the students would make racist comments that their son’s skin was “dirty” and that they told him to “go back to his home country.”
The student was also physically bullied repeatedly by his classmates. Last November, one of the four classmates tripped him over when he was running in the hallway, severely injuring his legs and face. Since that incident, the student reportedly has to use crutches to walk.
The student’s 41-year-old father said, “We asked the homeroom teacher and vice principle multiple times to improve the situation but they failed to take any action.”
This week’s reading might seem a historical fact of the rise and fall of the skin lighteners, but I think this history of the skin lightener is not so important. To me, the most essential part is the hidden desire for people to improve themselves for socio-economic reasons or embedded idea of beauty that can be seen through the use of skin lighteners. The author of the reading (Lynn Thomas) states that the spread of skin lighteners across the world is a result of U.S. commodities and ideologies of race which became a motivation to sell those products. This skin-lighteners market eventually became entangled with economic relations, and racial hierarchies gave a meaning to “whiteness” that it is better than being darker. The reason why the use of skin lighteners were so popular despite the fact that it is symbolizing whiteness=better is because of how society was structured and how society pushed the ideology of skin color through advertisement. As a result, Black women’s concept of beauty became deeply affected by Whites.
The author mentions that “it is difficult to discern whether such valuing of lighter colored skin was rooted in pre-colonial conception of beauty, a product of racial hierarchies introduced through colonialism and segregation, or entanglement of the two,” despite the fact that the author think the concept of skin color is affected by structural forces from advertisement and social hierarchy. When I read the reading, I definitely thought yes, the concept of “being white is better than being darker” is socially created through colonialism. However when I reflected to Japan, my country, I feel little uncomfortable when I think about valuing “Bihaku” (whiteness) is affected by the West.
I personally prefer being white for no reason but I don’t think being tan is not so bad because maybe I lived in America and Americans valued being tan. When I met my friend after summer break, she was really tan, and I said “Kurokunattane” meaning you got darker (not so offensive in Japanese) and she got so upset said “hidoi” (how mean you are). I was so surprised that darkness is considered bad in Japan. Anyway, saying that whiteness is valued in Japan, some people say that Japanese adoration toward the West since Meiji period to become modernized is still affecting our value of whiteness or taller nose or longer legs. I cannot believe that Japanese are affected by historical social structure. However, when I go back to the reading what I am saying is that Black Africans prefer to have light skin not because they are affected by White.
On June 9, 1961, a California black newspaper announced the beginning of the very first major beauty contests for black women held in Northern California. This beauty pageant, however, was not like one of normal beauty pageants that you would think of. To become Miss Bronze, African American women couldn’t just be beautiful. They had to be more than that: a representative of the African American race. It doesn’t sound very difficult, however, for the contestants of the pageant, it was.
In the United States, features of bodies are given meaning by culturally diffused “systems of representation” and two systems of representation circulated within black communities. One big system is a nationally dominant system of representation corresponding to dominant standards of beauty; beauty from the white point-of-view. The other system is a black system of representation that is used only among blacks. Historically white systems of representation excluded black women in general, but put some light-skinned women as “exotic” types. Light-skinned women were considered beautiful in black system of representation as well, but were not considered “exotic” within the black content. Light skin was a representation of economic and social privilege. Because there was more than one system existing in black communities, black women were made to look at themselves through the two systems of representation, which made it very difficult to be both beautiful and representative of their race at the same time. The contestants had to be beautiful enough in the white system of representation but had to be black enough so that they can represent their race. For example, a light-skinned contestant cut her hair short because long hair represents whiteness. Not too black, but not too white, this was their challenge.
Though African American women had never been and will never be considered as White, they still have to be judged in the white system of representation. This was what was happening in the Miss Bronze contest. However, Black women are not the only ones that have double consciousness. Black men have double consciousness, too. For example, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, changes the way he speaks and acts in front of white audiences and black audiences. Women also see themselves through both women’s point-of-view and men’s point-of-view. We know how to act in the society where men are dominant. We internalize dominant views of ourselves and at the same time, we criticize them. This may not sound good, but I would like to think of double consciousness as a gift. The double consciousness allows them to step back and take an objective view of themselves. Like it or not, we are living in the world with different people and we cannot run away from that. Then isn’t better to have the eye of others inside of you?
The chapter explores the linkages between skin tone, socioeconomic achievement and self-esteem among African American women.
Self-esteem is defined as a confidence and satisfaction in oneself, a person’s overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. We are living in a color struck world where distinctions based on skin tone have historically intersected with racism, sexism and class to influence how African American and other women of color evaluate themselves. As a dark-skinned woman, the message is often that everything seems to be wrong with her because she is so different. She looks different. Her hair is different. Her facial features are different.
Complexion, along with other Eurocentric physical features – blue, gray or green eyes, straight hair texture, thin lips, and a narrow nose – has been accorded higher status both within and outside the African American community. Conversely, dark complexion and Afrocentric features – broad nose, kinky hair, full lips and brown eyes – has been devalued.
Then are Black women truly proud and comfortable with who they are and what they look like?
For nearly three quarters of a century, researchers have documented many ways that colorism affects the African American community. Since whiteness of skin is a highly esteemed dimension of idealized beauty, women with darker skin and Afrocentric features are at a disadvantage. As a marker of beauty, skin tone is also a form of social capital that grants access to resources of many different types, including marriage to higher status men, higher self-esteem and access to visible occupations.
Regarding the relationship between complexion and achievement, Keith introduced some analyses by NSBA indicating that lighter skin tone is associated with higher socioeconomic status. The author used those data by NSBA to assess whether the effects of skin tone on women’s achievement and self-esteem were conditioned by age or not, and it shows that complexion continued to matter for African American women’s educational attainment, occupational standing, and family income net of family background and other characteristics. However no interaction effects by age were found.
Skin tone and Self – Concept
African American, despite their status as being a racialized minority, has higher or equivalent levels of global self-esteem when compared with whites, except during preschool years and extreme old age.
Because appearance matters more for women, self-esteem is generally lower for females than males. But interestingly, the gender difference is less pronounced or nonexistent among blacks. One explanation by the author is that African American females are more satisfied with their body image than white females. Anyway, by using data from the original 1979 – 1980 NSBA, it is concluded that skin tone was a more important predictor for women than for men.
According to the Thompson and Keith studies, skin tone interacted with both personal income and attractiveness to influence self-esteem (fig.2.4). But a recent study by Harvey and his associates points to a reversal in the relationship between skin tone, self-concept and racial consonance, from which Keith concluded that black adolescent females rated as light brown and white had slightly lower self-esteem than medium and darker girls (fig.2.5).
A plausible explanation for this reversal is that the racial activism in the 1960s and 1970s instilled pride in African American culture and history, but that the full force of these changes as they pertain to complexion are only just now being reflected in young cohorts.
In conclusion, there is still controversy among scholars whether complexion is still relevant for status achievement and self-esteem or not. It takes long time to research but we still know very little how complexion differences actually come to matter. Are little dark-skinned girls still told to “try to get a light-skinned husband” to compensate for their “devalued, stigmatized features”? Or should they be told that how important, smart and beautiful they are, in order to build up their self-esteem and to stop those burdens which this color struck society is putting on them until their adulthood? To understand fully the impact of colorism on the lives of African American women, we need both survey and ethnographic studies that integrate questions concerning achievement and personal psychology.
The chapter looks at how skin tone matters with Miss Bronze, a black beauty contest that took place between 1961 and 1968 and began in Southern California. “Bronze” suggests both a color and a valuable metal associated with statues. However, this “bronze” did not signify a specific skin color, because during 1960s, black women of a range of shades entered the Miss bronze and won the title.
Color mattered in the Miss Bronze contests, but not the same as it did in earlier black contests in first half of 20th century. In many past contests, winners were chosen on a basis of beauty criteria that excluded dark women. The winners usually had light skin tones, and women with dark skin tones had little or no chance of winning. The Miss Bronze, in contrast, allowed women of a range of shades to enter. During its existence, light -skinned women, browned-skinned women and dark-skinned women wore the Miss Bronze crown.
However, it avoided those women who are too Caucasian in feature. And although skin color varies, it seemed that the fairer she is, the less chance she seems to have of winning. The winner should look like a Negro.
The Miss Bronze judges’ selecting dark-skinned girl to be the winner in 1961 seemed to end the colorist regime. However, after this beginning, the contest returned to the long-established pattern of crowning light-skinned winners in black beauty contests as we could see from the light-skinned winners of 1962, 1963 and 1964.
So what is the right color to represent Miss Bronze?
By the mid 1960s, beauty’s definition had expanded to include a range of skin tones. Light-skinned women continued to be identified as beauties but “especially light” women were unlikely to be chosen as black beauty queens. Color was still one element of signifier in a system of representing race, gender and class.
Recent beauty contests for black women somewhat showed changes in significance of skin color. Miss Black USA Pageant which began in 1987 was an example. Miss Black USA Pageant was founded to celebrate the talent, beauty and intellect of young women who were often overlooked by mainstream pageants, created opportunities that wouldn’t be available to them before. As Miss Black USA 2012, Watkins said: “The pageant isn’t just a pageant, it’s a movement.”
Throughout the centuries, beauty has so often been linked to “the fair”, automatically implying that there is something foul about being dark. It was only around the decade that Negro girls began winning beauty white-sponsored contests. The trend has changed and Negro girls of all hues are at last, being honored. Such beauty contest as Miss Cannes Film Festival, Miss Universe Contest, Miss Bronze, Miss Black USA…etc to a certain extent, succeeded in penetrating the color curtain. Let me conclude by citing Miss Bronze 1963 – Stephani Swanigan’s answer when asked about her hope for social change: “she hoped for a day when there would not have to be a separate contest for black women”.
For the sake of a society without color–based discrimination, I think that beauty contests should act as pioneers, honoring both black and white women with true beauty of inside and outside, regardless of their skin color.
This chapter discusses how skin color matters in a beauty contest. In the hope of challenging racial exclusion outside of contest and colorism within it, the Miss Bronze contest was held first in 1961. One must not ignore a strong social background during the period, when the American society was in the middle of a transformation in black consciousness that emerged from the Civil Right and Black Power Movements. By crowning dark-skinned beauties, dark-skinned women come to realize that they can be seen as beautiful! Miss Bronze’s attractive face and body shape could refute disparaging representations of black women. Such contest encouraged dark-skinned women to be proud of whom they are and created the climate for media to look at black beauty. However, it is because that the black beauty standards were shaped by social movements, when the movements decline, the meanings that they supported weaken. Mass media could then redefine the concept of beauty as social background changes.
Moreover, I believe a beauty pageant is not only just about appearance (including skin color), but more importantly, it could be seen as a major event that celebrates and honors ethnic values. The winner usually serve as a role model of female and through training and education, the beauty is more like a symbol of a certain group and she has the power to unify the group and thus to strengthen it. For example, in Miss Bronze contest, the assumption seems to be that with a little make-up, a home-sewn gown, and charm school courses, any daughter of the striving African American working class could perfect the performance of middle-class, heterosexual, femininity. The winner usually claims positions of exemplary middle-class femininity for black women.
Another point I would like to make is that the social media has a great influence on promoting the image of beauty. What is beauty? It appears that the definition of beauty changes through time as the social climate changes. As I was googling information for this presentation, I found many examples claiming that mass media somehow communicate false/unrealistic image of beauty especially for women to follow. Does media has the power to define beauty in this information era? Few would argue that media defines beauty, but the reality is all we see on TV, magazines, the internet and etc. are sending messages that what kind of look is considered as attractive. The media assaults us daily with images of “beautiful” people and articles on how to make ourselves look just more like them. In Japan, pick up any women’s magazine and there must be articles on how to have a more balanced diet, how to wear better makeup … Society always has an expectation of what is considered attractive. The Miss Bronze Contest challenged the expectation of beauty at that time, but what about now? At the end of the day, it’s not just about appearance. Everyone is beautiful in their way but no one is perfect. Human bodies come in all shapes and sizes and yet the fact is only a few are just like those who are on TV or on magazine covers. Body image can be a very deceptive realm that we all are susceptible to and if people all strive to look like the “beauty” that media creates, which to a large extent very hard to replicate, it is without doubt that they will end up with low self-esteem. There are so many reasons behind the model “beauty image” that media creates such as advertising and other commercial benefits that they are getting; however, I think it will be helpful to build up people’s self-esteem if more positive images and the portrayal of more realistic and healthy instead of pencil-like skinny body types are presented in the media.
Cultural diversity and racial miscegenation is now an image that Brazil is pride to export. However, the ideal of racial democracy in Brazil is still a dream. Although the ideology of miscegenation is widely spread, the mixing of races and colors did not result in physical nor socioeconomic homogeneity.
The problem of racial discrimination against blacks in Brazil is largely attributed to the historical past. The racial inequality that remains in Brazilian society is regarded as a consequence of the long history of enslavement, an inheritance of a dirty past of exclusion and discrimination. However, in a society where the general perception of “being black equals being poor” remains, and where most would be truly surprised if they met a black lawyer, doctor or businessman, the discussion of race and color cannot be limited to matters of correcting a “historical debt”.
Black African slavery did, undeniably, impose social economic exclusion for black people and was cause and consequence for the establishment of racist values of white superiority. Amazingly though, the question of white privilege is often disregarded in the discussion of racial inequality in Brazil. In its discussion, the focus is not on the income concentration of white elites, but on the poverty of the black. It is more about the fact that the black cannot benefit from the free public higher education, rather than about the fact that richer white portion of the population enjoyed for decades a “free” education in public universities, subsidized by taxes of the whole population and with high costs for the public budget.
In August this year, Brazil government enacted an affirmative action law requiring federal universities to reserve half of their admission spots for students from public secondary schools, with racial quotas prioritizing the blacks, pardos and indigenous. Additionally, a plan for the adoption of quotas for blacks in the federal bureaucracy should be announced in late November, representing important gains for the Black Movement. Nevertheless, it is relevant to point that the protection of white privilege is an issue that is not limited to the problem of access to quality education and job opportunities. The historically very high concentration of land ownership inherited by white elites and also the regressive tax system that largely lifts the burden from the higher income class are not only issues that protect an economic elite, but mostly a white economic elite.
The plurality and differences of the Brazilian society are not only in the color of the population, but also reinforced by a socioeconomic stratification in which the majority of the black and pardos remain in the lower class, while the white enjoys the effects of white privilege. To believe that Brazil is a racial paradise, in essence, is to deny the relevance of these issues of inequality and dominance.
JAPANsociology 