I have only one problem with Japanese people in blackface: it’s totally inexcusably awful. I hate to be shrill about this, and outrage in this case feels like almost like a cliche, but how many more of these are we going to have to see?Since this is hardly an isolated incident, I have to say that I'm in complete agreement with David. I'm quite willing to accept that Japanese who put on the blackface are well-intentioned and perhaps even believe they're somehow being flattering. But seriously folks, this should simply be unacceptable in any society that wants to be taken seriously by the rest of the world; or, at the very least, in any society that wants to be taken seriously by the President of The United States of America.
Give it a fucking rest.
This is similar, in its way, to the school play in Japan where all 23 little girls were Snow White in order to be fair (politically correct), there are things that are apparently difficult to digest from one culture to another. As we become more homogenous, as we will, there will be less of this. This doesn't mean it isn't both racist and unfunny, no argument there, it's just that there's a learning curve.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine your distress about this as being a part of the culture there too, I remember when I was living in Chicago after the first Rodney King verdict I felt that as a white person I should be apologizing to every black person I saw.
Susan,
ReplyDeleteI can understand why you felt like apologizing. Personally, though, I like to save my apologies for when it's actually *me* that's screwed up (believe me, it happens often enough!).
Although I have no problem commenting on this sort of thing here, I don't feel (as a white guy) it's my place to give the Japanese sensitivity training ([shudder] there are already enough "colonialists" here as it is...).
I think "Bullworth" had the right idea--the sooner were all the same color, the better...