On the other hand, being thought of as Will Smith is a good thing.

In other words: if in N. America, doing X is racist, is it racist to do X in Japan? The answer is not necessarily ‘yes’, IMO.

Or to put it another way, if you did X in N. America, it presupposes certain motives or viewpoints. But doing X in Japan does not necessarily mean the doer shares those viewpoints.

Japan is not a perfect country, any more than any country is perfect; but Japan does not have the American baggage of slavery of Africans, segregation, reactionary groups like the KKK, and so forth. If there was media in the US making mirth of Africans, it would need to be viewed in that lens. But does that lens exist here? How many people in Japan have even seen an African in real life?

I don’t necessarily think these videos were intended to put forth the message that Africans ought to be treated as a sub-class, exploited and harmed. It’s simply something that was fun.

If anything they are making fun of foreigners in general.

I also wouldn’t necessarily use Debito as an example, either, but that’s another subject…

PS D-San, you should say, ‘why yes, I am will smith! say, are you sonny chiba? How about buying me lunch!’

That is also funny.

This show serves GREAT purpose for Japanese to understand people from Africa who are relatively not well-known/understood like, let’s say, white Americans.
I cannot wait to meet those funny smiley and positive African people.

If someone believes this program promotes negative Africans, that person obviously already has got some negative images of Africans before watching the show.

Even if the intent of the TV station is not to say all Africans are stupid or can’t speak proper Japanese, the lack of other portrayals creates a stereotype because people have a tendency to lump together individuals from groups they are not familiar with, so if the only Africans which get on Japanese TV are shown speaking bad Japanese, even if it’s comedic and obviously ヤラセ,
there will be people who think all Africans who live in Japan are like them.

It is not so much the portrayal of a certain group in a certain way that is racist or discriminatory as is the disproportionality of how that group is depicted which can implant or reinforce stereotypes, racist or not, in the mind of the audience.

You may think it’s just TV, it’s just for laughs, but many people get their ideas about how Africans, Americans, Asians, Middle-Easterners, South-Americans etc. solely from what they see on TV.

An example is the Korean wave, many Japanese women started dreaming of finding a Korean husband after seeing Korean TV series, and because many of these series are about romance, they believe Korean men are more romantic than Japanese. This stereotype is very recent, just because they saw Korean men shown as leads in romantic TV series, an association Korean man=romantic appeared some viewers’ mind.

This is an example of how a stereoype, albeit “positive” in this case, can form in the audience’s mind about people from another country, just by watching TV, when most of the people from that country that people see are shown in similar ways.

Stuff like this wouldn’t be so controversial if there were famous, intelligent sounding Africans on TV to talk about serious stuff and not just to make people laugh.

Anotehr example, but in the US, from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Blacks

The news media: criminal stereotyping
The Black Image in the White Mind illustrates ways in which negative media images of African Americans are disproportionate and arguably harmful to race relations:[16]

A mug shot of a black defendant is four times more likely to appear in a local television news report than of a white defendant.
The black accused is two times more likely to be shown physically restrained in a local television news report than when the accused is white.
The name of the accused is two times more likely to be shown on screen in a local TV news report if the defendant is black, rather than white.
According to Lawrence Grossman, former president of CBS News and PBS, TV newscasts “disproportionately show African-Americans under arrest, living in slums, on welfare, and in need of help from the community.” [21] African-Americans are misrepresented for several reasons. Although FBI statistics show that most violent crimes involve others of same race, there is a common misperception that black-on-white crimes are more common. [22] Black-on-white crimes are over-represented on news shows because the majority audience can better identify with white victim. Emphasis on deviance generates higher ratings for TV networks by playing on people’s fears. However, these images of blacks (and whites) on TV newscasts do not represent reality and negatively impact the way we think about race and race relations.

Would you have found it as funny if instead of three Africans, those three guys were Asians for example? What if instead of Thane Camus, the teacher was an Afro-American or African teaching three white Westerners?

Anyway, here’s a comment from Overthinker that I think I may have accidentally deleted in the process of cleaning up this mess.

Comment from Overthinker

“You really don’t seem to know what you are talking about. Or what I am talking about. Discrimination about housing is not linked to race, but nationality. Chinese and Koreans get it as much as white people do, if not more, despite looking the same as Japanese. I have not argued that there is no or even little *national* discrimination in Japan. My argument is that it is not generally racially-motivated, and what racially-motivated hate there is is very minor.

I don’t need to rely on Debito’s reporting to form opinions about the levels of overt racism in Japanese society. Having lived here nearly half my life, I have had ample time to form my own conclusions.”

I really do think they’re funny though, and I wouldn’t blame Bobby or the other 2 guys for being good at acting stupid.

I feel for gaijin smash guy though, as much as one can. I have been called things like Tom Cruise and it is infuriating.

I don’t need to rely on Debito’s reporting to form opinions about the levels of overt racism in Japanese society. Having lived here nearly half my life, I have had ample time to form my own conclusions.

I really feel it unnecessary to adress that Debito.org question, because I think there’s been said enough about his attitude and “motives”.

Overthinker writes “Overt racism is rare in Japan.” Guess you’ve never been denied housing because of the color of your skin or heard of Debito.org.

Interesting point though. I’m not African either, nor to be brutally honest do I have any african friends in Japan, so I’m not in a position to see how this might affect them. Perhaps even, the fact that I found them to be hilarious just exposes myself to being the same kind of racist as most Japanese in this regard.

The gaijinsmash article is pretty eye opening – never had that situation myself since I dont look like anyone in particular… but Im not going to lower myself to reading the detritus that is posted on bigdaikon – that place is a breeding ground for hate and discrimation and should be avoided in any serious discussion.

Anyways, good points James – my apologies~

Aside, how long HAVE you been here? I find my own personal love/hate Japan cycle to rotate roughly every 6 months (for 4 1/2 years now)! Right now Im on a love phase, but I suspect it’ll be over by next month…

http://www.gaijinsmash.net/archives/bobby.phtml
http://bigdaikon.org/board/viewtopic.php?p=876023&sid=c2304c285d4cf06006eb5f923a5e87bd

My view is that the creators of this show did not set out to promote a negative view of Africans. However, by putting Bobby’s bug-eyed negro clown act (much of which is probably his own creation) on TV, a view of Africans as funny Bobby-like clowns is furthered. As a white American this doesn’t cause problems for me, but my friends over here who are black males have had to deal with frequently being compared to Bobby, something that makes them feel like shit. I tend to agree with the Gaijin Smash guy’s view that the very limited number of Africans in Japan plays a larger role in this situation that some sort of anti-foreign feeling among the Japanese.

I don’t assume Japan hates foreigners. You assume that because I sometimes post about situations in which foreigners face problems in Japan, I have some sort of overblown negative view of Japan. If I thought Japan hated foreigners, I wouldn’t be living here.

James, you seem to have an overblown negative view of Japan after living here for quite a while (I imagine). The way you say “I’ve only ever heard of these kinds of show” – these kinds being what exactly? Comedy? Perhaps you need to chill out and stop assuming that Japan hates foreigners, because it simply couldnt be further from the truth.

You can never make too much fun of yourself when being a foreigner in Japan, especially not when people expect you to do so.

The show isn’t promoting anything. It’s just plain fun. No Japanese person will see this and decide “Oh right, kokujjin must all be stupid”.