Photo: Obama Onsen’s blackface celebration

hmmm racist?

I’m thinking that by now most Japanese might have heard that some people find black face offensive. I mean since it was used to ridicule black people not honor them.
I don’t really understand why they need an Obama impersonator there but maybe they should just invest in some masks. It would be a lot more flattering.
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=8328

That’s pretty f-ed up

Man you guys are really obsessed with this black face thing. You are making the mistake of projecting your own cultural sensitivities on those of a completely different country, which does not have a history of (black) slavery or segregation.

Hey guys, I am black and I completely understand that people may have trouble with these images, given the historical issues involved (i.e. it reminds us of a dark period in America when disenfranchisement was the law of the land). However, the Japanese people did not enslave Africans and have nothing to do with that aspect of our history.

Here is a problem that I have often addressed with other African Americans. If you call yourself black, what is wrong with other people painting their faces black to be like you. There are those African Americans who dislike their skin color and to see another group paint their faces black causes them to feel worse. In many African American stores, individuals can still buy skin cream to lighten their faces. Yet, there has been no outcry against the latter.

I think it is great that Japanese are painting their faces black. It shows us that they don’t have the same disdain for the color as many of us Westerners do. They are not mocking us or attempting to ridicule us–on the contrary, they are having fun. Please tell me if you find any other people in East Asia doing the same thing!

I feel honored by them.
確か顔を黒く塗ることが人種差別ではないよ。

It reminds me a bit of the carricature stirr which was happening in Denmark a few years ago. Some Danish news papers published pictures of Allah as a terrorist. The meaning of the carricature was to condemn terrorists using the religion of Islam as a pretext to carry out whatever it was they were going to carry out. But some place it got lost in translation. The next thing you know, the news paper editor was getting death threats, the Danish Embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran was getting torched, riots errupted in various European towns as well as in the Middle East. It was chaos! Danes and other Europeans could not really understand why Muslims would flip out like they did and Muslims could not understand how rude the Danes were. It was a major clash between two mind sets. This face paint stirr reminds me a little of that though not anywhere as dramatic.

When I was a kid I remember a band called Rats and Stars. The group which Tashiro Masashi used to be a member of. They used to paint their faces black because they wanted to be black.

I also remember the old Calpis Logo which got banned because it was seen as political incorrect. I am not sure who complained but Calpis listened and they scrapped the logo.

Though Japan does not have the same history and issues as in USA, I still find these face painting to be political incorrect. I think I’ll write a mail to them.

I’m going to be the guy no one will agree with.
I have lived in Japan, and without a doubt, racism a part of their culture.
White, black, anyone else, is NOT Japanese and comes with many many stereotypes
automatically attached to them.
That is by definition racism.
They don’t have to be stringing people up from trees.
If you don’t know the sense of superiority (seemingly born out of insecurity) they have toward other races, then you don’t know Japan, or you are in denial.