The world appears to be holding its breath – anxiously anticipating the next outcry over racial injustice. This building pressure has the potential to create momentous change as well as perpetuate a narrative of struggle and oppression within the black community.
Black Lives Matter, initiated by the death of George Floyd, made it as far as Japan – clear evidence that people of all backgrounds want to support and understand what it means to be black in the world. However, a recent video posted by the NHK made it clear that misconceptions about black people still exist within Japanese society. It depicted an African-American speaking thuggishly about the coronavirus outbreak’s disproportionate effect on the African-American community in the US. NHK later said that the video intended to promote anti-racism; it achieved the opposite.
The insensitive and offensive racial caricatures signify the barriers that still exist for black people wanting to go abroad. A lack of positive images, which celebrate the rarity of black people in less diverse areas, deter them from travelling overseas – especially to what are considered ‘distant’ lands. There is then a deficit of black intellectuals, who wish to enter the field of Asian studies, because they are unsure of whether they are really welcomed at all. I understand. I know what it feels like to embark on a journey of study that promises to be anything but easy.
Yet I’d do it all again. I’d encourage anyone who has unconventional interests to pursue them, as I have pursued the study of Japan. Rather than feeling alienated, become empowered by exposure to radically different study options, such as Japanese and East-Asian studies. Making the most of opportunities that exist for diverse students has not only shown me an underexamined history of Afro-Asian solidarity, but has given me the chance to embody it.
Like many other teenagers, this began with an interest in Japan’s popular cultural exports of manga, anime, games, and music. They offered a sense of escape from my role as a black female in British society, a role where I was expected to assimilate; forge an identity as an English person that could not be denied. Where I did stand out as black, my ambitions were supposed to focus on the world of sport and popular music, as fuelled by the expectations of society.
At first, Japan offered no sanctuary from this. I found that the media limited representations of blackness to characters who, if not valued for their hyper-physicality or hypersexuality, were made to look buffoonish. However, these images are not unique to Japan, and are better thought of as a reflection of the tropes of black people that originated in the West. While Japanese society gives all foreigners the same ‘outsider’ status, there remains a tendency to praise white people for their representation as experts and educators.
But indulging in my affinity for all things Japanese, I created an identity that mainstream representations of people like me often deny: one as an individual. I allowed my independent Japanese study to eclipse my GCSE French completely. Repeating the strokes of Japanese hiragana, for hours on end, became exciting. I looked forward to attending my part-time job, knowing it would fund more Japanese lessons with a native tutor. As my confidence and competency soared, I dared to enter for Japanese A-level at my sixth form, despite not having completed a GCSE in the subject. After sending off my UCAS application for all Japanese degrees, how did it feel to have committed to a seemingly unconventional life?
There’s honestly nothing like it, and as cliché as it may seem, happiness triumphs all hardships.
Looking back, I realise that my family and friends would often try to rationalise my uncommon interest through their own logic. They suggested that I was trying hard to be something I’m not – trying not to be black in this case. On the contrary, engaging with Japan and East Asia provided a lens for me to challenge my place in the world as a black woman. While I do enjoy certain types of music or speak in a certain way, these aspects of my character have developed organically and, if anything, inform my approach to the field of study. The truth is that there is no need to accommodate: niche cultural interests and ‘blackness’ do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Mine is a single story that, unfortunately, is not the same for all young people. Misrepresentations in the media seem to create a single narrative for young people based on their race, nationality and socioeconomic background. But no one group exists as a monolith. I am not defined by discriminating rhetoric, but through the achievements of African samurai like Yasuke; radical thinkers like Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama and writers like Baye McNeils. All are figures of black diversity who prove that, after protests and twitter threads, the key to change is through living unapologetically.
