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Strategic solidarity: Japanese imaginings of Blacks and race in popular media

2012; Routledge; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14649373.2012.689690

1469-8447

Atsushi Tajima, Michael C. Thornton,

Japanese History and Culture

Abstract By the twentieth century, Black intellectuals envisioned Japan as a beacon of their own possibilities. Japanese perceptions of this bond are typically implicitly assumed in most research on the subject. In this essay we argue that Japan saw Black America as a symbol of strategic not substantive solidarity. With its entrance onto the international scene in the nineteenth century, Japan encountered an international racial hierarchy, and struggled in formulating an emergent self-identity that would allow it to rationalize its rightful place alongside White Western powers. On the eve of the Second World War, Japan's national/racial identity is a complex set of influences: a merging of its own indigenous perceptions of race, an importation of outside racial ideology, and contextual needs linked to still trying to insert itself as an equal to Western powers. Keywords: Japanrace relationsAfrican Americansnational identityracial resistancemass media Acknowledgment We would like to thank the IACS reviewer suggestions, which helped to strengthen the paper. Notes Seii Taishōgun in Japanese. Eta is a major group among burakumin. Passages in The Tale of Genji frequently make note of the Japanese admiration of white skin, such as, 'she was very white,' and 'Lady Dainagon was very small, but as she is white and beautifully round …' Dower (: 209) notes, 'any reader of the eleventh-century Tale of Genji is aware of the scorn to which dark-complexioned individuals might be subjected.' Twentieth century Chinese intellectuals also struggled with the legacy of Orientalism as both a 'partially self-imposed' adoption of Western conceptions of racial and ethnic difference, and a discourse with which to vigilantly resist and critique Western hegemony. Chen calls this Occidentalism. Taguchi's usage of 'Aryans' is broad. In his discussion, this term often includes Latin Europeans (e.g., Spanish, Italians) and Eastern Europeans (e.g., Hungarians). Oomote means 'very popular' in colloquial Japanese, and is mostly used for male–female affairs. However, Furukawa and Furukawa (: 147–151) note that Japanese players also appreciated the Black players for their athletic ability and sportsmanship. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAtsushi TajimaContact address: Department of Communication, State University of New York Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY 14454 USA.Michael ThorntonContact address: Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 600 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706 USA.