Un aperçu de la vie d'un noir au Japon. Malgré le très petit pourcentage de noirs parmi les étrangers au Japon, il règne une sorte de paranoia vis à vis d'eux dans l'esprit des Japonais... Et au sein même de la population noire au Japon, il y a encore plus de préjugés vis à vis des personnes de nationalité africaine. Les stéréotypes ont la peau dure...
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So, what is it really like being black in Japan? By OSCAR JOHNSON,Staff Writer
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OK. I'm black and happen to stand nearly 2 meters tall. Suppose I was behind you in line for the ATM. What would be your reaction when you noticed me? Alarm, perhaps? Or might you bolt in a brisk walk of feigned composure?
This is no summer ghost story. But if you've ever had such a spine-chilling encounter, then in a way, we may have met.
As an African-American, I have often been asked what is it like being black in Japan. Perhaps a better question is what is it like for Japanese to have someone like me here. For me, it's a bit like living in a U.S. suburb.
Oh sure, a rousing Saturday night at the suburban all-you-can-eat buffet pales compared with Tokyo night life. And this city's rush-hour blitz could send any sane person fleeing for dear life to the quiet byways of Suburbia, U.S.A. But aside from such glaring differences, by my experience, the two are similar.
The fear and suspicion I have encountered-from nervous purse-clutching glances to unwarranted questioning by police-is not uncommon here, nor there.
Don't get me wrong. For every such slight I can recall countless congenial encounters. And I certainly don't mind the pains that some Japanese take to avoid sitting next to me on a crowded train. My wide shoulder span needs all the room it can get.
But the stepped-up pace of fellow pedestrians when they eye me in Ginza, and the countless guys in Okachimachi who grasp their wallets in desperation when spotting me-all this seems rather absurd.
Think about it. National police and media hype would have people believe that foreigners are responsible for a crime wave in Japan. The brutal truth is that foreigners last year accounted for just 2.3 percent of all crimes. What's more, only a sliver of the nation's less than 2 percent foreign population is black.
So what's all the paranoia about? It's not just crime.
Consider those ladies handing out ad-plastered tissue packets or, even worse, those with Galaxy Art-store fliers in Ginza, Shibuya and elsewhere. Egad! I fear they will snap their poor necks with the severity in which they whip their heads around pretending not to see my approach. Honestly ladies, I will be no more or less offended if you just don't give me that prized advertisement-don't hurt yourselves in the process.
Then there are those pushers of bilingual ads for new condos who are at pains to remain oblivious to more (or less) pigmented pedestrians, and the countless barkers who curtail their soliciting as I pass their establishments.
Don't worry, fellas. I get the hint.
The irony is that the insular tendencies often found in Japan and the U.S. suburbs tend to shield such communities from the substantial experiences needed to counter, or justify, fear of-in my case-black men.
Sure, the mass market has brought you baggy pants that droop to the thighs, hip-hop mania and archaic Afro wigs for a laugh. But let's face it, this tells as much about a people as romantic Geisha novels, old Hollywood World War II films and souvenir samurai swords.
Heck, I'm betting African-Americans and Japanese have more in common than our penchant for sweet potatoes and menthol cigarettes. But stereotypes and unfounded fears will ensure we never find out.
Now when it comes to slights to the foreign born, my Caucasian counterparts, fond of group-gripe sessions over a cold one, often whine ``the same thing happens to me!''
Well, welcome to my world. I can only imagine how troubling it must be to deal with prejudice when you haven't been weaned on it. But I doubt it's the same.
As one man's future Japanese father-in-law quipped to his daughter: ``It's bad enough he's a gaijin. Do you have to marry one that's black?''
Let's face it, you have to be comatose with denial to be here and not notice the hierarchal ladder of tolerance for gaijin: White U.S. or British males at the top, other Asians (these days it seems to be Chinese) at the bottom and the rest of us taking our rightful rung somewhere in between.
It's true even among blacks of different nationalities. With my U.S. passport, I have little to complain about compared to my African brothers and sisters. Like in the States, here they contend with stereotypes associating them with starving swollen-belly babies, HIV/AIDS epidemics and civil wars. It's even been dubbed the nanban-jin (southern barbarian) stereotype.
My wife's obstetrician, for example, beamed with visible relief when she learned I was an American.
``If you're black and American, it's one thing,'' says a Nigerian owner of a Roppongi restaurant. ``But if you're black and African, the story is completely different.''
In addition to prejudice, he says, many Africans here feel obliged to take on more trendy African-American personas to shake the stigma.
Such prejudices may not always be intended but they hardly go unnoticed, even by Japanese.
More than 44 percent in an April government survey said Japan lacks a culture conducive to coexisting with foreigners. A 2003 government poll showed only 54 percent of respondents think foreign residents even deserve the same human rights as Japanese. That's 12 percent fewer than when the question was asked in 1997.
Now, for some of us foreigners bound to this country by family, profession or simply because we love it-that's scary.
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E-mail any comments to < expat@asahi.com >.(IHT/Asahi: August 30,2004) (08/30)
Inscrit le: 07 Juin 2004 Pays, Ville: Saint Tropez
Note du Post : 3 Nombre d'avis : 1
Très honnêtement je ne pensais pas que cela pouvait atteindre de telle proportions !
Si le racisme est le propre de l'homme (quoi qu'on en dise, tous les pays possède une partie non négligeable de leur population qui est raciste généralement contre un peuple ou une ethnie particulière, fonction de l'histoire), mais lire que seuls 52% des japonais interrogés estime que les gaijins méritent, autant que les japonais, le respect des droits de l'homme, je trouve ca un peu fort !!
Je suppose que le texte est bien entendu tourné de telle facon à accrocher le lecteur (il a visiblement trouvé une femme japonaise, signe que l'archipel est loin d'être rempli d'êtres bornés et fermés au monde), et quelques anecdotes pourraient facilement être déclinée à l'infini, quelle que soit la région du monde, mais je reste profondément choqué du résultats de ces sondages.
L'argument le plus troublant (car sans doute la plus pointu), reste a mon avis la phrase sur la criminalité, avec les chiffres de la population à l'appuie.
Enfin bon, comme il l'a été dit, ce sentiment de rejet et de peur n'existe pas qu'au pays du soleil levant, alors ne jetons pas trop la pierre... _________________ Il ne faut jamais menacer si l'on n'est pas capable de frapper. N. De Machiavel
Si, justement. La pierre, jetons la tres fort et tant pis si elle nous retombe sur la gu...le.
Ce n'est pas parce qu'il y a du racisme en France que l'on ne doit pas denoncer ce qui peut se passer ailleurs...
J'avais d'ailleurs signale l'existence d'un livre dans un sujet sur la difficulte d'etre noir au Japon.
Un livre de Toshiaki Kozakai : "Les Japonais sont-ils des occidentaux, sociologie d'une acculturation volontaire" publiee chez l'Harmattan en 1991.
Ce livre est tres interessant pour comprendre les representations des Japonais vis a vis des etrangers, selon leur nationalite.
Quelles images viennent automatiquement a l'esprit des Japonais lorsqu'on leur dit Noir, Blanc, Francais, Allemand, Coreen
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et tant pis si elle nous retombe sur la gu...le.