Once marginalized and mocked, Black athletes, musicians
and celebrities of Japanese descent are
changing the game in Asia and in America. In a
country perceived as homogeneous, where
everyone supposedly looks alike and is
pressured to conform, there is an old
proverb that says “the
nail that sticks out gets hammered.” But
things are changing, and people of African
descent are showing that Japanese and East Asian people do not all
look alike. And Black people are making spaces
for themselves in places where they were once
excluded and invisible.
Tennis
star Naomi
Osaka,
who was born in Japan to a Haitian-American
father and Japanese mother, is a high-profile
example. Osaka, who has matched her prowess on
the court by challenging cultural and racial
norms in Japan, called out a Nissin
noodle commercial that
depicted her as an anime character with white
skin and brown hair.
In
professional sports, there are Black Japanese
heroes like Rui Hachimura of the Los Angeles Lakers.
An Olympic athlete who has been active in Black
Lives Matter activism,
Hachimura became the first
Japanese player in
an NCAA Division I tournament, and the first
to make it as an NBA
first round draft pick.
In
2017, Ariana
Miyamoto became
the first mixed-race (or hafu,
meaning
“half” in Japanese) Miss Universe Japan,
helping to chip away at traditional Japanese
beauty standards that have valued light skin
and shunned melanin and African features.
Ariana faced racial abuse as a child, and
decided to compete after a hafu friend
committed suicide. In 2020, both the winner
and first runner-up of the Miss Japan pageant
- Aisha
Tochigi and
Raimu
Kamanishi -
are of Afro-Japanese ancestry.
Looking
at the Japanese entertainment industry, Black
artists have graced the music scene, names
such as R&B singers Crystal
Kay,
Aisha and
Thelma
Aoyama;
Japanese-Jamaican rapper Daicihi
Yamamoto; J-pop
singers Nesmith and
Chris
Hart,
and Jerome
“Jero” White -
who is an enka or
“Japanese blues” singer.
And
the collective of J-pop groups known as Exile
Tribe have
Black members, in an industry where some
Japanese groups only a few decades ago
performed in blackface to mimic Black folks.
As the YouTube channel, The
Black Experience Japan has chronicled, Black people are making moves and
living their lives in Japan. Somewhere in
Tokyo, there are Black-owned
barbershops and Black-owned
restaurants. Black people still face racial discrimination in that
country. But they are leading, making their
presence known and changing the game.
