[hanabi]

"As a black male jazz vocalist in the States, no major record label will give you a break unless you're really kissing somebody's behind," Thompson says, his eyes tinged with sadness.

Although he only arrived here in September, he has already recorded a CD, been invited to discuss an international tour, and has an acting spot on television.

Huh. Maybe I'm just cynical, but when your skin color starts working to your advantage, isn't that still a form of discrimination?

[Gaisaradatsuraku!]

"As a black male jazz vocalist in the States, no major record label will give you a break unless you're really kissing somebody's behind," Thompson says, his eyes tinged with sadness.

Although he only arrived here in September, he has already recorded a CD, been invited to discuss an international tour, and has an acting spot on television.

Huh. Maybe I'm just cynical, but when your skin color starts working to your advantage, isn't that still a form of discrimination?

Absolutely on point. What am I supposed to believe. That the American music industry is full of bigots. Yeah, Tommy Mottola is very "devilish" and that's why Michael Jackson's records don't sell. This article is a crock. This guy didn't get a jazz album in the US because there are many talented artists here. Go to Japan and just being black gets you in the door. In other words Japan is bigoted not the US.

I also loved the description of a black individual as having African roots. Well, gee, thanks for pointing out that his does not trace his anscestry to Norway. In addition, there was almost no description that wasn't a joke. The guy who allegedly looks like Denzel doesn't. The gal who is lauded for having gone to Japan to pursue a singing career has abandoned her child (yikes!). All this so she can get out of Watts. Well, listen there aren't many of the devilish white folks in Watts so I am astounded that Watts isn't paradise. Oh, yeah, the reason Japan looks good in comparison to Watts is because they have virtually no blacks. That's the fact Jim Katta. You need to look inward to fix the problems in your community and not outward at people who have nothing to do with your problems.

[American Oyaji]

Unless you are black, you really can't understand.

In Japan, im just another foreigner. In the U.S., i'm a statistic.

I'm thinking of moving back to Japan because of it.

[hanabi]

Just FYI, when I mentioned skin color working to one's advantage, I'm also talking about being King Whitey in Japan (or Queen Whitey, as the case may be). It's hypocritical to complain about people judging you by your skin color, yet to exploit that skin color for your own gain.

[Gaisaradatsuraku!]

Well, you don't need to necessarily be black to be a misfit in America. Ain't that right Taro?

[Taro Toporific]

Well, you don't need to necessarily be black to be a misfit in America. Ain't that right Taro?

Yeah, but you ought to see the looks I garner here in Japan as blue-hair, blond-eye, quadruped alien as my avatar too accurately depicts...
Dang, I should be so lucky as to be merely black in America.

Here's a rhetorical question for all you FG feeling put upon:
Name the US minority group:
--> 90+% unemployment
--> legally denied health insurance
--> legally denied employment in most jobs
--> denied entrance to stores, movies, and recreation
Sa, I'm a real poster-boy in exile.

[ramchop]

Here's a rhetorical question for all you FG feeling put upon:
Name the US minority group:

Careful Taro, you don't want go and shoot holes in Gai's utopian motherland. He might get upset.

[hanabi]

If you live here in Japan and you are white, that will also work to your advantage. Isn't that discrimination too?

You didn't read my second post, did you? Answer: I think it is.

[Taro Toporific]

Here's a rhetorical question for all you FG feeling put upon:
Name the US minority group:

Careful Taro

...

Since the FG Party is coming this weekend and I'll be 'outed', so I guess I don't have to bite my puce tongue any longer on minority issues.

[hanabi]

On the issue of jazz, I have heard that the Japanese simply spend more on live and recorded jazz than the US market.

Funny, I found that very same article. Have you gotten to the part where the writer inquires about "why the greatest market for jazz has not provided the outside world with more than three high ranking musicians"?

The last few suggestions are related to race. For example:

The Japanese bone structure does not lend itself to fluid body movements. Music, needs (body) movement, specially jazz. The Afro bodies has a natural swing, much more than the Caucasians. The Mongolians have it the least.

Um. Rrrrrrright.

Also (and contrarily), according to this review on Jazz in Japan on the same site:

jazz is no more popular in Japan than any other form of music and that it accounts for about the same percentage of sales as it does in the U.S. (about 3%)...

[Taro Toporific]

"Welcome to the club....GAIJIN-SAN! Stand up, stand up, good, good, now fetch the stick, fetch the stick GAIJIN-SAN"

The ol' standard FG descriptor: TALKING DOG comes to mind. To quote Pico Pico Iyer's essay, The alien home, from Salon.com

Japan will never be entirely my home, of course, and Japan would never really want me to come any closer than I am right now. It assigns me a role when I enter (a role that diminishes every foreigner with glamour, and marvels at his stammerings as at a talking dog), and asks me to go about my business, and let it go about its own.

Seller: "Hey you wanna an FG dog? He can talk and I sell him for just five dollars?"

Buyer:--"Why ya wanna sell him?"

Seller: "Because, I'm getting tired of his lies."

[Taro Toporific]

... The majority of Japanese folks' main thought pattern is 'you are NOT one of us. YOU are an alien from over there - YOU ARE A GAIJIN!

And the end of that Pico Iyer essay muses ...

The newly mobile world and its porous borders are a particular challenge to a uniculture like Japan, which depends for its presumed survival upon its firm distinctions and clear boundaries, its maintenance of a civil uniformity in which everyone knows everyone else, and how to work with them. And it's not always easy for me to explain that it's precisely that ability to draw strict lines around itself -- to sustain an unbending sense of within and without -- that draws me to Japan. In the postmodern world to invert Robert Frost, home is the place where, when you have to go there, they don't have to take you in.
salon.com | Feb. 19, 2000

[GomiGirl]

Another thing about Japan is that here you are literally a gaijin, and you take for granted that you're not and never will be a fully accepted, equal member of society...that's a harder pill to swallow in your own country. If you choose to stay in Japan, you accept your f*cked status, get on with your life and try to make the best of it. Otherwise, you can always leave. Perhaps having that option and accepting the role of gaijin is somehow liberating.

I think what is tough is when some people have come from the comfort of being in the "majority" of another industrialised country and they experience discrimination for the first time in their lives. It is a rude shock to discover that actually the 'sun doesn't shine out of your anus'..

I had a similar shock when I went to university. I had been to a all female school where science was enouraged etc etc. Then into the world of co-education and people were surprised that a person with XX chromosomes wanted to study more about chromosomes - typically a male dominated field. Now I didn't have the same shock as some school pals that enrolled into engineering, but it was still surprising nonetheless.

Best thing is to just see the discrimination for what it is, not to get angry, but just deal and work around it. Everybody has something or somebody who is trying to keep them down, if you listened to them all you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

[cstaylor]

Here's a rhetorical question for all you FG feeling put upon:
Name the US minority group:
--> 90+% unemployment
--> legally denied health insurance
--> legally denied employment in most jobs
--> denied entrance to stores, movies, and recreation
Sa, I'm a real poster-boy in exile.

I'll take a huge guess here: lepers.

[hanabi]

This comment seems to be attributed to a Japanese person rather than the author.

Exactly. Which is why I (albeit very cynically) made the assumption that the success of many non-Japanese in jazz is attributed to race in Japan. A lot of Japanese jazz fans may consider skin color a requisite to being a good jazz musician, meanwhile dismissing talented musicians of Japanese heritage.

To attribute lack of opportunities in the US and marketabilty in Japan solely to being black is a mistake, which ignores other factors and negative effects of "positive" stereotyping.

I can appreciate that. And I can appreciate coming here to be able to do what you love. I just wonder if, somewhere inside everyone, there isn't a tinge of doubt or guilt for exploiting oneself in that way. It's almost like like marrying for money. How much do you really deserve it? If it doesn't bother you (general you), then good on you, I suppose.

[GomiGirl]

I can appreciate that. And I can appreciate coming here to be able to do what you love. I just wonder if, somewhere inside everyone, there isn't a tinge of doubt or guilt for exploiting oneself in that way. It's almost like like marrying for money. How much do you really deserve it? If it doesn't bother you (general you), then good on you, I suppose.

If you are making the most of what you have, then how are you exploiting yourself? Everyone uses their talents and environment to the best of their advantage to get by in this crazy world. As long as you are not exploiting others, I don't see the problem.

Advantages of birth, wealth, family name etc many only get you so far. After that your true talents need to shine through if you are truely going to be successful but more importantly, happy. Those of us who have been here for a while know that the gaijin novelty factor only goes so far - after that you have to be able to hold your own and live up to the expectations of your employers/audience.

[hanabi]

If you are making the most of what you have, then how are you exploiting yourself? Everyone uses their talents and environment to the best of their advantage to get by in this crazy world. As long as you are not exploiting others, I don't see the problem.

I think it's a little unfair to use your own race as a way to get ahead. But I'm still unsure about whether it's selfish or unethical. And one could argue that you are in fact exploiting other people if you find yourself taking advantage of their ignorant preferences. (Yes, I do think racial preference in hiring practices is ignorant.)

Those of us who have been here for a while know that the gaijin novelty factor only goes so far - after that you have to be able to hold your own and live up to the expectations of your employers/audience.

Hence my concern. I'm not saying that *no* foreigners deserve the lives they've made for themselves/were given here. But I think it is important to question your advantages because the fact is that they may not last. And while we're all whining about being fucked gaijin who are treated differently, how could we in good conscience take advantage of the very fact without giving it a second thought?

That's all I'm saying.

[cstaylor]

But I think it is important to question your advantages because the fact is that they may not last

This is constantly on my mind. Today's patronizing tolerance from the majority could easily take a nasty turn...

[GomiGirl]

Hence my concern. I'm not saying that *no* foreigners deserve the lives they've made for themselves/were given here. But I think it is important to question your advantages because the fact is that they may not last. And while we're all whining about being fucked gaijin who are treated differently, how could we in good conscience take advantage of the very fact without giving it a second thought?

That's all I'm saying.

I hear what you are saying with regards to foreign-ness in Japan, but I think it goes further than this. We are all born with advantages and disadvantages and to pretend they don't exist is being naive. If you expect that something you were born with is all you need to get through life then this is wrong. But we need to recognise our strengths and weaknesses and work with them with alot of individual hard work to reach your goals.

Hanabi - I think I remember that you are female right? If so, you know the different set of circumstances and opportunities/challenges that are available and not available. The key is to recognise where you fit in the scheme of things given your race, gender, education, experience, talents, goals, potential etc and with all of these factors make the best of it. If you use something to take advantage of another person - of course this is not acceptable!!

For there will be as many open doors as there are closed based on who you are and what you look like - no matter what country you are in. ergo, being "foreign" in Japan has as many advantages as there are disadvantages. Double edged swords abound!!

[hanabi]

If Japan sent all the foreigners home, how many English teachers would still be teaching in their own countries and how many jazz musicians would still be playing?

How many jazz musicians will still have recording deals and get acting spots on TV like the guy in the article? How many English teachers will still be getting the same kind of pay in their own countries?

It's weird because I don't think I'm saying anything new. Really, I'm conflicted; so thanks for the food for thought.

I'm not pretending that our advantages/disadvantages don't exist. How could I? They're so blatant. But, to address GomiGirl, as a female with a low-to-middle class upbringing, I sometimes do wish more men said and did something about the glass ceiling or sexism in general even though it doesn't affect them as much. And I wish more people born into wealthy, well-connected families tried a little harder to get by on their own merit (rather than deciding one day to just up and run for president, say). Some of the people in the article seem to have similar concerns when it comes to their lives in their original countries. Yet, when the tables are turned, how many of us are eager to take advantage?

I'd like to think that I'd try to have the integrity that I wished other people had. But you know what? It probably won't happen.

[GomiGirl]

I sometimes do wish more men said and did something about the glass ceiling or sexism in general even though it doesn't affect them as much. And I wish more people born into wealthy, well-connected families tried a little harder to get by on their own merit (rather than deciding one day to just up and run for president, say). Some of the people in the article seem to have similar concerns when it comes to their lives in their original countries. Yet, when the tables are turned, how many of us are eager to take advantage?

I'd like to think that I'd try to have the integrity that I wished other people had. But you know what? It probably won't happen.

If people don't feel they are at a disadvantage then they will usually do nothing or very little to help those that may be viewed as disadvantaged. Real change only happens when those who are disadvantaged get themselves organised and are able to effect change through professional lobby groups and the like. I don't mean a few handpainted signs at a hippy-esque rally. For things to change, people need to be shown the logic in your argument and the benefits (either for the individual or collective) needs to be demonstrated. After that you will probably still need to compromise. This is how our society has developed. It used to be that the person with the best left hook, or the biggest gun will win an argument, this still happens in some case, but, hopefully, we have become a little more sophisticated than that.

Unfortunately, true altuism is rare and people feel comfortable with the status quo and uncomfotable with change. So if you feel strongly about something, you need to speak up and not wait for others to notice that perhaps you have a problem. People will try to put you down at every turn but if you have the strength of your convictions and the willingness to discuss issues openly and learn from others then you will be OK.

You mentioned the glass ceiling - this is a problem because again, people don't like change and so why would those not affected (ie men) take action because it may possibly put them at a disadvantage with increased competition in the work place?

So, my friend, don't be disheartened that we don't live in Utopia with everybody respecting everybody else and being able to see the inherant value in a person.. sometimes to make a difference, you have to use what you have to move into a position where you can effect positive change. But also, you can choose how you live your life and often influence by example. You can't sit at the back of the bus..

[GomiGirl]

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[vvx]

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