Who We Think Cops Are and Why

The recent killings of two Brooklyn police officers could not have happened at a worse time. Of course, there is no "good" time for the death of law enforcement officers. But I think everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about. At a time when the country needs to promote better relationships between minority communities and law enforcement officers, the killings, which were committed by a mentally disturbed individual in the name of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, have further divided Americans in their opinions on the role of police in American society.

In recent months, I have given a lot of thought to this very topic. As someone who has been fortunate enough to never have been stopped by law enforcement or had to report something to them, growing up, my image of the police had been colored largely by TV shows and movies. From college on, that image slowly became modified by a healthy diet of news reports, opinion pieces, and studies that exposed me to a more mature (read: complicated) view of law enforcement. More recently, I have come into contact with many clients who have had interactions with the police, and it would be fair to say that I have developed a better understanding of some of the problematic ways in which some law enforcement officers react in certain situations.

The Democratic Crisis No One Is Talking About

I guess the health of a democracy is a relative matter. True, a country that has consistently held democratic elections for the past sixty plus years without any authoritarian takeover or other temporary emergency political arrangements sounds like a sufficiently healthy democracy. But I am slightly terrified of recent political developments in Japan that seem to demonstrate an utter disregard of the rule of law and democratic principles by the leaders of the nation.

Very few people realize that Japanese democracy is facing dangerous times. Within Japan, the main concern that has been raised consistently in the mainstream media has been the disturbingly low voter turnout. The issue of unconstitutional malapportionment (which the Supreme Court apparently does not consider a sufficient basis to invalidate election results conducted under those conditions) has been largely an issue for lawmakers and lawyers. And the general public, though many have been disillusioned by the current administration, have become apathetic about engaging in the political process in the first place (hence the low turnout). But another fundamental problem was exposed through the recent snap election, which resulted in Prime Minister Abe retaining his ruling coalition's super-majority in the lower house, allowing him to pass laws without the support of the upper house.

男性によって統制される女性の「性」と「身体」の表現

自身の女性器を主題としたポップアートの制作で知られるアーティスト・ろくでなし子さんの逮捕及び再逮捕は、一部の海外メディアにも取り上げられた。それは、単に珍事件ということではなく、表現の自由の問題や女性が自らの性に関わる表現をした際に社会から受ける反応という視点からの報道が多い。私は海外在住なので、日本国内で、インターネット上の単発的な記事以外、この件について具体的にどのような報道がなされ、どのような意見交換がなされているのかは知らない。だが、日本社会では、彼女のアートが猥褻であるか否か、また、展示場所がアダルトショップであったのにわいせつ罪の容疑は適切か、といった視点からの討論以外しにくいのではないかと思う。だが、これは、根本的には、女性による自らの性や身体の統制の問題である。悲観的かもしれないが、この考えが日本の主流メディアを通じてまともに討論されているとはとても思えない。そこで、今回は女性が主導的に自身の性や身体を表現した際に受ける扱いについて書いてみたい。

Confessions of a Former Kid Who Did Nothing (or Too Little)

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

People change, certainly from the time they are kids. But to what degree? The recent suicide of a 12 year-old boy due to bullying made me think: who are these bullies going to grow up to become? How are they going to live with themselves?

Is anyone I have known as an adult a childhood bully?

I am certain that I did not witness the more awful forms of bullying (not that that excuses the behavior or makes the bullied person's life any easier). But I have seen bullying. I have been a friend to someone who was bullied, and I've told the boys who were bullying her to back off. But I have also failed to extend an invitation to a girl that some of the other girls didn't like. I've failed to speak up when people were saying something mean about a classmate who was persistently excluded. I was never a bully. But I didn't stop bullying or similar acts every time I saw them. I didn't because it wasn't like I never did and, as a kid who didn't know any better, I thought somehow that made my lack of action excusable.

Japan's Foremost Human Rights Problem: Lack of Awareness

December 10th is Human Rights Day. On that day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly (GA) adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was the first global document that expressed the inherent rights of all human beings. Two years later, the GA proclaimed December 10th Human Rights Day. On this Human Rights Day in 2014, I want to do a little reflecting about the state of human rights in my country of origin: Japan.

Today, the notion of human rights has spread across the globe. Yet, human rights violations--ranging from everyday violations to massive and systematic ones--continue to occur in almost every corner of the world. Among these violations, much of the attention, understandably, goes to the most egregious violations that are occurring on the largest scale. So we talk about North Korea's prison camps or the draconian anti-homosexuality law in Uganda (since declared "null and void" by the Constitutional Court), but so many of us often forget that human rights violations do not have to be so horrible or so widespread to be legitimate. Unfortunately, human rights violations occur even in democracies with strong notions of individual rights (see, e.g., the United States).

全米各地の抗議デモの背景：「構造的」な人種差別

日本のメディアでも、人種差別等に反対する全米各地における連日の抗議デモの模様が報じられているようだが、アメリカの刑事司法制度や社会全般における構造的な人種差別を理解せずに、これらのデモの意味を理解することはできない気がする。以前に、アメリカの黒人と白人との間には「人種」感覚のズレがあると書いたが、今回は、ミズーリ州ファーガソンにおける黒人少年射殺事件とその後の世論、オハイオ州クリーブランドでエアガンを持った12歳の黒人少年が白人警官によって射殺された事件、ニューヨーク市で白人警官が黒人男性を窒息死させた事件を通じて、この「ズレ」とアメリカの刑事司法制度及びアメリカ社会との関係について少し話したい。

Big Hero 6: The Superhero Film I'd Been Waiting For (In One Sense)

This post contains spoilers for the movie Big Hero 6. If that convinces you to not read this post, just go see it. It's worth it because...I won't spoil it for you. But yeah.

When the very first trailer for Big Hero 6 came out, I was a bit disappointed. It seemed like a story of a boy (who looked white, though I was wrong about that part) who builds a robot and has adventures or fights villains or whatever. My initial thought: "For once, why can't a girl or a person of color build a cool robot?" (Again, I was wrong thinking the boy was white, but nothing in that initial teaser said his name was Hiro.) Despite the Disney + Marvel label, I was very skeptical that this could be anything more than a solidly entertaining film. Boy, was I wrong.

After I saw a few social media posts from progressive/feminist websites about the diversity reflected in the film, it started looking as though I should give this movie a shot. I didn't read any articles to avoid spoilers in case I decided to watch the film, and I remained curious. Finally, a fellow superhero-nerd lady friend convinced me that I absolutely needed to see this movie and that the posts praising the representation of the characters were definitely warranted.

And she was right. Big Hero 6 turned out to be a film that is consciously diverse but is not bogged down by meaningless tokenism or ridiculous tropes.

Giving Thanks in 2014

I've had countless advantages in life. And this year, I have even more things than the average year to be thankful for, even as I continue to experience much frustration in certain aspects of my life.

So, here are the things I am thankful for this year.

My Belated Eulogy (or Whatever) to the True American Girls Collection

Mattel bought American Girl in the late 90s, then slowly destroyed all that was good about it. This is old news, and I already had my period of mourning. I distinctly remember posting something on my social media feed with some short, frustrated comment ("ugh" or "NO." or something inarticulate like that) because the American Girls book series was a pretty important part of my childhood. But after a friend posted an old article about this topic and I read a couple of comments on the post, I was reminded of the frustration and the disappointment of what American Girls have become.

In particular, it was one person's comment in response to my friend's post that did it for me. She said that and a fourth grader lent her one of the books so that she could understand how difficult it is to choose between extracurriculars and studying for class. The series not only has been reduced to girls and their "first world problems," but has apparently become (at least in this instance) a tool for young girls to support whining about such problems rather than an inspiration to them to face the controversial issues of the day. When I read this person's story, I felt as if something that was part of my childhood had been utterly deformed and destroyed.

私のフェミニズムの起源？

もう十何年前の話になるが、私は小学生の頃、運動会での応援団長をやりたいと思っていた。4年生くらいの時から、6年生になったらやってやろうと密かに考えていて、発声力も（小学生レベルでは）リーダーシップも自信があったが、一つだけ厄介なことがあった。それは、毎年必ず応援団長が男子で、副団長が女子だったこと。これが暗黙のルールであったのか、それとも学校側で正式に決められていたことだったのか、それとも単にそれまでやりたいと思った女子がいなかったというだけだったのかは知らないが、このパターンを不公平に感じ、余計にやってやりたいという気持ちもあったのかもしれない。だが、いずれにしろ、私の在学期間中、そのパターンが崩れることはなかった。というのも、私は応援団の応募が始まる前にリレー選手として選出されたため、結局応募できなかった（というか、しなかった）のである。

私の母は、50年代に水色のランドセル背負って小学校に通っていたような人間で、女の子だから「普通は」男の子がするようなことはできないというような考え方を教えはしなかった。結果、私は男だからこれはできてあれはできない、女だからあれはできてこれはできないという発想を持って育たなかった。むしろ、小さい頃からそんな考え方には納得がいかなかった。男であろうが女であろうが、同じ事をやる権利を持っているはず。つまり、私は小さい頃から、そうとは知らずにフェミニズムの信念を持ち合わせていたわけである。

The Case for Vanellope von Schweetz as Most Revolutionary Disney Princess

In 2012, the feminist blogosphere lit up with news of a revolutionary Disney princess. Merida, a Scottish princess and protagonist of Brave, had all of the qualities that a traditional Disney princess lacked. She was independent. She was physically strong. She takes control of her own destiny without being bound by traditional expectations. Sure, there may have been princesses in the past that had these qualities (Mulan, anyone?), but the most revolutionary aspect of Merida's story was that she had no love interest that influenced her path. Yes, there were suitors, but they were equally bound by traditions and their parents' expectations and barely play any role in Merida's destiny.

Basically, Merida is an awesome role model for young girls, and she is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. But Disney released another film in 2012 that had an even more revolutionary princess. I'm talking about Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It-Ralph.

Gilmore Girls and the Incomplete Picture of Privilege

Like most women who went through high school and college in the 2000s, I have slowly been marathoning my way through Gilmore Girls on Netflix. My first brush with the show was some time between 2003 and 2007, when it was on air, but I was never a regular watcher. I got the quirky, charming feel of the show from the sporadic episodes I watched, but never really paid attention to anything more.

Now that I am watching every single episode in order, there's something that I already knew about the show but has really been standing out to me--that is, the assumption of privilege that underlies pretty much the entirety of the show. Now, as a friend pointed out to me, privilege in one sense is a given from the beginning of the show, with the pilot ending with the main title characters agreeing to weekly family dinner with their parents/grandparents (respectively) in exchange for tuition for Rory's private school tuition. And I completely agree. Much of the plot would not exist without the backdrop of privilege, and the charm of the show would simply not exist if not for the comfort within which the characters generally live. But what gets to me about privilege in the context of the show is how we don't see that the "less privileged" characters in the show still do enjoy privilege in the larger scheme of things.

(At this point, I'd like to warn first-time Netflix watchers of the show that there will be spoilers to somewhere around midway through Season 6. For the record, I really don't think spoiler alerts are necessary for a show that has been off the air for 7 years, but I like covering all my bases.)

But back to the representation of privilege that is missing from the show.

アメリカで「弁護士」になること：ロー・スクール体験談

訴訟大国アメリカで弁護士を目指す者は少なくない。だが、「弁護士」と言っても様々な形の仕事があり、訴訟関連の仕事をしない者もいれば、弁護士事務所や政府の法務専門職にさえつかずに「弁護士」としての仕事をしている者も多くいる。現在の不景気においてこそ、ロー・スクール卒業生の多くは厳しい就職事情に立ち向かっているが、アメリカで法務博士（Juris Doctor (JD)）を修得すること、また、その後司法試験を受けて弁護士資格を取得することは、様々なキャリア目指す人にとって意義のある選択なのである。

アメリカでJDを取得するには、ロー・スクールから卒業しなくてはならない。ロー・スクールには、４年制大学卒業後又は大学４年生である時点で応募できる。応募するには、過去何年間のうちに、年に４回行われるLSAT（Law School Admission Test）という共通試験を受けておく必要がある。学校によっては、一定以上のLSATスコアを取得した場合、＄６０－＄１００程度の入学応募費用を免除することもあり、高得点取得は入試結果のみならず、経済的にも望ましいことなのである。最終的に、各候補の入学資格は、LSATのスコア、大学の成績や課外活動、卒業後の職業経験、志望理由を説明したエッセイ等を含めた書類審査の結果決められる。学校によっては面接を行うものもあるが、書類審査で秀でた候補でなければ受かることは難しい。

様々な団体が毎年ロー・スクールのランキングを発表しているが、そのうち最も有力なのが、学部（undergraduate）のランキングでも有名なU.S. News & World Reportである。毎年このロー・スクールのランキングの最上位を占めるのが、T-14と呼ばれる１４校。これら１４校のうち、１位から４位程度まではほとんど変化がなく、動きがみられるのは基本的に６位から１３位あたり。特に上位２校（イェール、ハーバード）の卒業生はエリート中のエリートであるが、T-14の卒業生は、各校所在地域の法曹界でも存在感を発揮する。

Getting a Photo ID: More of a Burden than You May Think

Who am I to preach about privilege? I may not be a white, heterosexual man from a non-low-income background, but in terms of the various advantages that I have in American society, I am by all means privileged. So, I am not the best person to be writing about this, but I really can't stand when people have the advantages that I do or more make comments that are so utterly unaware of the realities of real people with real lives. In all fairness, I know that a person with a particular background cannot be expected to know about the realities of others without any contact, communication, or education, but I think it's when people spew out authoritative-sounding opinions about people from different backgrounds without having met any of these people or asked about them or read about them from any source without a political agenda that really gets on my nerve. I try to be careful to indicate that I am not the best qualified person to express certain opinions or that what I am saying is limited to my experience and what I have seen/read about other people's experiences...because that is the only accurate way to qualify where my opinion is coming from.

With that rant of an introductory paragraph out there, I want to get to the topic of this post: burdening the exercise of certain fundamental rights. For now, I'd like to stick to voting rights because it is, after all, election season. I have certain feelings about voter ID laws, but I'm going to put those aside for now, and talk about my experience of obtaining driver's license in a new state.

Sexism in Film and on TV: What is a Problem...and What is Not

I worship Geena Davis. Not literally, of course. But I love both her movies and her work on the representation of women in the media. In case you didn't know, she founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which has produced a lot of great research on the representation of women in the media. Since this is a blog post--that is to say, not an academic article or even a journalistic one--I think it is acceptable for me to rely heavily on this one source for citation and will do just that. I also feel that I will not be making entirely flimsy observations given that I have read many articles and studies that reach similar conclusions over the past few years. (My point is that I don't think that a blog post requires citations in the first place, and I cite only to show that I am not pulling facts out of thin air and to help anyone who is interested digging a bit deeper than I have here.)

アメリカにおける『人種』：白人と黒人の意識のズレ

アメリカにおいて、「人種」や「民族」といった分類は、とても繊細で複雑な扱いを受けるものである。これには歴史的背景というものがあるわけだが、単に奴隷制や１９６０年代の公民権運動（Civil Rights Movement）について学ぶだけでは、現代の米国社会における人種問題を肌感覚で理解することはできない。また、アメリカ社会の「主流」（つまり白人中心の組織やコミュニティ）との接触だけでも、今、アメリカ社会が直面している人種問題がどのようなものか、捉えることは不可能だと思う。これは、アメリカの「主流」の中で生活をしている人々（主に白人）が黒人の友人をほとんど持たず、米国社会における黒人の生活が如何なるものか、知ってさえいないからである。（ちなみに、黒人以外のマイノリティーに対する差別及び人種問題における黒人の中心性についてはまた後日。）

私は、幼少の数年間と高校以降をアメリカで過ごしてきたが、全て中流階級上層（アッパー・ミドル）以上が中心のコミュニティに住み、同様の学校に通ってきたため、ロー・スクール在学中及びその後の活動以前は、「主流」の白人社会以外のアメリカ社会との接触はほとんどなかった。特に２００８年のオバマ大統領選出以降になって、人種差別の時代は終わり、真にpost-racialの社会に突入したと考える白人も少なくない。だが、私は過去数年の間、課外活動やボランティア活動、黒人コミュニティで育ったロー・スクールの学友を通じ、人種差別は、今もアメリカの「主流」社会で生活を送る白人が想像しているよりもはるか広範に存在しているものだという現実を知った。

Great Artists, Problematic Human Beings

Over the years, I have been disappointed by the behavior of countless artists outside of the realm of their professional work. But despite this disappointment, I often find it difficult to stop consuming these people's works or to stop recognizing their talent. And it makes me feel like a horrible person sometimes.

I should first clarify what I mean. By artist, I mostly mean actors, directors, singers, and the like. (I just realized that I probably should have chosen an expression that includes athletes, but I haven't been disappointed by an athlete that I liked in a while and haven't really had an athlete-related dilemma.) The behavior I'm referring to can come in various forms, but they usually involve making bigoted or overly ignorant comments or engaging in some kind of violent or sexually inappropriate behavior. I honestly don't care much about DUIs and other plainly stupid behavior, though I do experience some degree of embarrassment for liking an artist with a sloppy mugshot.

But back to my main point. I understand why a boycott of certain artists would send a strong message against whatever horrible behavior in which they have engaged (or continue to engage). Obviously, famous, talented people should not get a pass for criminal or otherwise despicable behavior just because they are famous and talented. At the same time, I wonder whether there is an acceptable way to properly punish them for their non-occupational misbehavior while simultaneously recognizing the merits of their professional work. I am a big fan of movies and music, and I do think the world would be a better place with more cinematic and musical talent. But at what point does the trade-off between that talent and horrible behavior become unacceptable? (In related news, there's the issue of misogyny and problematic stereotypes in good movies and music, but that is ripe for a post of its own...stay tuned.)

On Human Trafficking

On October 4, I participated in the Stop Modern Slavery WalkFest 2014, an annual event intended to raise awareness about human trafficking. Public awareness is a much needed element in the fight against human trafficking because of the widespread misunderstanding of what this term means. I think I have some basic knowledge to offer people who have zero background on this issue because I did a little anti-trafficking work in law school and have also been volunteering my time at an anti-trafficking organization. So for this post, I'm going to try a little awareness-raising of my own by talking about what I know about human trafficking in the U.S. and by hopefully helping debunk some myths that people may believe regarding the issue.

When hearing the term "human trafficking," most people imagine a group of young women and girls, being smuggled across borders from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia and sold for sex. While this image is not inaccurate in the sense that it is one picture of human trafficking, it's far from a complete picture. Among trafficking victims are men as well as women and children--although the latter are affected disproportionately. Many persons are trafficked domestically and never cross any border of any kind. Sex trafficking is not uncommon, but labor trafficking is also a widespread form of human trafficking.

Finding the Right Strong (Japanese) Lady

Like I promised in my previous post, today's post is about how I settled on a Miyazaki film reference for my pseudonym and blog title. It was very important to me that if I was going to do this blog thing which I had carefully avoided for so long, I was going to do it right. Everything about this project had to be reflective of me. That meant the title had to be some Japanese reference (in English, of course), but it also had to have a feminist twist. (Note: when I use the word "feminism," it always means the primary dictionary definition, i.e., the correct meaning of the word.)

In the Beginning...

Over the years, I've had several people tell me I should start a blog...probably because I am not shy about expressing my opinions. I always thought that I don't have enough time or that I won't have enough posts for it to be worthwhile. Well, I think I'm going to do this anyway.

I'm still trying to figure out what this blog is going to be about, but I imagine that the content will be relatively eclectic. Some political, some social, some cinematic, some cultural. I'm also trying to make this a bilingual blog, since I write in both English and Japanese. Companion posts probably won't be exact translations but the same general thoughts on the same topic. Either way, I have zero experience in HTML, so we'll see if I can pull it off...

I don't want my first post to be long, but I did want to briefly explain my pseudonym and the title of the blog. If you're a Studio Ghibli fan, I hope I don't need to explain. I mean, you should not be calling yourself a fan if you need an explanation. Both are obviously an ode to my favorite Ghibli movie, Princess Mononoke. I'm not going to write a summary of the story, so if you haven't seen it, go do that now. But just to make things clear, Daughter of Moro is a reference to the title character, who is a young girl who was raised by Moro, the wolf goddess of the forest. The girl, San, wears a mask (clay face), which is where the name of my blog comes from.

I have some things I want to say about how I settled on these references, but I think that deserves a post of its own.

はじめに

よく友人から「ブログはじめなよ」とか言われてきたけど、今まであまり気が進まなかった。時間がない、そんなに書き込むこともない、など色々な言い訳（？）をしてきた。何故今になってという理由は特にないが、一先ずやってみようと思う。

実は、このブログの主題はまだ決まっていない。とりあえずは、米国及び国際政治ネタ、社会ネタ、映画関係、文化ネタなどなどを予定。英語と日本語両方でポストしたいと思っています。原文と翻訳という形ではなく、同じ主題についての考えを各言語で書いたというものにしていくつもりです。HTMLとか全然知識がないので、文字化けとかしないといいな。

ところで、ブログのタイトル及びハンドル（って今更言うんですかね？）ですが、大好きな宮崎映画『もののけ姫』に因んでつけたものです。Daughter of Moroは「モロの娘」（つまりサン）、Behind the Clay Faceは「土面の裏側」といったところでしょうか。やっぱり日本関連の名前にしたかったんですよね。この名前に落ち着いたいきさつは次回。