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.