tw.youtube.com/watch?v=si-lSLv9b … ksame.com/
I didn’t post this in the IP forum because I hope it won’t be a thread about politics. We have enough of those. :raspberry:
Can we make it a thread about the comments from Japanese people this thing is getting on YouTube instead?
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warawara (4 hours ago) Show Hide
Don’t you know how Japanese people don’t know about racism??
Don’t be too sensitive!
EMOBILE CEO SENMOTO is not RACIST!! \
and
yuco (5 days ago) Show Hide
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japanese=economic animal=yellow monkey
Many racism made by white.
You impose on your mentality again…
We japanese thik that monky is friend.
In the first place, we have no interest in american presidential election.
God help this world. And yeah, you don’t have to point out to me that a lot of stupid comments are made by Americans on YouTube, I can read.
I guess I grew up thinking Americans were the only stupid people in the world. Boy, was I wrong.
SadTruth87 (5 days ago) Show Hide
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You just did it.
In Japan, people did speak their minds to me. Blacks have faced to your face racism, discrimination, disliked worldwide, looked down upon worldwide (even when you don’t fit the “stereotypical norm”), and singled out by the police etc. Yes, some Blacks do commit crimes and deserve to be punished, but contrary to popular belief, it’s not the majority.
Even now, the chinks are barring Blacks from bars during the olympics.
It is a case again of different cultural perspectives.
The monkey in question is the “spokesman” of the brand. He has appeared in several other commercials. Using him was originally done in good faith, by miling the interest in the US eelections for the company’s benefit.
The Japanese who did the ad were not that sophisticated to understand the reference/realtionship of the terms “monkey” and “African American”, and hence understand the consequences of the image they were depicting. For them, it was just their brand spokesman promoting change. Could have been a squirrel. Could have been Hello Kitty -heaven forbid.
However, they are at fault for not accepting that this ad may hurt some sensibilities, when they were told what it meant for certain people. People of Western background read an insult in the ad, and the failure to remove it promptly/apologize relies on the company, who was the one who made the choice to take it or leave it. They believed that they were right, since they did not see in the ad what the other people were seeing. Their target market is teh Japanese people, who also had a different reaction.
This is the same argument in the comments -which we’ve also heard from Taiwanese: “You are imposing your world view on us!”. Annoying, yes, passive agressive, true, but when it comes to culture, there is little “of course” and plenty of room for error.
[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]If someone were to compare a white politiican–say, George W. Bush–to a chimp, would that be considered out-of-bounds?
I for one am offended by the pervasive species-ism which causes people to take insult at being compared to a monkey (or technically, ape).[/quote]
I think Bush has been compared to a chimp on many occasions.
I personally don’t find it offending. Also, Americans are not innocent when it comes to racist comments. Look at some of the attack ads against McCain during the Republican primaries. One of them said “and he lets em come and with their Spicy Jalopenos, and doing the tango with your daughter”.
Also, the monkey is a leader. (had to point that out, who woudn’t want a monkey leader?)