Abstract
This paper examines representations of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in three of Japan’s top-circulating newspapers—Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and Mainichi Shimbun—from 1966 to 1979, these years marking the period of greatest BPP activity. The purpose of this analysis is to bring renewed perspective regarding the light in which the BPP was covered by a non-US press, as a step toward further developing scholarship of transnational discourse on black militancy. Through making additions to said scholarship, the author wishes to contribute to the greater aim of reexamining frameworks of representational power, calling into question the lynchpins of this power as they function toward our understanding of blackness and race in an historical context. The paper is divided into two distinct parts. The first part chronicles the trajectory of the Japan and black American relationship. This forms the context for the author’s examination of BPP coverage in the aforementioned newspapers.
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Notes
Japanese names are given in the Japanese convention of surname then first name.
After all, it was not just racial prejudices that were at work in the growing sense of animosity toward the Japanese and Japanese Americans but also jealousies and economic anxieties, “Although Japanese Americans owned a miniscule fraction of California farmland, their success at turning dry and infertile land into profitable farms aroused envy and resentment amongst whites, and consequently an act to bar Japanese aliens from further land ownership was introduced in the California legislature” (Robinson 2001, p. 17).
Quoting the work of C.J. Kim, Yuko Kawai reminds us that racial triangulation—the tendency in American society to position Asian-Americans as inferior to white Americans and superior to black Americans—simply works as a means of reinforcing yellow peril, while also celebrating the idea that Asian Americans, “unlike other racial minority groups, move ahead only with their own effort in U.S. society” (Kawai 2005, p.110). In this way, hegemonic models of viewing race can accommodate both minorities, obviating the need for reevaluation.
In comparison, in the first quarter of 2015, the New York Times saw a Monday-Friday print circulation of 625,951 and 1,147,892 for Sunday (NYT Company 2015).
Perhaps the present-day version of “agitator” rests in the ironical twist of deeming those who engage in racial discourse—as opposed to silence—as being racist themselves in the “I know you are, but what am I” school of logic.
The “forum” functioned as a means of accepting reader questions. Readers could mail their current affairs questions to the newspaper. The newspaper would, in turn, provide answers to select questions.
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Jones, J.C. The Black Panther Party and the Japanese Press. J Afr Am St 21, 42–70 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-016-9337-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-016-9337-1