If you know me personally, you would know that I am
passionate about the human rights issue. Especially I support LGBTQ community,
and it’s because my best friend is a transgender man. However, honestly, I
wasn’t that passionate about issues of racism when I was in japan because I
really didn’t know about it. I have grown up with only Japanese who have same
skin color as me. Therefore, I hadn’t seen and experienced any discrimination
through my eyes until I came to the United States. After coming to the United
States, I’d realized that how insensitive I was about this issue.
This summer, I had watched so many Rio Olympic games even
time difference between Brazil and Japan is 12 hours. I had to stay up late or
wake up early to watch the games live on the air, but I didn’t mind it at all.
Because Olympics is such an exciting event for me, and since next Olympics will
be held in Tokyo, Japan (of course I’m planning to go there), I wanted to get
to know about Olympics and athletes even more. There were some Japanese
athletes that I was rooting for. Asuka Cambridge was one of them.
Asuka is a Japanese track and field sprinter who has a
Jamaican father and a Japanese mother, and he was born in Jamaica. He moved to
Japan when he was two years old. It means he doesn’t look like a “typical”
Japanese. He has darker skin, and his face is different than other Japanese
too. In the 2016 Olympic Games, he was part of the 4x100 m relay for Japan,
which took the silver medal in the final. This was an unexpected result. I was rooting
for them to get the medal in the final, but I didn’t expect it at all. That’s
why people in Japan got so excited and proud of the four sprinters who ran in
the final for Japan. However, sadly, some media covered this news in the way
Asuka wouldn’t want.
The media started to remark that Asuka was the only black
man in Japanese team, and they could win the silver medals because of Jamaican
blood. An article I found, Olympics:
Japan 4x100m relay team boasts a little Jamaican blood too, as it clinches surprise
silver, it mentioned “RIO DE JANEIRO – Japan’s 4x100m relay team had a
little ‘help’ from Jamaica as it won a surprise silver on Saturday setting a
new Asian record time of 37.60 sec.” It sounds like they got silver medal
because of his Jamaican blood. This article is not only one that wrote about
Japan’s silver medal in that way. Also in another article, Meet The Jamaican Who Just Landed Japan Into The Men’s 4x100 Finals In
Rio, it says “few bothered to note that Asuka ‘Aska’ Antonio Cambridge was
actually born in Jamaica, West Indies even though he is running for Japan.” I
understand he is noticeable to the media because he is “different.” But to be
honest, it bothers me a little that the media is only paying attention to him.
If you actually watched the final race, you would know that reasons for victory
were teamwork and the baton changes. Besides, Kiryu, who ran third right before
Asuka, ran so fast and got close to a Jamaican runner. But nobody gives him
credit for it! I feel like it’s unfair.
But there was a person who commented about Japan’s victory
in a different way. It’s Usain Bolt. According to an article, For Japan’s unlikely silver medalists,
teamwork trumps speed, Bolt said, “Hats off to them. The baton changes are
always good and that’s what always helps them, and I think they executed it
well today, so I’m not shocked.” Bolt is known as a respectful man, and I was
so glad to hear his comment about this.
People care about race so much. But I feel like it’s
nonsense to care so much in this 21st century. We already got mixed, and I know
that races will be mixed even more in the future. Eventually, all of our skin
color will be mixed. Some people still think mixed people like Asuka aren’t
“true” Japanese. So what is the “true’ Japanese? What is the “true” American?
I’ve seen so many races in the United States and in the Olympics. We cannot
question and say they are not “real” citizens based on or because of skin
colors. Especially in the United States, most of people are immigrant, and
that’s okay. If they think of themselves as American citizen, they are
American. It’s same for Asuka. Yes, he was born in Jamaica and moved to Japan.
But he was raised in Japan, and he identify himself as Japanese. That’s all
matters. I’ve heard so many negative comment about Asuka such as he is not
Japanese, he is Jamaican. Where do the mixed people belong? We need to show
respect to one another. I hope the world will be the place that race doesn’t
matter.
According to an
article, Topomorphological approach to automatic posture recognition
in ballet dance,
“Ballet is an artistic dance form, performed to music using unequivocal and
highly formalized set steps and kinesics.” When I was dancing
classical ballet as an Asian child, I used to be told that If I want to be a
professional ballet dancer, I have to have better techniques because Asian bone
structure is “poor” compared to European or American. Essentially, we Asian
have shorter legs, bigger face, and the shape of our legs is not straight
enough for a ballet dancer. Also most of ballet stories are set in Europe, not
Asia, it means our skin color and appearances don’t fit in with characters. That’s
why Asian have to cover the “disadvantage” by techniques. This is what I was
told. According to an e-book, Equality in
Sports, “Anyone can play sports. Right? Well, not exactly. For years, many
people have had to fight for the right to play. Many have not been allowed to
compete because other people said they had to play separately or not play at
all. People have had to fight for equality in society. They have also had to
fight for equality in sports.” Not only in classical ballet world, but there is still
racism in sports.
I believe that racism in classical
ballet still exists. Actually, racism in ballet is way behind the times
compared to other sports. For example, in baseball, soccer, basketball, and
others, there are so many players who are colored races and have come up big
even though there was racism in the past. If you ever watched classical ballet,
you would realize that the most of dancers are Caucasians. I found an
interesting article called “Is Nutcracker Racist?” In that article, Ronald
Alexander mentioned that “The
whole ballet tradition is inherently racist, so the traditional productions of
Nutcracker can also be seen as racist.” Just like as I mentioned earlier, he
thinks ballet is racist too. I understand that ballet has such a long history
and it has begun with Caucasian, however, we are in 21st century now and I
think it should be more open to other races. As I said earlier, ballet is way behind the times in issues
of discrimination. Is it because classical ballet is not as major
as baseball, soccer, or American football? Maybe.
Major sports such
as American football, baseball, soccer, and basketball, can be
attention-getting because they are on media almost every day. However, it’s
different for classical ballet. It’s not something you would see every day.
Maybe so many people in the U.S. might have never watched ballet before. That’s
why it needs to be discourses. According to our textbook, Sport, Media and Society, “Discourses can be detected in the
repeated way in which an event is framed and the effect of that framing on
individuals’ behavior, thoughts, and opinions.” Also “Discourses is, therefore,
a way of knowing – one that has an effect in the world” (19). I think that the
reason why ballet is way behind the times compared to other sports is because
of ignorance of people. In order to change something, we need to gather voices
of people. But for right now, it is so hard for ballet to be discourses and get
attention as long as media does not cover about the issues of discrimination in
ballet.
In 2015, Misty Danielle
Copeland finally became the first African American woman to be promoted to
principal dancer. There are so many African American athletes out there,
however, it took so long for an African American person to become a principal
ballet dancer even though ballet started in 15th century. There is
an article on Time, and it’s about
the conversation between Barack Obama and Misty Copeland. According to the
article, Copeland said, “‘I feel
like a lot of the time what I’m being judged on is my aesthetic,’ she admits. ‘It
may not be said, but a lot of the time I don’t think that the classical ballet
world will ever accept me because I’m something different.’” She also said,
“That something that I fought so hard for throughout the beginning of my career
is I didn’t want to pancake my skin a lighter color to fit into the ballet. I
wanted to be myself. I didn’t want to have to wear makeup that made my nose
look thinner.” She is such a strong person, however, we can tell that she has
been through a lot because of the “tradition” of ballet. Obviously, she doesn’t
need to change herself to be a prima ballerina. But in the reality, it must
have been hard to be successful without trying to fit in with others. Every
time when I went on stage, I had to put makeup on my face and make my skin
whiter and contour my nose to make it look sharper. At that time, I was a child
and wasn’t thinking anything, but do we really need to do it? In the article,
she also mentioned, “being the only African American at this level in American
Ballet Theatre, I feel like people are looking at me, and it’s my
responsibility for me to do whatever I can to provide these opportunities in
communities to be able to educate them.” In another article, Ballerina Misty
Copeland On Diversity In Ballet World, Copeland mentioned why ballet
in discrimination is way behind. “Ballet is different from a sport because it's
subjective. So there’s no real rule. If you run frack and you win the meet, that’s
if. It’s plain to see. But in ballet, it's up to someone else's judgement. So
it's about educating people on ballet and exposing more dancers of color so
that it doesn’t seem so far away and not attainable. I think the more this goes
beyond the ballet world, the more ballet will open up.” I completely agree with
her. Ballet in
discrimination is way behind, and it’s because people don’t pay attention or
just don’t know about it. How can we solve it then? I said it earlier, the key
is in media.
According to the textbook, Sport,
Media and Society,
“Newspapers do more than report the news; they determine what news is and
present it in accordance with particular values and organizational needs” (74).
Not only newspaper, there are so many platforms in media such as web,
television, radio, and blog. “The media chooses from a large pool of events and
issues what they wish to include and and how they wish to tell about them”
(74). When media tells a story to society, it educates people and make their
eyes open for something they never knew. This is something that is lacking in
ballet world and something that ballet world needs. Not only Misty Copeland,
also Kiara Felder, an African American dancer with Atlanta Ballet, has
suffered from discrimination. According to an article, When “Diversity” Isn’t Enough, “Not too long ago Kiara Felder, a
dancer with Atlanta Ballet, got a haircut and was surprised by a
choreographer’s reaction to it. ‘I was told my hair looked messy and I needed
to do something different with it,’ remembers Felder, who is the only
African-American female dancer in the company and wears her hair curly and
natural. ‘I looked around the room and saw messy straight hair.’ Felder felt
embarrassed for being ‘singled out so publicly’ even while she recognizes it
was possible the choreographer didn’t intend to discriminate against her.” If
the exact same thing has happened to player in different sports, it would have
been a huge problem. “Discrimination in ballet is often made worse by a
reluctance to break rank and speak out. However, now in her second season,
Felder has a new confidence and feels that if her hair was commented on again, she
would stand up for herself.” I truly believe that nobody should feel ashamed of
their body or hair for anything including ballet. I’m pretty sure that there
are more individuals who have discriminated in ballet world, and they need to
speak up to make the environment better for everyone.
In the past, media used to just address
issues and talk about it one-sidedly, however, since the Internet has appeared,
users of internet has been able to participate the argument and share their own
opinions with others. According to the textbook, Sport, Media and Society, “Users of the Internet can
participate in virtual communities, adopting any identity they wish. The
ability of users to appropriate racial identity, enabling one to ‘co-opt the
exotic and attach it to oneself’ has led to the practice of identity tourism in
cyberspace” (174). It means now is the
time to speak and spread about discrimination in ballet world and make change. Racism
is still there because of media. Ballet is such a minor sport; therefore, it
takes time to change the “tradition.”We
need to use the power of Internet to raise awareness the problem in ballet
world so that more dancers of color will have opportunity like Caucasian
dancers.
Works Cited
Saha, Sriparna, and Amit Konar. "Topomorphological Approach
To Automatic Posture Recognition In Ballet Dance." IET Image Processing 9.11 (2015): 1002-1011. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
Rhodan, Maya. "Across Generations And Professions, A
President And A Prima Ballerina Talk About Race, Beauty And Breaking Barriers.
In Conversation: Misty Copeland And Barack Obama."Time187.11 (2016): 56-60.Academic Search Premier.
Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
Stephen, Curtis. "Ballerina Misty Copeland On Diversity In
Ballet World."Crisis (15591573)121.1
(2014): 7.Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
Kennedy, Eileen, and Laura Hills. "Analysing Media
Sport."Sport, Media and
Society. Oxford: Berg, 2009. N. pag. Print.
Kennedy, Eileen, and Laura Hills. "Sport and the Press."Sport, Media and Society.
Oxford: Berg, 2009. N. pag. Print.
