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.
