SubscribeJapanese Ad Features Monkey As Obama
From the race baiters at the Chicago Tribune:
One (Obama) monkey stops show
Posted July 2, 2008
by Frank James
The Japanese love monkeys. They use monkeys in commercials constantly. Heck, Speed Racer, which started out as a Japanese cartoon in the 1960s, even has a monkey character. It’s a Japanese thing we Americans just don’t understand.
All that to say that it seems somewhat over-the-top that some African-Americans living in Japan would’ve gotten so dyspeptic that a Japanese telecommunications company used a monkey in an TV commercial that was a parody of the U.S. presidential race, with the simian wearing a suit and standing behind a podium with a sign reading “Change.”
The African Americans felt the monkey was a visual racial slur directed at Obama and all blacks. One can understand why. During the long, sorry history of white supremacy in the world, blacks have often been compared to monkeys and called monkeys. So this is obviously a sensitive subject.
But since the Japanese have this thing for monkeys and the Japanese makers of the commercial and its viewers were totally clueless about the whole monkey-black tie according to the above video news report, it seems like an overreaction on the part of the African Americans in Japan who went ballistic over the ad.
That’s not to say that the Japanese are any less racist than any other group of people. Japanese history proves they’re as racist as anyone else, more or less.
But to quote Sigmund Freud, sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.
Of course, sometimes it’s not. Take the infamous monkey shirts being sold by a Georgia bar which say “Obama ‘08″ and show a picture of Curious George of childrens book fame. That seems like a pretty clear cut case of racist monkey business.
As we have previously noted, the very Caucasian Mr.Bush has been and is still regularly compared to monkeys and even Curious George.
Indeed, a whole parody Curious George book has been done about him:
When were these sites or books ever called “racist” or “infamous”?
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15 Responses to “Japanese Ad Features Monkey As Obama”
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July 3rd, 2008 at 9:21 am
Looks like the media has to go pretty far now to find offense! Hey, I hear an editorial cartoon in the Tahitian Monthly might have been vaguely offensive to Obama and a group of ex-pat beach bums are really riled up…go get ‘em MSM!
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:41 am
I have never seen a monkey and immediately thought, “BLACK PERSON!” … until now. The outspoken members of their skin-color (”race?”) perpetuate their own racial stereotypes.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hey all!!!!
I hope everyone here has a wonderful and safe 4th!!! If you are traveling out there this holiday, remember there are lib asshats and their homies….drunk illegal aliens…………on the roads…….be on the lookout!!!
Isn’t this the very same Chitiown paper that recently vociferously decried the SCOTUS 2nd Amendment decision in its editorial pages? You know the one…….it’s that one that Obama was against before he was for it.
I wonder now that he has “changed” his mind (BTW, that truly is change you can believe in)….will he denounce the paper and it’s editorial staff for their views on the 2nd Amendment?
Or could it be that Barry is simply doing the politically expedient thing AGAIN in his furious scramble to the center?
Don’t be fooled folks. There is a man behind the curtain working the levers and that would be “emperor” is nekkid as a jaybird.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Happy Independance Day Everyone!
Sorry, I haven’t been on the board lately. I’ve been having too much fun on the cbsmarketwatch.com board. My favorite liberal post was “McCain caved and spilled his guts only 4 days as a POW.”
“Proof positive that torture works!”
Only to get the reply “McCain wasn’t tortured.”
“No! Of course not! The NVA didn’t use torture, but the US does.”
I actually got some liberals to flip and say nice things. Imagine that!
So thank you everyone with special thanks to SG for calling a spade a spade.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I didn’t think there were any black people in Japan. Heck, the Japanese barely let Koreans into their country, I don’t know how they tell the difference. Each Japanese major professional baseball team is allowed either 2 or 4 foreigners, so worse case is 32 times 4 = 128 black people in all of Japan.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
ben, I’ve tried to give your post the benefit of doubt - but I just can’t seem to read it as anything other than a statement of racism. Care to expound?
Japanese comparing President Bush’s or Senators Obama or McCain’s expressions to a monkey, while droll, isn’t racism. Saying that all oriental people (or white people, or black people) look alike to you, so that you can’t tell the difference, smacks of a shallow brain pan to me.
Honestly, if I have misread what you are trying to say, then I apologize.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Hey Japan - Welcome to our PC world! Hypersensitive tolerance for the few, painful and forced-guilt for everyone else. Even the innocent (which I believe this ad to be), are not ‘tolerated.’
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
The left always cries about “diversity.” Well, where is their acceptance of the “diversity” of a foreign country and culture?
As always, “tolerance” and “diversity” only means to embrace whatever they say is proper.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:12 pm
1) Wouldn’t it be a GOOD THING if the Japanese do not reflexively notice a ‘Black Guy = Monkey’ connection?
2) If Black men in Japan see a ‘Monkey = Black Man’ connection and the Japanese do NOT see it… are Black men still victims of Japanese discrimination if they see a Monkey on TV?
3) What I love is the astounding self-importance: These offended people demand that all societies worldwide keep track of their history, and be sensitive to injustices practiced by all OTHER societies against them. Right. I’m pretty sure the Japanese aren’t studying up on Norwegian History, either… so if I’m called a Swede by a Japanese businessman, I’m not going to go all ballistic on him.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Is Ob*ma running in Japan?
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Cluelessness?
Voting for Obama!
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
” What I love is the astounding self-importance ”
Thats it in a nutshell, its the “its all about me” syndrome, being offended has become a very popular past time.
The funny thing about these perpetually offended introverts is they can’t see how offensive they are with their constant bellyaching, they work hard at being miserable and they are determined to make every last human being on the planet as self loathing as themselves.
They can never sit back and enjoy a good laugh because they have to find a reason to be pissed off.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:05 am
The Japanese are racially insensitive? Who knew? I mean, during the war they showed nothing but love and understanding to the Chinese and to all the people fortunate enough to be living under the benevolent Greater South East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and to Allied POWs, right? Ask my Uncle Frank. He was on Bataan and he spent four years as a prisoner of those people, first in the Phillipines, then on Formosa (bombed by our guys on the way there, too) and by August 1945 his hair was white and he weighed 90 pounds and he died two years later. They’re funny people, the Japanese, with their beautiful art and their lovely gardens and their gleaming swords and their attitude of complete and utter superiority to everyone else on the planet, very funny indeed.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
“Racially Insensitive?” Not too certain that you can say that “The Japanese”, implying ALL the Japanese, hold to those same beliefs. You probably will find a decent mix of viewpoints there as you will find everywhere else. Your comments themselves could be said to be racially insensitive.
That being said, I am sorry for your loss and I hope that what you said is just in reaction to that.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Fair point, oki. I spoke rashly. I shouldn’t allow my bad feelings about the past to color my feelings about contemporary Japanese folk but its hard not to when family’s involved.