Japanese public broadcaster NHK yesterday apologized and deleted from its Twitter account an animated video aimed at explaining the background behind US protests for police reform, but which sparked online outrage for its depiction of African Americans.
The 81-second clip, which NHK had also broadcast on its Sunday evening program Sekai no Ima (“The World Now”), featured a tough-talking black narrator citing the wealth disparity between black and white Americans and the economic impact from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet it made no mention of police brutality or the death of George Floyd — a black man who died on May 25 after being pinned by the neck for nine minutes by a white officer’s knee — which sparked the latest protests.
In the clip, the narrator’s bodybuilder-like muscles were bursting out of a white “wife-beater” tank top, while other African-American characters included a man with an afro and mutton chop sideburns, and a muscular man in a sleeveless purple suit, fedora-style hat and sandals strumming a guitar.
“While we understand @NHK’s intent to address complex racial issues in the United States, it’s unfortunate that more thought and care didn’t go into this video,” US Ambassador to Japan Joseph M. Young said on Twitter. “The caricatures used are offensive and insensitive.”
NHK said that it had decided to take down the tweet after receiving a lot of criticism, and that it had posted the video with a “lack of consideration.”
“We apologise to those who were made to feel uncomfortable,” the broadcaster wrote on Twitter.
The video had been viewed more than 1 million times as of midday yesterday on the program’s @nhk_sekaima Twitter account.
Baye McNeil, a Japan-based African-American author and activist, said that the clip showed the need for local broadcasters to educate themselves.
“Any child who looks at that video will walk away from it feeling, ‘Yeah, maybe these people have been treated unfairly ... but they’re big and awful and scary,’” he told reporters before the video was removed. “How can they [NHK] think people are going to be sympathetic to the people being oppressed after watching that video?”
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS