Osaka in Olympic spotlight but biracial Japanese face struggles
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Osaka in Olympic spotlight, but biracial Japanese face struggles
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24/07/2021 - 07:14 Japanese-Haitian tennis star Naomi Osaka lit the Olympic cauldron in the crowning moment of the opening ceremony HANNAH MCKAY POOL/AFP 4 min
Tokyo (AFP)
Emili Omuro was thrilled by Naomi Osaka s star turn at the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, but the biracial teenager says Japan must do more to accept people of mixed heritage.
Four-time Grand Slam winner Osaka, whose mother is Japanese and father Haitian, climbed a replica Mount Fuji on Friday to light the cauldron in the ceremony s crowning moment.
And she wasn t the only athlete of dual heritage representing the host.
Jul 5, 2021
I bet all of us can now relate a little, especially during this ongoing pandemic. However, there’s an added dimension related to being visibly non-Japanese in Japan or a person of color in a majority white society in the West that can make the struggle a bit more intense.
I’m sure the situation is similar for other people facing discrimination, whether it’s women, those who identify as LBGTQIA, those with a disability or people in more than one of those categories.
To gain a different perspective on this, I decided to reach out to Mark Bookman, a colleague of mine. Based out of the University of Tokyo, he’s a historian of disability policy and connected social movements in Japan, and works as an accessibility consultant, collaborating with government agencies and corporate entities around the world on projects tied to disability inclusion. Mark has a rare degenerative neuromuscular disease similar to ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) that