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Is This How The World Views Us? Part 2: Image is Everything!
If you haven’t read part 1, Loco in Cap-Haitien, HERE you go! I wasn’t in Japan long at all before I came to learn that here, particularly for non-Japanese, you are what the image of you portrays you...
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Traumatic Reminiscence at a Japanese Cat Cafe: Neko in Yokohama
When I mentioned to one of my students that I liked cats, she recommended I check out this new Cat Cafe in Kannai, Yokohama called Cafe Miysis. So I made my way over there today to check it out. I’ve...
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Was Dr. King’s Dream Deferred? A Birthday Message to the Good Doctor
Dear Dr. King: In 1951, long before you made your “I have a dream” speech, the great poet Langston Hughes wrote the following poem, called “Harlem”: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up...
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How to Avoid Becoming a Stalker
So, last night, I was out in Yokohama stalking random Japanese people using my fearsome physique and menacing mien to threaten them with bodily harm or worse…actually I was headed to my friend’s house...
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Gaijin Hygiene
One of my favorite things about Japan are onsens (hot springs). I was introduced to onsens on my first visit here, before I decided to relocate. I came to visit a friend and stayed with him for a...
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On Trump’s Inaugural Speech: Speechless, Sleepless and Shook!
Last night I couldn’t sleep. I had received a lot of requests from friends and fam to boycott the Inauguration by not watching it. But I went ahead and did it anyway. You might as well be telling a...
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How to NOT Get Racially Profiled in Japan…if You’re Black
The latest #BlackEye is coming at you right now! Interviewing a brother by the name of Jesse Freeman who finds himself on the business end of police harassment way too often. In this interview he makes...
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Theories on Racial Profiling Discrepancies in Japan
Been getting so many comments on today’s #BlackEye article that I believe I’m going to have to do a follow-up. Perhaps even something investigative, either on my blog or on my column. haven’t decided...
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Is This How The World Views Us? Part 3: Furious Styles Packs A .357 Magnum
If you haven’t read parts ONE: Loco in Cap-Haitien and TWO: Image is Everything check them out. To me, the true point Chris Rock made in his stand-up routine (purposely or obliviously) is this: Just as...
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The One-Eyed Black Jew Who Changed the World!
When I was a kid there was a TV show I watched every sunday called Wonderama. I really only remember a couple of things about the show…the songs mostly. One song in particular was performed by a black...
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“Mannnn! You Come Right Outtavah Comic Book!!”
Seven-year old me sat in a rat infested cat patrolled theatre with my brothers, eating stale popcorn and sipping watery sprite, watching Chinese men have their eyes ripped from the sockets by other...
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Nothing But Love for THIS Love Hotel!
One of my favorite areas in Yokohama is called Shin-Yokohama. It doesn’t have a lot to offer, but what it has, it has in spades. For one there’s the ramen museum. Y’all know I’m big fan of ramen! (You...
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A Sojourn in Haiti
I had planned to write a travel piece about Haiti, describing how idyllic she is: the lush green countryside, the cloud-capped mountains, the clear blue waters, the wistful art, the dignified people,...
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Self-Emancipation for Dummies
World-renown black leaders like President Barack Obama, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) actually come from a long line of inspired intellectuals and gifted...
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If You Live in Japan and Never Use These, Consider Yourself Japanese
Over the course of my 13 years in Japan I have found that many of my feelings I just can’t express well in Nihongo. The Japanese “cuss” words just don’t do it for me. For example, all the feelings I...
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Filling The Black Hole in the Space Program
When I was a kid, mankind had already walked on the moon, planted their flags in her and moved on to new business, mainly satellites. But, in Hollywood we were all over the galaxy. At least white...
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On Bullying, Hazing, and Backbiting in Japan
My eye caught the hand movement and spotted the projectile as soon as it left its source: Matsui-kun. Takahashi-sensei (not her real name), the other half of my teaching team, was writing something on...
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See That Black Boy Over There Runnin’ Scared?
I was 9 or 10 and a 5th grader at a very revolutionary school in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. It was a Friday evening, I believe, and I was staying over my best friend and classmate Ketema’s house, as I often...
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Amina DuJean: The Girl-Next-Door and a WHOLE Lot More!
The new #BlackEye hits the newsstands tomorrow, 2/20/17, featuring the “first black American idol” in Japan, Amina DuJean! Amina DuJean: 黒人アイドル あみにゃん Since her arrival in Japan a mere 2.5 years ago,...
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I’m Your Mamma, I’m Your Daddy, I’m that Nigga in the Alley!
When I was a kid, so-called blaxploitation films were a hot ticket! Who wouldn’t rather see black folk kicking white ass all over the place? Not to mention black tits and ass! When Superfly was first...
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