The tv channel NHK, japan’s public has removed from its website a cartoon designed to explain the movement Black Lives Matter, but that has attracted a flood of complaints of racism, including on the part of the embassy of the United States and of the tennis star, Naomi Osaka. In a press release, the audiovisual group has acknowledged that the film lacked “consideration” and apologized “to those who have been offended”.
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“The cartoon has been produced to explain in a simple way to understand the difficulties of African-americans in the United States. However, we decided to remove this animation after hearing the criticism about its lack of accuracy compared to the reality of the problem,” says the chain.
The short film was aired Sunday during a weekly show commenting on the news on a light shade. He explained that the pandemic is underway, and the destruction of jobs caused by the health crisis, including a large number of them have been victims, had fuelled the anger of African-americans, but it was silent on the death of George Floyd or the debate on racism and police violence. The short film, a minute and twenty seconds, put in scene characters black protester with anger in the streets against inequality in the country or robbing stores.
“Caricatures demeaning and insensitive”
The film has quickly provoked a wave of condemnations on the social networks of japanese, under the hashtags #JemanifestecontreNHK in japanese, accusing the content of being racist and inaccurate. “It is regrettable that there has not been more care and thought in producing this video,” said on Twitter a responsible officer of the U.s. embassy in Tokyo, Joseph Mr Young, adding that “these cartoons are demeaning and insensitive”. The former world no. 1 tennis Naomi Osaka has tweeted a GIF to express his lack of understanding in this animated image.