Fukuoka residents Ruth (L) and Grace (R). Screencap from “There's Life Beyond the White Supremacy Narrative [1]” on Black in Japan official YouTube channel.
Popular YouTube channel [2] and website The Black Experience Japan [3] features interviews with dozens of black residents of Japan.
Launched in 2017 by Laranzo “Ranzo” Dacres [4], a Jamaican living in Japan, The Black Experience Japan interviews people from a wide variety of backgrounds, from a man who “found exactly what he needed in Japan” [5]to Tsietsi Monare [6], a meteorologist and weather anchor for NHK, Japan's national broadcaster.
In this clip taken from one of our MFiles episodes, Tsietsi, a South African Meteorologist and Weatherman at NHK World Japan, shares his journey from South Africa to the Japanese news channel, with us.
FULL interview: https://t.co/yYbKrT6BIO [7]@naomiosaka [8] #nhk [9] #日本 [10]@TsietsiMonare [11] pic.twitter.com/nCOomRtAEy [12]
— The Black Experience Japan (@theblackexjp) July 11, 2020 [13]
The website and YouTube channel [2] got its start in 2017 following the launch of Ranzo's documentary “The Truth About Being Black in Japan [14]“, in which he answers common questions he gets asked as he goes about daily life in Japan.
From that start, The Black Experience Japan continues on with a singular mission [15]:
We still have a burning desire to share a plethora of experiences (and all things black in Japan) in an effort to paint a more accurate picture of life in Japan for the black individual.
The Black Experience Japan website also includes live podcast broadcasts [16], forums [17] where members can share travel advice or generally discuss life in Japan, and a link to a mobile app with a directory of Black-owned businesses across Asia [18].
In this video [1], Fukuoka residents Ruth, from Kenya, and Grace, from Tanzania, talk about how they arrived in Japan, what it is like to work at a traditional Japanese-style pub or izakaya, mastering the Japanese language at a high level, and how Japan shows “there's life beyond a white-supremacy narrative.”