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Hi Blog.  A little over a week ago, Debito.org issued a report from a Kyoto NJ Resident who protested an official comic book, issued by the City of Kyoto to local grade schoolers, depicting NJ only as noisy English-speaking tourists, litterers, and loiterers.  And how local residents managed to get Kyoto City to remove that comic with a phone call of protest.

(Even that blog post had an impact:  It smoked out a Gaijin Handler who tried to blame us as a foreign “troublemaking demographic” wasting Japan’s money.)

That’s fine.  The irony here was that the people who developed this comic were Kyoto Seika University and the Kyoto International Manga Museum — “international” places you think would know better than to encourage prejudice.

Well, I’m not sure why this didn’t dawn on me sooner, but as pointed out on FB, Kyoto Seika University just happens to have a naturalized Malian-Japanese named Dr. Oussouby Sacko as its President (see Debito.org posts on him here and here).

I wonder if he was aware of this project, and if he would have anything to say about it now?

Given Dr. Sacko’s flawed social science training regarding how racism works, and his apparent obliviousness about his own privilege in Japan, I’m not so sure.

(Dr. Sacko’s only apparent public contact is at ksuinted@kyoto-seika.ac.jp.  His Twitter, however, is https://twitter.com/oussouby.)

Anyway, here is Kyoto Seika University’s statement of principles, undersigned by the man himself.  How does this square with being involved in encouraging prejudice in Japan’s grade-schoolers?  Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/int/en/about/

Leadership

Hello, everyone. I am Oussouby Sacko, the president of Kyoto Seika University. Our school was founded 50 years ago on “the principles of respect for humanity” and “the spirit of freedom and autonomy.” The school began as a place for people to study together, recognizing diverse points of view and overcoming differences in nationality, region, ethnicity, sex, and religion. I myself – as someone hailing from West Africa – became teaching staff at this university in solidarity with this ideal. What we aim for here is the cultivation of people who exercise their individuality to create things that have never been seen before, and can find a way to connect those things to society. In doing so, our society will change for the better. Despite living in an era overflowing with crises, we are able to see a brighter future. The freedom obtained at our school will prove to be a great strength for you as you continue your lives. Kyoto Seika University is excited to discover what you – and no one else – has to offer.

President’s Statement on Diversity

Kyoto Seika University, committed to it’s founding principle of “freedom and autonomy” and to the ideal of “respect for human dignity” based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, aims to be an academic community in which all members, including students, faculty and staff, can learn and grow through embracing one another’s differences. To this end, we aim to promote diversity, which we understand to be an evolving set of practices and policies that encourage “mutual acceptance and understanding among individuals of different backgrounds and attributes in an educational community where all have equal access to opportunity.”

Each of us has multiple attributes, some easily noticed (such as age, race, gender, physical characteristics including sexual difference) and some less easily recognized (such as nationality, religious affiliation, family background, place of birth, style of working, gender identity or sexual preference). Openly acknowledging our individual differences, we aim to create a campus environment where no individual member will be denied opportunity, be excluded, or experience discrimination, and to implement inclusive policies that ensure equal opportunity for all members of the academic community as they learn, study, conduct research and work.

At Kyoto Seika University, the promotion of diversity does not simply refer to organizational development or reform. Through continually providing opportunities to experience diversity in all areas of campus life, we aim to foster awareness of our connections to others. In the process of coming to understand our differences, new values are encountered and we learn “to imagine the other”; this leads to new discoveries and ways of thinking that will enhance learning and creativity in the entire community. For these reasons, we reaffirm our commitment to the promotion of diversity and to the creation of new values at a time when we face many uncertainties in our rapidly changing world.

Oussouby SACKO
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