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© 2019 AFPKao's #beWhite campaign leaves firm red-faced
By Charly TRIBALLEAU TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© 2019 AFP
60 Comments
Bugle Boy of Company B
Is it white foam?
jcapan
At the same time, I can't help but think of the national obsession with white skin and whitening products, which Kao also makes.
Bugle Boy of Company B
This is what SJW accomplishes. Making people upset about nothing. Reading negative meaning where there is none. Taking offense where none is given. Claiming moral superiority when there is none.
A
extanker
This is hilarious. 'We can't use this campaign because it might offend someone in another country that it has nothing to do with'!
finally rich
someone should tell this company it´s ok to be white
showchinmono
You might want to say "I" instead of "we".
Asian skin is not yellow
since1981
People really need to get a life! I live my white company, white (clean) clothes, white wine, and so on. Can't say anything anymore without someone connecting it to something negative.
Belrick
I'm white and proud of it!
I have white furniture.
White computer tables.
White cupboards.
White shirts.
White fish.
White wine.
Seriously, people need to stop being so damn sensitive and using race in everything! Pathetic.
Bugle Boy of Company B
I'm surprised the Japanese have not been attacked for placing such an emphasis on white skin being beautiful as some kind of evil.
warispeace
The terminology deserves scrutiny, but also shouldn't we be questioning the legitimacy of any huge corporation that rails against unequitable distribution? It would be interesting to know what the pay ratio of CEO to average employee is and if the company uses cheap Asian labour to expand profits. Also, to what extent does the company redistribute its profits sufficiently to address the environmental damages caused in the production and use of its products, or is this cost not born by the company? Just how off-white is this corporation that moralizes about home life to boost profits?
finally rich
I lived in Southeast Asia for 1 year. It doesn't matter the country, from CD covers to billboards and commercials on TV, 90% or more of the people is very fair skinned, and by no means it represents the vast mixture of colors of the said country. Same can be said for India, Africa, South America, places I witnessed the same trending to achieve a fair skin no matter what.
I particularly love white beauty, regardless of the race. It's a shame the word 'white' became almost a curse word these days....
Diego3
This whole conversation has been 面白い (literally)!
Strangerland
That obviously went right over your head.
面 (めん men) - face
白い (しろい shroi) - white
面白い - Funny/interesting, but the characters literally mean face-white.
Do Diego's comment was actually a nice little word play, based on the topic of the thread. I liked it when I read it.
Alfie Noakes
Just like Pavlov's dogs, eh.
Bugle Boy of Company B
Whoah! Careful there! Are you suggesting “white = natural” and therefore “not white = unnatural”?
Careful there!!!
Belrick
It's not the right that gets offended. It's the loony left!
AH
I think the point here is that the agency that came up with the tag didn't do a simple, "Could there be an issue with this?" check.
Remember: if in doubt, ask me. It's my job.
Strangerland
According to the posters here, Japanese people and the language are both wrong, because they say Japanese are yellow.
It’s amazing that posters here know more than the Japanese know themselves.
wanderlust
White skin in Asia is a sign of affluence, not mimicking the West, and has been for hundreds of years. Poor farmers and labourers worked outside and got suntanned, rough skin, looking aged before their time; whilst the landowners stayed indoors, and only went outside with sun parasols, to protect them from the sun's rays. Popular actresses in many countries such as Thailand are well-rounded and white, not slim and dark. Fair-skinned people with sun tans are the reciprocal of this, it shows that they too were affluent and could afford holidays and travel overseas to sunnier climates.
lucabrasi
The wife certainly seems to think she’s “yellow”.
Should I tell her she’s misinformed?
Silvafan
@sourpuss
Toothpaste isn't natural! It is manmade!
You know what is natural. People's skin usually turn white when they are dead. Ghosts or other dead things are white. Boo!
showchinmono
Did you even look at my posts? I wrote Asian skin is not yellow.
Strangerland
And the Japanese say otherwise. Add to that that white skin is not white, and black skin is not black, I would like you to explain how your opinion is more relevant than the Japanese, who say otherwise, about themselves.
FizzBit
You don’t get it do you. It’s intended for the Japanese market, but you’re stuck in the globalists black hole where in their future, we all become blank slate consumers.
Strangerland
Please tell us more! Who are these globalists, and what is their reasoning behind wanting us to become blank slate consumers? And how does supporting the company’s decision to pull their ad feed into the globalists plan to make us blank slate consumers?
bass4funk
I definitely agree with that.
Strangerland
Tell that to the Japanese: 黄色人種
showchinmono
Sure We aren't and I didn't say we are. I think "We" didn't have to be.
I said Asian skin is not yellow.
A mere translation does not make Asian skin yellow
Marc O'Polo described Chinese white people in his book. Those missionaries described east Asians white people in 18c. The first suspect who stamped yellow label on the Asian faces is said to be Carl von Linné(1707~1778) who described the skin color of Asians fuscus, luridus. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach(1752~1840) streched Linne’s description to totally different level such as mongolianess, gilvus.
European of those days created the color of skin and invented Mongolian eye, Mongolian mark, Down’s syndrome and made “yellow race” a pronoun of abnormality, “yellow peril” a pronoun of every single negative implications ...... BY Michael Key Park
showchinmono
That's good one. but word origins seem slightly different
omo= Your field view. in front of you, visibility
shiroi=bright, clean.
Strangerland
Um, did you even look at the kanji?
黄色人種 - translates as Asian, but the caracters are yellow-color-person-type (yellow race).
Also, if you ask pretty much every person raised in Japan what color Japanese people are, they will say yellow.
I've also met a number of Chinese who said the same thing to me over the years.
White people are not white (I'm more of a pinkish hue myself), yet we call them white. Very few black people are actually black, yet we call them black. The Japanese call themselves yellow, to the point that the term for Asian literally contains the characters for yellow person.
So please, someone explain how the Japanese are wrong about themselves.
showchinmono
Iknow. He's got good sense and quick to think. It might have been unnecessary post I made but
I used the word "seems" as I learned it from word origin dictionary for 面白い。
http://gogen-allguide.com/o/omoshiroi.html
showchinmono
Like I said, I should have KY-ed but it's nothing wrong to know word origins
Ascissor
That may be the case, but they did use a 'foreign' and globally ubiquitous language for the hashtag.
showchinmono
StrangerlandToday 04:54 pm JST
And the Japanese say otherwise. Add to that that white skin is not white, and black skin is not black, I would like you to explain how your opinion is more relevant than the Japanese, who say otherwise, about themselves.
Are you saying "the"+"Japanese" think they are all yellow and have no problems being called yellow?
That's the start that idiotic tough guy made comments as such. So I suggested to say "I" instead of "we".
What's your problem? Stranger I am a little tied up here
showchinmono
Are you saying "the"+"Japanese" think they are all yellow and have no problems being called yellow?
That's the start that idiotic tough guy made comments as such. So I suggested to say "I" instead of "we".
What's your problem? Stranger? I am a little tied up here
Moderator
Readers, you are going around in circles. Discussion on this thread will be suspended for a little while.
sourpuss
This leaves me foaming at the mouth.
bass4funk
True. It definitely has more melanin then Caucasian skin, but so called “yellow” skin, it does not.
shogun36
Like my man Kerwin White used to say, "If it ain't white, it ain't right!"
Kenji Fujimori
*Arent
nandakandamanda
Fair is surely a loaded word too. Do others then become unfair or not fair?
Suzuki Sonoko was the epitome of whiteness, covering her skin with some kind of cream like a Geisha. She looked bright white, like a peeled egg.
Whiter than white!
https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm30466049
All this skin color/colour stuff is surface deep, just human shallowness, but cultures all over the world, India, Africa, South America, Asia, suck it up as if it were some eternal truth.
None of us chose this beautiful face covering that we were born with.
Kenji Fujimori
ALL Asians are not white, bar Russia
Travelmaster
Are you at risk of discrimination against using white, black and yellow words? It is ridiculous. Indeed, anti-Japanese companies. I did not like it originally, but I hate it more and more.
JapanFan
Another offended group. At this writing, I not sure which color is offended.
Strangerland
You must be a blast at comedy shows.
Kenji Fujimori
White wine or white coffee is different, the classification and naming of wines or coffee in the past has always been referred to based on color. The whole race thing is due to the SJW generation and media brainwashing today.
It's not defined or connected to race in any regard. And again 'white' Anglo Saxon are a combination of multiple races. Same as black, Africa is the world's largest continent. So if someone is black, there are hundreds of countries in Africa. Be specific when one says white or black and get over race baiting
Kenji Fujimori
It would be called fair skin not 'white' Asians are Caucasian
Silvafan
What is white beauty??????? Sounds like an oxymoron!
White skin is popular because people typically want to hide details like physical imperfections. Dark skin is desired because it emphasizes details like physical perfections. The older women get the whiter they want to become until they look like talcum powder.
Kenji Fujimori
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
So we came from Europe did we? Interesting..
jcapan
Wanting to keep your skin naturally white is just fine, even if you look like a moonbat when you're out in public. Bleaching your skin, common in much of Asia, is bent. Not evil, but like rampant plastic surgery in Korea, totally warped.
Kenji Fujimori
It wouldn't be #beyellow we don't even care if people call us yellow, that's cause we are, we aren't white.
Being fare skinned, as Asians we are still Mongolid, regardless of skin melanin tone. Africa also can vary, not everyone in Africa is black.. I.e north Africa etc have lighter skin melanin. And I've seen darker skinned Europeans too.. Spanish, Southern Italian etc. So be specific before having a case. And stay awesome!
sourpuss
@Bugle Boy
What happens to toothpaste when you brush your teeth?
whoosh!
;-)
Kenji Fujimori
Some women here actually do use skin bleaching to be 'white'
bimmkimmy
So y'all really just forgetting non-Japanese people live in/are born in Japan, huh?
I'm glad they decided to shelve the campaign. They can think of a better phrase.
Kenji Fujimori
Hmm there's two ways to look into this, it says #bewhite why couldn't be #sparklingwhiteclean instead? Or specific to the point, to avoid harassment from the sensitive bunch. On the other hand, define 'white' most 'white' people in the west are Anglo Saxon, which is a mix of multiple European and other races. Caucasian is defined by the genetic makeup.
As Asians being Mongolid and so on..
Luddite
Don't use English if you don't understand it.
BackpackingNepal
White
Black
Yellow
Light Brown
Dark Brown
Colorful
Colorless
Describe yourself with one word above and put yourself into the circle of all colors/less and tell the difference.
Paul Laimal-Convoy
I applaud the company for deciding to not use the slogan. What some posters may not have understood, is that we already understand existing terms, but an advertising slogan has room for ambiguity, which can then lead to misinterpretation and/or offense. This may especially be true in advertising, where ads often can be accessed, globally, out of their original context.
One only has to look at the United Colours of Beneton ads (featuring a black mother, suckling a white baby) to see how an image designed in one culture (in Europe, to show intimate and equal love between black and white people) could be misinterpreted in another (the USA, seen as a black slave "wetnursing" a slave-owner's baby).
Kenji Fujimori
Showchinmono
Oh yes the Anglo-Saxon with yellow fever thinking Asians are white..
Just cause some of us have fair skin, doesn't make us white genius.
There is Japanese with darker skin too. We are not Caucasian