Baye McNeil is an African-American writer and speaker who has lived in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

since 2004. He is a columnist for '' The Japan Times'' and frequent contributor to the Japanese language online publication '' Toyo Keizai''. He has authored two self-published

memoirs A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

, ''Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist'' (2012) and ''Loco in Yokohama'' (2013).

Early life

According to his books and interviews, McNeil was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he was raised by a single mother.Ross, Steve. "Baye McNeil on writing in Japan and work as a newspaper columnist"
''Japan Up Close'', April 5, 2019 (Set A of four sets/parts) He went to a pan-Africanist school and has membership in the

Five-Percent Nation The Five-Percent Nation, sometimes referred to as the Nation of Gods and Earths (NGE/NOGE) or the Five Percenters, is a Black nationalist movement influenced by Islam that was founded in 1964 in the Harlem section of the borough of Manhattan, ...

, a Black nationalist movement influenced by the organization

Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...

. He served in the U.S. Army and witnessed the events of 9/11. Baye McNeil moved to Japan in 2004. He worked as an English teacher at an

eikaiwa or are English conversation schools, usually privately operated, in Japan. It is a combination of the word and or . Although the Japanese public education system mandates that English be taught as part of the curriculum from the fifth grade, ...

for 3 years and then moved to Yokohama in 2008.

Career

McNeil since then has blogged extensively from his website on topics mainly about racial issues. He has a monthly column called "Black Eye" in '' The Japan Times'' since 2014 about issues of race and ethnicity from his viewpoint as an African American. McNeil's commentary has been sought out by some journalists. He has appeared in various media outlets, including '' BBC,'' '' TBS, The New York Times, The Japan Times, The Washington Post and Japan Up Close'' commenting on issues about race in Japan."The whitewashing of Japan's Naomi Osaka was no accident"
''The Washington Post'', January 31, 2019 In 2015, McNeil began a successful

Change.org Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...

petition to remove a segment of the music show '' Music Fair'' planned to air on Fuji TV in Japan, in which Momoiro Clover Z and

Rats & Star , formerly called Chanels, was a blackface Japanese male pop group that specialized in doo-wop-influenced music. The group was led by Masayuki Suzuki. History In 1975, Masayuki Suzuki, Masashi Tashiro and Nobuyoshi Kuwano, joined together to for ...

were to perform in

blackface Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereo ...

. Later, in 2018, comedian Masatoshi Hamada appeared in blackface on Japanese television. McNeil's opposition to this was covered internationally by news outlets such as '' BBC'', '' The New York Times'', the ''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...

'', '' Vox'' and '' TBS''.'Japanese TV show featuring blackface actor sparks anger"
'BBC'', January 4, 2018McNeil, Baye. "Time for Japan to scrub off that blackface — for good"
''The Japan Times'', January 30, 2018Sblendorio, Peter. "Comedian wearing blackface on Japanese TV show sparks backlash"
''New York Daily News'', January 4, 2018 However, some Japanese people argued that blackface was only considered offensive in America since they intentionally used it to mock black people back then while other countries don't have this historical context.

Controversy

In 2020, Baye McNeil was upset about Japanese people for not supporting the

BLM BLM most commonly refers to: * Black Lives Matter, an international anti-racism movement and organization * Bureau of Land Management, a U.S. federal government agency BLM may also refer to: Organizations * BLM (law firm), United Kingdom and ...

protests in Japan. Many locals view this movement as not related to themselves and also dangerous to the public for holding huge protests in the middle of a global pandemic. However, McNeil was angered by the fact that Japanese people are unable to feel empathy with Black Americans. He wrote a blog post expressing his disappointment and called the Japanese who opposed the protests "castrated". His remarks quickly sparked backlash on the Japanese internet as they thought Baye was just trying to bring his home issues to another country and enforce his values on other people. Famous Japanese artist

Megumi Igarashi , who uses the pseudonym , is a Japanese sculptor and manga artist who creates works that feature female genitalia and are often modeled after her own vulva. Rokudenashiko considers it her mission to reclaim female genitalia as part of women's bod ...

criticized him for trying to impose his own values on Japanese people without even understanding the Japanese culture and people. He later changed the word 'castrated' to 'spiritually neutered' in the English version without any explanation, but the original wording can still be seen in the Japanese version.

Reception

Baye McNeil self-describes himself and his works as "the driving force of what was to become one of the most talked-about blogs around these parts, as well as one of the most respected books on expat life in Japan: “Hi My Name is Loco and I am a Racist." He has received some criticism as some see him being too American-centric and too obsessed with race. Famous Japanese sculptor and

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

artist

(ろくでなし子) openly criticized Baye McNeil for his tendency of imposing his own beliefs on Japanese people without even understanding much about Japanese society and culture.

Books

* ''Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist'' (Hunterfly Road Publishing, 2012) * ''Loco in Yokohama'' (Hunterfly Road Publishing, 2013)

References

External links

* *
Interview in ''The New York Times''
{{DEFAULTSORT:McNeil, Baye American expatriates in Japan African-American memoirists 21st-century American memoirists 21st-century American male writers American columnists Writers from Brooklyn Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century African-American writers