Frustration... or Worse. And Maybe a Plea.

Comments like the one excerpted below are now commonplace in the American articles about the crises in Japan. And it's frustrating because people here desperately need help. It's snowing now in parts of Tohoku. People who survived the tsunami are now struggling to survive another winter night with little protection and not enough food. But they aren't being talked about, really – or at least they aren’t the lead story. The nuclear reactor - a huge story, to be sure - certainly is.

I've been reading and following news from other expats and journalists and news sources from inside Japan. And it's weird - a too prominent common theme is we're all spending our time arguing against a tsunami of hyperbole, stuck trying to justify our remaining in Tokyo (or, for some, Japan), when the story really should be elsewhere. It should be in Fukushima. It should be in Sendai. It should be in large portions of Tohoku. Those without power, still. Those in shelters. Those lost and not yet found. Those who’ve lost not just their family members or friends but everything they own. I saw a woman on the news say that the clothes she was wearing were now all she has. She said it would be nice to maybe get another jacket. Get that? Her house, her belongings, her people, friends, family, neighbors: gone. And all that horror is compounded by the indignity of being unprepared for the coming night.

"Many people [in Tokyo] are staying inside to avoid radiation that the wind might blow in their direction. Others are weighing whether to leave. But most Japanese are trying to uphold the ethic that they are taught from childhood: to do their best, persevere and suppress their own feelings for the sake of the group." - NYTimes

And some, unnodded to in the above, realize that the highest level of radiation recorded in Tokyo (a very short-lived spike after the 4th building exploded) was substantially less dangerous than smoking, or a single chest x-ray, or the bath salts used at onsen(!). While the radiation level in Tokyo is slightly elevated (from the background), it remains well within the normal limits. So might it be there are people who are just going about their day, more worried about missing their train to or from work or getting stuck during a blackout? Might it be there are realists who understand fear begets only fear? Might it be the Japanese are more complicated than the simple terrified/nearly-sociopathic binary used to describe them?

Inside the Fukushima plant, the radiation levels are surely dangerous. But the levels drop as you move from the reactors, and outside the 30 km zone they are within normal levels. There's nothing about this that's good news, but it isn't the bad news the Times and the Post and others (including the French government and media, which are blazing their own trail here) seem convinced of. What's happening in Fukushima is horrible, and the people dealing with it are brave - some of them are almost certainly on a suicide mission, a heartbreaking truth - but there is not here. Tokyo isn't glowing, we're not in grave danger (now; the circumstances could change drastically, but they're unlikely to). Might there be people here who realize that? If a serious picture were being painted of the situation here, they would be represented. And they would tell most of the story.

But here's the thing: there might be something more at play here than meets the eye. Not mentioned in these articles are people who simply aren't scared, or whose fears are more immediate, local, than the thin possibility, fanned so ardently in the foreign media, of a catastrophic nuclear disaster that could send a cloud of radiation this way. I'm not talking about naive people, or the idiots, but those who are willing to weigh the risks, remain informed, and still go about their lives - as best they can with the will-they/won't-they blackouts, the inconstant train schedules, and the myriad other delays and inconveniences currently plaguing the city.

I'm starting to think there’s also a little bit of subtle racism at play here – at least in the American media.

Is it over-sensitive to notice that the author of the article quoted above used the phrase - not the name, exactly - "Tokyo rose"? Or is that just being observant. I can't decide. But there seems to be an underlying belief in all these stories that the Japanese are weak and stupid and so they must be terrified. I imagine some are scared. And I imagine they're easy to get quotes from and willing to do on-air interviews while they wait, scared, to leave. But if you read a bunch of these articles, then step outside, the two worlds don't dovetail. They don't even overlap. What you see here - in Tokyo - is relative calm. There are fewer people out than normal, but there are friggin' loads of people out. What you see from foreign media is rank hyperbole.

The same thing happened with Haiti. After a while the story changed from being about a terrible disaster and its aftermath to being about, basically, how barbaric the Haitians are. In that case, tho, I think racism was clearly a driving force; it became overt and undeniable. But black/white has always been easy for Americans. Brown complicates things. Fox (they aren't alone, of course) has done a fairly successful job making Mexicans, Arabs, and Muslims the new foci of racial scorn in the US, but they haven't really needed to talk about the Japanese (except when Obama politely bowed to Akihito in 2009 – and that time it was at least as much about the black guy as it was about who was being bowed to) and so far too many of the people working these stories seem to be feeling around to see just how far is too far. Some have stepped clearly over the line, but if anything, that gives cover to the more subtly racist: they can say iffy things then pause, scold the other guy, before going right back to their subtly, from a supposedly morally superior post. It's not exactly the “silence of friends” Martin Luther King, Jr talked about, but it's certainly the sin of people who should know better.

The American, Australian, and British governments, and the WHO - all with info from the IAEA, who are on site - have all publicly stated that the radiation at Fukushima poses no serious health threat to Tokyo. Is that getting reported at all? There has not been a single documented instance of looting here. Did you know that? Has that been reported at all? In America, you can't have a toddler's birthday party without someone turning over and torching a station wagon. Where are the articles about that? Where are the articles about the orderly lines in the decreasingly-stocked supermarkets? Where are the stories about the calm?

Actually, screw that. Why is Tokyo even the story? My guess is because it’s the way in. You can’t start with the victims, because that would be obviously callous, they’ve suffered enough. But Tokyo provides the benefit of being close, and therefore plausibly at risk, but doesn’t include many true victims.

Maybe the 'Tokyo rose' thing was a poorly chosen phrase, entirely missed by the editors. But it does, intentionally or not, I think, nod to a problem the American media has fundamentally: there are people who will buy newspapers and watch TV shows dependably, but in order to get them you have to tell a certain type of story: it has to be sensationalistic, and it helps a lot if there's at least enough racism or xenophobia included that they feel paid attention to, their suspicions confirmed. It is endemic and it will lead nowhere good.

For now tho, the people up north still need your help (as do those in Haiti and in Christchurch). You can donate to them via Mercy Corp, by clicking here. Shut off the American media for a while, send in a donation, then go outside and enjoy your own polluted air, which is almost certainly as bad if not worse than Tokyo's. And relax. Things will get better, but it will take time, and it will take money, and it will take us all working together, living together. The Japanese have grasped this and are not freaking out because it won't help them and it won't help the people near them. Do the same and be well. But donate.