Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

Last month US Supreme Court made a historic decision, overturning Roe vs. Wade ruling 1973. The court's ruling leaves abortion rights to be determined at the state level. Several GOP-led states have already moved to enact statewide bans. 

Next target may be gay marriage, sodomy law and voting rights for people of colour. 

American society is moving counter-clockwise recently. 

Kind of "Back to White America" movement in which Conservative White American traditions should be considered norm. 

Surely many liberal Americans oppose such movement especially among people of colour. 

So they try to move things back to their norms. But conservative White Americans have already determined their own norms and would never listen to other opinions. 

Even almost half a century passed since Roe vs. Wade ruling, this conservative Christian fundamentalist value still persists in American society. After all this is the core value of American society. 

Rather than creating further division within the society, why not establish a new nation within the continent like Native American tribe territory. Establish "White America"! 

Maybe somewhere in between deep South States such as Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. That would be a new state where only conservative White Christian Americans can be residents and live happily everafter without bumping progressive ideas such as feminism, religious freedom, racial equality, LGBTQ rights and etc. 

It doesn't matter what is right or wrong. What matters is whether you feel comfortable or not. Life is short. You can't deal with so many fusses. 

"White America" may be the realistic and practical solution for America sadly. 

It’s been thought women are not good at mathematics and not suitable for engineering jobs. But that kind of notions were proved to be nonsense a long time ago. The film “Hidden Figures” described three Afro-American women working for NASA rocket engineering department as mathematicians, in Jim-Crow era, 1950’s to 1960’s.

I learnt about the film by Voice of America article on NASA’s International Space Station program. NASA named the supply ship to the ISS Katherine Johnson after one of mathematicians in the biopic film.

They were not only being woman but Black women, who had to sit down on back seats in public bus and could not share the same bathroom with their white co-workers. But they did contribute to the very difficult space programs by calculating the orbit and designing rockets.

If they were white male, this story cannot be a film.

Breaking stereotype is the most important factor to counter racism or other type of discrimination such as gender, and sexual orientation. Stereotype is the origin of discrimination. Prejudice is biased view on others using stereotype images. Then people discriminate others based on prejudice.

Stereotype is baseless information about others. Like all Japanese can do Karate, which I don’t. You cannot generalize others based on such stereotype. The sad thing is people judge others by these stereotypes and then sometimes treat them badly.

In the film, NASA officials found the women very useful to the organization’s projects so they accepted them equally. If they hadn’t accepted them as legitimate staff, NASA would have lost such great assets and wouldn’t have succeeded in historic space missions in those days.

Stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination undermine progress of our society.

Let’s get rid of such things from our world.

A real story about women who worked in America's conservative mainstream news media network, FOX during 2016 US presidential election. 

A popular anchorwoman, Gretchen was demoted and finally fired because she refused to accept her boss, Ailes, president of FOX news network. Then she decided to sue him for his constant harassment over a year. 

Another popular anchorwoman, Megyn Kelly was also harassed by him in the past. At first she was reluctant to join Gretchen's lawsuit fight but later she joined for women's rights. 

What was surprising to me was, even in 21st century America, such cases happen in a major corporation and it was really courageous thing for women to file a lawsuit against a boss. 

Women were still dealing with harassment but tried to conceal their emotional struggle in public. They often blamed themselves for what happened. 

FOX and its owner Murdoch supported Trump. Actually FOX culture was really Trump-like, sexist and racist. But people love such culture. Actually, more people view FOX than liberal news channels like MSNBC or CNN. 

FOX is like Goebbels strategy channel, attracting and harmonizing conservative people. The media represents the very honest opinion of some major portion of America who are fed-up with political correctness and diversity campaign. FOX is like silver-fox. 

This year, another election, it seems Trump can be reelected. His opponent, Biden is not a very strong candidate. Even polls indicated Biden has got more support but Trump has been supported by hidden fans who never responded to the surveys. 

America is dominated by FOX and Trump culture. It is just scary but this is the real America we have to deal with. 

1st time I watch this film was more than 20 years ago. When I was attending US university. I took a course titled "History of Japanese and Chinese women." During the 4 month-long semester, the attending students had to see the old Japanese film as part of course requirement and the students all discussed matter related to the theme of the film. The film was of course, played with subtitle.

The film was released in 1953, 8 years after Japan's surrender to the war. Japan regained sovereignty and new constitution that ensures basic human rights and women's suffrage became effective. The story took in Gion district, famous Geisha town in Kyoto.

So women including Geisha girls should have basic human rights as other people. The two geisha got in trouble with their clients. One younger apprentice geisha (called Maiko) was about to be raped by her client so she fought back and hurt him. That aggrevated the client. Then the older geisha who ran Geisha house and hired the apprentice had to compensate by sleeping with the client's big client so that both can reach a big business agreement.

She was used as a prostitute and a tool for the business. The apprentice was shocked to know that because she thought that is not what a Geisha does.

In the last scene, the older Geisha says "You are living in a new era. I want you to keep your body clean."

A sad fact of Geisha life.

Nowadays, such thing should not be done so often, I believe.

A lot of people seem to misunderstand job of Geisha. Geisha literally means "Artist" or "Entertainer."

Geisha is after all, entertainer. Just showing dances, and singing songs in the party room. Of course they escort guests by pouring sake and chatting with them. They do not sleep with guests.  

They are not prostitutes. They have never been like that even in the very old days. But what happened to them is sometimes Geisha needed a big money to make a debut buying expensive kimono. So easiest way to get that is have patrons. Geisha agencies preferred that way so that the agencies could get back the debut fund they owed their hired geishas. Some popular ones did not have patrons because she could payback the debut fund only by entertaining guests in party rooms.  

Geisha not only entertain adult men but they entertain families including children. No alcohol, and nasty or obscure talk in the room. Just enjoying shows, meals, casual talk and views from the window. Independent and decent women's occupation.

That should be the tradition we have to preserve.