【開催報告】English Meet-up (2020.6.2 & 6.16)

学生スタッフのあきです。

GSセンターではグローバル化・多様化する早稲田の学生のニーズに答えるべく、英語話者向けのイベントを開催しています。こんかい紹介する2回のミートアップではプライドイベントとBLMについて話しました。

Here are some highlights from our June 2nd and 16th English meet-ups!

June 2nd: Pride, celebrating Pride at home

Many queer people around the world look forward to June, which is pride month for many of them. In this meeting, we talked about what Pride means to us and how we can still celebrate Pride at home under COVID-19 conditions.

First, we talked about some of our memories about going to Pride parades and events. Whether it was Seattle, Copenhagen, San Fransisco, or NYC, we all seemed to have fond memories about our very first pride events. 

We also had an in-depth conversation about what Pride means to us. For one participant, going to a Pride march helped them come out of the closet because they felt the whole city affirm him for who he is. For another, it was merely about being able to dress how they wanted. Someone also pointed out that these events are rare opportunities for minorities to experience the majority status for once. 

Overall, this meeting helped us bring back good memories. I felt nostalgic! 

June 16th: Intersectionality and #BlackLivesMatter

Race is a tough topic. Nevertheless, we talked about it in our June 16th meeting. After going over some LGBTQ history and current issues surrounding race (ie. violence against black trans people, racism within the LGBTQ community), we talked about things in the Japanese context.

Racism has a unique face in Japanese contexts. While many Japanese harbor a sense of superiority over peoples of outside cultures (including the West), most of the racism seems to be embedded in a deep sense of xenophobia and fear of outsiders and those who cannot conform to the enigmatic social codes that exist in Japanese culture. 

Hence, in addition to talking about racism against Black people, we encouraged our participants to share their experiences with police in Japan. It turns out that many of our participants (who were not Japanese) experienced being called the police on them by local Japanese. They also worried about being treated unfairly by the police for not being able to speak the language. This was preceded by a discussion on high-profile cases of unfair treatment of foreign nationals in Japan by the police.

That's it for this time,

See you around!

Aki (GS Center Student Staff)