A recent unfortunate incident on social media has sparked a wave of outrage and accusations of racism against Tokyo’s transport system, as a manipulated and completely out-of-context image purportedly showing a sign banning people dancing on the subway has gone viral at an alarming rate. The image itself combines the video of a person of color dancing with an image of an official poster showing monkey figures and has been shared thousands of times on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, accompanied by hateful and prejudiced comments.
Social media ignites debate on racial representation by Tokyo subway
Recently, an image has triggered a false alarm stemming from an educational campaign launched by the Tokyo Transportation Bureau (Toei Transportation) earlier this year. This movement, called Toei Ikimono Manners (Toei’s wildlife manners), seeks to promote good behavior on public transportation by using animal images as a metaphor to represent different situations and behaviors. Among one of the posters in this series shows monkeys making noise to represent the nuisance that some passengers can cause inside subway cars.
However, malicious users have taken this image and combined it with a video or images of a person of color dancing, creating a montage that falsely suggests a racial ban and led several users to erroneously claim that the poster depicted people of color as monkeys. This interpretation has generated a wave of negative comments, accusing Japan of perpetuating harmful racial stereotypes towards the colored community worldwide, although the accusation is more against the Tokyo subway.
It is important to note that the image in question is part of a broader campaign by Toei Transportation that seeks to encourage etiquette on public transportation in Tokyo. On its website, the company posted several posters about Toei’s wildlife manners, emphasizing the importance of proper behavior on the subway. These posters are part of Reiwa’s FY5 Behavior Posters, which include guidelines on the dos and don’ts of boarding, whether at the station and inside the carriage.
In addition, another poster is also circulating on social networks where the circus show is prohibited on the premises, showing a person of color doing breakdancing. And although the message seeks to discourage acts that may disturb other passengers, the choice of the image has intensified criticism and outrage among global communities, this situation highlights how a simple image can be reinterpreted in a completely different context, generating consequences that affect the perception of an entire culture.
The Tokyo Transport Bureau is attempting to improve public transport manners for greater comfort for both local and foreign passengers, however, it now faces a dilemma: the responsibility of effectively communicating its messages and combating the misinformation that can arise in the digital age. It is critical that both authorities and citizens are aware of the impact their words and images can have on public perception.
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