{"id":15555,"date":"2019-02-11T07:36:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T17:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15555"},"modified":"2019-02-11T14:25:31","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T00:25:31","slug":"update-senaiho-on-the-stacked-board-of-education-committee-investigating-his-yamanashi-jr-high-school-hair-police-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15555","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE: Senaiho on the stacked Board of Education committee investigating his Yamanashi jr. high school Hair Police complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. What follows is an update about Senaiho’s case, i.e., overzealous enforcers of school rules in Japan’s compulsory education system acting as what\u00a0Debito.org<\/a> has long called<\/a>\u00a0“the Hair Police<\/a>“. This phenomenon particularly affects NJ and Japanese of diverse backgrounds, who are forced by officials to dye and\/or straighten their naturally “Non-Asian” hair just to attend school.<\/p>\n

Bullying is rife in Japanese education<\/a>, but when it’s ignored (or even perpetuated) by officialdom<\/a>, this feeling of powerlessness will leave children<\/a> (particularly those NJ children with diverse physical features<\/a>\u00a0targeted for “standing out<\/a>“) and their families<\/a> scarred for life. \u00a0(As discussed at length in book “Embedded Racism<\/a>“, pg. 154-5.) \u00a0As reported on Debito.org last month, after months of playing by the rules established by the local Board of Education,\u00a0Senaiho finally lodged a formal criminal complaint against his daughter’s school officials, and it’s smoking out hidden documents. \u00a0This blog entry is an update to the case, where he has managed to uncover just how stacked the system is against him, and why he was entirely correct to pursue this issue through criminal, not Board of Education, channels.<\/p>\n

This is one of the worst-kept secrets about Japan — its underdeveloped civil society generally leaves the government to do everything, and the cosy relations between government officials means a lack of independent investigation and oversight. \u00a0Coverup becomes Standard Operating Procedure. \u00a0Hence “kusai mono ni futa o suru<\/em>” (“put a lid on that which stinks” — instead of actually cleaning it up) isn’t a bellyaching grumble — it’s a PROVERB<\/em> in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Your kid having trouble in Japanese school? \u00a0Keep an eye on this case and learn a few alternative avenues for recourse. \u00a0Debito Arudou Ph.D.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

From: Senaiho<\/strong>
\nSubject: Yamanashi hair police special report<\/strong>
\nDate: February 10, 2019<\/strong>
\nTo: Debito Arudou <debito@debito.org><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello Debito<\/strong>,
\nThings have developed much sooner than I expected. I am including by attachment my report and a picture of the identities of the special third party investigation committee. As I write this we are communicating with several newspapers and news services regarding it. I wanted to get this to you asap. Please use freely as you see fit.<\/em> Sincerely, Senaiho<\/strong><\/p>\n

=============================<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Japan Hair Police in Yamanashi<\/strong><\/p>\n

The identities of the Special Third Party Investigation Committee are revealed as stacked against us<\/strong>
\nSpecial Report for Debito.org by Senaiho, February 10, 2019<\/strong>
\nOriginal report at https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15489<\/a><\/p>\n

On the evening of 2\/9\/2019 we received from our Ombudsman the identities of the special investigation committee set up by the Yamanashi city board of education. While we are still looking into the backgrounds of these four people, right off the bat we can make several assumptions. I don’t want to repeat what I have already stated in our previous post here on Debito.org,<\/a> but I need to go into a little background to make it easier for the reader to follow.<\/em><\/p>\n

In January of 2018 with the help of our Ombudsman and several others, we circulated a petition, and on March 27, 2018, we along with our lawyer presented to the Yamanashi board of education our petition, along with 1500 or so signatures, asking them to do an internal investigation into the case of our daughter’s bullying and hair cutting by the teachers which caused her to be so traumatized that she dropped out of school for the next two years. Up to this point we had been hoping and tried to go the most civil route possible in order to minimize relationships within our community and the school. We put good faith in the public servants of the board of education to do what was right for us and our daughter and on behalf of other bullied and truant children in our town. The board of education agreed to do an investigation and make the results of it known to us. We left this meeting feeling satisfied that things may work out for the better, and we put our trust in them. How wrong we were.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is the name list of the special third party investigation committee hired and set up by the board of education:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I will go down the list and just refer to them as #1, #2, etc. Their names and job titles are all there in open view. Keep in mind, they could have chosen any four people in the country as an impartial third party investigation committee, but they chose these four people:<\/em><\/p>\n

#1 is a lawyer.<\/strong> It just so happens that this lawyers office is located DIRECTLY in front of our lawyers office. They can wave to each other from their office windows. They know each other professionally and informally, run into each other in the courthouse all the time. Lawyers in Yamanashi are a close knit group and work hard to not step on each others toes. Do you suppose the board of education chose this lawyer to intimidate our lawyer? No wonder our lawyer became so hesitant to assist us after this committee was formed. We since have hired another lawyer.<\/em><\/p>\n

#2 is the boss at the counseling center<\/strong> where my daughter has spent many, many hours, receiving counseling and treatment and help in dealing with the trauma of her experiences. He is not her personal counselor, but as this person s boss he would have access to very private and personal information given by our daughter in the course of her treatment. He would also have access to any and all reports made by her counselor regarding her case and he would have been in a position to put pressure on my daughter s counselor to decide treatment in one fashion or another.<\/em><\/p>\n

#3 is the boss at the Eastern Yamanashi area education office.<\/strong> This just happens to be where my wife and daughter spent many hours discussing personal and private information regarding her experiences at school and how to deal with problems there. They also advised us about how to get her back to school and dealing with all matters related to the school. As with #2 is not the person we dealt with directly but would have access to all private information and reports regarding our case along with being able to bring pressure on the lower level person dealing with us.<\/em><\/p>\n

#4 is listed as a doctor<\/strong> but to be honest we have not been able to find the connection with us directly except he may have been an instructor of our lawyer during her time in law school. Another effort to pressure our lawyer? A personal friend of someone? He does seem to have qualifications in psychology which would make him somewhat qualified to be on this committee but his specialty is ADHD which is not relevant in our daughters case.<\/em><\/p>\n

So there you have the \u201cimpartial\u201d investigation committee set up and chosen by our \u201ctrusted\u201d public servants at the Yamanashi city board of education. No wonder they were so hesitant about revealing the identities of this committee<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Senaiho<\/strong><\/p>\n

=============================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or even click on an ad below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What follows is an update about Senaiho’s case, i.e., overzealous enforcers of school rules in Japan’s compulsory education system who essentially become the “Hair Police”. This phenomenon particularly affects NJ and Japanese of diverse backgrounds, who are forced by officials to dye and\/or straighten their naturally “Non-Asian” hair just to attend school.<\/p>\n

Bullying is rife in Japanese education, but when it’s ignored (or even perpetuated) by officialdom, this feeling of powerlessness will leave children (particularly those NJ children with diverse physical features\u00a0targeted for “standing out”) and their families scarred for life. \u00a0(As discussed at length in book “Embedded Racism”, pg. 154-5.) \u00a0As reported on Debito.org last month, after months of playing by the rules established by the local Board of Education,\u00a0Senaiho finally lodged a formal criminal complaint against his daughter’s school officials, and it’s smoking out hidden documents. \u00a0This blog entry is an update to the case, where he has managed to uncover just how stacked the system is against him, and why he was entirely correct to pursue this issue through criminal, not Board of Education, channels. \u00a0<\/p>\n

This is one of the worst-kept secrets about Japan — its underdeveloped civil society generally leaves the government to do everything, and the cosy relations between government officials means a lack of independent investigation and oversight. \u00a0Coverup becomes Standard Operating Procedure. \u00a0Hence “kusai mono ni futa o suru” (“put a lid on that which stinks” — instead of actually cleaning it up) isn’t a bellyaching grumble — it’s a PROVERB in Japan.<\/p>\n

Your kid having trouble in Japanese school? \u00a0Keep an eye on this case and learn a few alternative avenues for recourse. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,43,22,37,4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-bad-business-practices","category-cultural-issue","category-injustice","category-japanese-government","category-problematic-foreign-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15555"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15563,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15555\/revisions\/15563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}