{"id":15932,"date":"2020-02-08T12:37:36","date_gmt":"2020-02-08T20:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15932"},"modified":"2020-02-08T15:29:26","modified_gmt":"2020-02-08T23:29:26","slug":"senaiho-hair-police-case-update-4-civil-lawsuit-launched-against-school-bullies-gaining-traction-with-other-international-couples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=15932","title":{"rendered":"Senaiho “Hair Police” School Bullying Case Update 4: Civil lawsuit launched against school bullies, gaining traction with other international couples"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0Here’s the latest update from NJ resident Senaiho (previous updates three<\/a>, two<\/a>, and one<\/a> here), whose daughter was not only bullied by school peers, but also had her hair forcibly cut by schoolteachers in public, causing her so much PTSD that she dropped out of school. \u00a0This is yet another incident<\/a> of Japan’s institutionalized school bullying of children of color that\u00a0Debito.org<\/a> has long called<\/a>\u00a0“the Hair Police<\/a>“. 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.)<\/p>\n

The difference now is that Senaiho has launched an actual civil court case. \u00a0Over more than a year now Senaiho has tried other channels, such as taking it before school authorities and asking for criminal investigations, and all they have gotten is stonewalling and official coverup. \u00a0So now he’s suing the bullies themselves. \u00a0Let’s see what precedent this is going to set. \u00a0Given that others are now standing up against insanely intrusive Japanese school conformity rules<\/a> (“burakku kousoku”, including warmer clothes in winter, freedom of assembly or travel, and even the color of their underwear!), this may be a landmark case. \u00a0Meanwhile, Senaiho offers an update with a newspaper clip below.<\/p>\n

Well done, Senaiho. Stay the course! \u00a0Debito Arudou Ph.D.<\/p>\n

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

From: Senaiho<\/strong>
\nSubject: Brief update<\/strong>
\nDate: February 7, 2020<\/strong>
\nTo: debito@debito.org<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello Debito,<\/strong>
\nIncluded is an attachment from the Yamanashi Nichi Nichi Shinbun 2\/5\/2020 shot of an article that just gives an announcement of our case in the court, so I won’t bother to translate it all. It does state that the parents of the bullying perpetrators say in documents filed in the suit, that they think bringing awareness of N.J. and prejudice\/bullying of these people should be the job of the schools, not theirs as parents. I think the school will argue that is the job of the parents, and not the schools. Passing the buck.<\/em><\/p>\n

What I can say in addition to the article is that while we have a mountain of documents that the school and city officials provided according to the freedom of information request we made, there are glaring gaps in these documents — so much extensive redaction made that they become almost worthless. What we hope to do through this suit is use the power of the court to force the school officials and city office to provide us with complete files of information regarding us. This should include the names of the co-conspirators that engaged in the bullying, who hopefully can be brought into this suit at a later date.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is also the option of reopening the criminal case with the prosecutors office if we find additional evidence. We have three years to do this.<\/em><\/p>\n

We have also been contacted by several people from various parts of the country asking for advice on what they should do in their own bullying\/futokou cases. Our impression is that children of international and mixed marriage couples suffer disproportionately at the hands of bullies, and school officials which is no surprise to you I am sure, but they also tend to suffer more because of a lack of support and isolation in getting information they need. There is also a great variety of policies that various school systems have around the country which makes it more confusing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks again for everything.<\/em> Sincerely, Senaiho<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The article:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
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Here’s the latest update from NJ resident Senaiho (previous updates three, two, and one here), whose daughter was not only bullied by school peers, but also had her hair forcibly cut by schoolteachers in public, causing her so much PTSD that she dropped out of school. \u00a0This is yet another incident of Japan’s institutionalized school bullying of children of color that\u00a0Debito.org has long called\u00a0“the Hair Police”. 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.) \u00a0<\/p>\n

The difference now is that Senaiho has launched an actual civil court case. \u00a0Over more than a year now Senaiho has tried other channels, such as taking it before school authorities and asking for criminal investigations, and all they have gotten is stonewalling and official coverup. \u00a0So now he’s suing the bullies themselves. \u00a0Let’s see what precedent this is going to set. \u00a0Given that others are now standing up against insanely intrusive Japanese school conformity rules (“burakku kousoku”, including warmer clothes in winter, freedom of assembly or travel, and even the color of their underwear!), this may be a landmark case. \u00a0Meanwhile, Senaiho offers an update with a newspaper clip below. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,19,5,15,46,11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-education","category-human-rights","category-lawsuits","category-practical-advice","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-8"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15932","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=15932"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15940,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15932\/revisions\/15940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}