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At the same time, blacks are prominently displayed in Japanese commercials. Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson and Singer Michael Jackson push Japanese products, and Suntory brewery features a black doo-wop group called 14 Karat Soul in television spots for its Suntory White whisky. Japanese marketing experts say viewers respond favorably to blacks because they seem more full of energy than whites. Says an advertising expert: "Blacks appear to have a wild side that seems beyond normal human strength."
The image, however distorted, apparently has wide appeal. Kazuhiro Nakajima, a spokesman for Yamato Mannequin, says his company began manufacturing black mannequins and arranged them in dancing poses after a study found that the design expressed "new sexiness, kawaii ((cuteness)) and fresh energy." Yamato made 100 of the figures before the Foreign Ministry called the firm's attention to a critical article about the mannequins in the Washington Post. The company stopped production. Sanrio Co., the manufacturer of a well-selling line of toys and gift items, followed suit. Its products included large-eyed dolls called Sambo and Hannah, and towels, bags and stationery goods decorated with pictures of the pair. Along with a big-lipped black doll named Bibinba, the line brought Sanrio more than $11 million in sales last year. "We were making a summer item, and we designed it to be kawaii," says Kazuo Tomatsu, a company spokesman. "We deeply regret that we lacked consideration in regard to minorities in the U.S."
Americans, of course, have produced their own unflattering images of the Japanese over the years -- from the malevolent figures depicted on World War II posters to more benign, but not necessarily inoffensive, postwar depictions. "If there were yellow dolls in the U.S. with buck teeth, narrow slanted eyes and called Jap, of course the Japanese would be angry," says Kaname Saruya, who teaches American history at Tokyo Woman's Christian University. "They're doing the same thing here with Sambo, but they don't realize it. Japanese are obtuse." Obtuse or not, that is little consolation for American blacks: having made progress, however limited, against bigotry at home, they are appalled to find a troubling reflection abroad.