Through good times and bad, the community you create will be your lifeline

It’s February — happy Black History Month. Unfortunately, this year’s celebration of Black achievement didn’t get off to a good start.

I began to see the name Tyre Nichols in the news at the end of January. The coverage was like a steady drumbeat getting louder (or a heartbeat getting faster?), with the headlines, multiplying. Finally, authorities announced they were going to release a video of Nichols being beaten by cops in Memphis, Tennessee — the city where a Queen was born and a King was slain. The assault left Nichols dead three days later.

I didn’t want to click on the video. I’ve seen enough of these “breathing-while-Black” snuff films to last me a lifetime: Eric Garner, Philando Castile, George Floyd. Ever since Floyd, I can’t watch anything of that nature without being triggered something terrible.

Even though I skipped the video, I read coverage of the Nichols case and learned that it purportedly showed five Black police officers committing the violence. To anyone growing up in the Black community, that isn’t as shocking as you might think. I’ve never been under any illusions that Black police officers are somehow safer than white ones — from time to time, my two older brothers have found themselves the target of abuse from Black police officers. Still, it’s rare this kind of scenario makes it to the TVs and smartphones of mainstream America. Maybe that’s why, eventually, I clicked on the video.

Black cops unleashing violence — fueled, perhaps, by machismo, peer pressure or self-hate; Nichols crying out for his mother, who lived just yards away. It made me want to smash my phone. This was not a good start to Black History Month 2023.

But then a thought emerged that I don’t think I’ve ever had before. This time, I wondered, what if Tyre Nichols had come to live here in Japan?

First and foremost, I imagine he’d still be alive. Maybe we would’ve been friends? If he was living in Tokyo, we likely would have at least been acquaintances. Perhaps he’d argue with me that it’s better to be living in a land where harassment, microaggressions and housing discrimination are usually as bad as it gets — not over there, your life at risk, in a land where we don’t even seem to matter to Black cops.

Maybe if Nichols tried to convey his experience to other people, he’d be told, as I often am, "At least the Japanese police don't kill you."

Ah, the freedom from being murdered by the authorities — the thought meant to assuage the foolishness you have to just gaman (endure) here due to your non-Japaneseness. I’m presented with comparisons to the situation in the United States all the time, and reminded of how thankful I should be that the police allow me to live here. If you’re Black in Japan, you must grade your dehumanization on a curve.

However, even though I recoil at these kinds of facile conclusions and dismiss the people who make them as shortsighted apologists or enablers, this time, in my grief over Nichols, I found myself kind of on their side. “If only he’d lived in Japan,” I thought. Black History Month is a time to learn about the history of a race of people overshadowed, to focus on solutions for the problems that continue to plague us ... but is it also a time to count our blessings? At least, if we’re lucky enough to have them.

One such blessing I can count is the Black community in Japan. If Nichols were here, I would have invited him to a shinnenkai (new year party) I attended last month. I never used to attend these kinds of functions because I never really felt like I needed to. Most years, I’m so active in the community that I don’t feel out of touch with people. The pandemic changed that.

For the past few years, my circle has grown smaller and increasingly online. The pandemic years had their good moments and bad, but most of them were experienced through my wife and I alone. This year, I decided to break free of my self-imposed silo, and invitations to two shinnenkai were just the excuse I needed to do so.

Let me tell you, I was wrong about the shinnenkai. The bōnenkai (end-of-year party), shinnenkai’s more popular sister, seems like the one you clear your calendar for. But it celebrates an ending: the end of work, the end of the year, a winding down. You gotta have it in December, when a lot of people are busy wrapping up work.

If you do it right, there’s something about the shinnenkai that is all about what’s ahead, what’s possible. And what a better way to start a new journey than with a bunch of your brothers — some old friends, some new ones — catching up and having a friendly drink.

The first of the two events was organized by Sam H. Mchombo, a project manager originally from Malawi. It was held at R1 Tokyo, a lovely Black-owned restaurant and bar in Tokyo’s Roppongi neighborhood. It was a well-attended affair with gentlemen hailing from Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Cameroon, Kenya, Trinidad & Tobago, France and the U.S. Mchombo’s vision for this group, he told me, is “that it functions as a proactive, character-driven, support- and encouragement-oriented community for brothers living within the Kanto area indefinitely — where everyone has a voice.”

He gave a rousing speech, outlining the importance of the shinnenkai he was hosting and similar gatherings to come. We may hail from different places around the globe, but the challenges we face in Japan are somewhat similar. Here, we’re all placed in a box marked “Black.”

“Being a brother, you always face a unique set of challenges, and you need somebody who can intuitively understand you, see you better and give you the right kind of support,” Mchombo said, his words both poignant and timely. I can’t wait for the next get-together.

The second shinnenkai was attended by five Black men, all of whom have become close friends. (I’m sure this is giving people the impression that we are well-represented up in this spot, but that is far from the case.) They are remarkable: two film directors, a groundbreaking artist, a barrier-smashing real estate baron and, of course, one humble columnist.

As I sat there, I became conscious of the fact that I had written about everyone in attendance at some point in my career. It’s common for me to revisit articles I’ve written, but never had I sat at a table with several of the people I’ve written about. Tyre Nichols was an aspiring photographer and I wish I’d been able to write about him strictly in that regard. I’m positive the five of us would have happily made space for another gifted brother at our table.

These two shinnenkai were just what I needed after the languishing of the COVID-19 years, and they’re what we need when we need to process the more sudden horror of police brutality. There’s a line in the 1981 film “Excalibur,” one of my favorites, that goes: “I never knew how empty was my soul, till it was filled.” My advice for 2023? Find your community, fill your soul.