Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

Art transcends walls.

I went to an art exhibition that truly transcended walls.
The 3rd Prison Art Exhibition . There were about 200 pieces of art by various people involved with prisons, including inmates, ex-prisoners, and families. The event connects the inside and outside of the walls and makes you think about what sin is and what recovery is.

The exhibition featured a wide variety of works in a wide range of genres and styles, from watercolors to haiku.
Some of the works made me wonder if the artist was a professional painter.

There were also works that created such an intense magnetic field that people were left reeling in, saying, “No matter how you look at it, this is the power of a master.”

There are also works that make you laugh and think, “Wow, they managed to overcome that wall.”

There were also other attempts to connect the inside and outside of prison, such as exchanging anonymous letters and soliciting requests from inmates.

When I view such works, even the self-evident fact that
“there is someone who made this” takes on a special meaning. What kind of person is this person? Why is they here? How old is they? My interest is piqued one after another about what lies beyond the works. It’s as if they are an acquaintance of an acquaintance.

Perpetrators and victims are not things of a distant world. Moreover, many perpetrators were victims before they became perpetrators. The reason I visited this “Prison Art Exhibition” two years in a row was because I didn’t want to forget this reality.

My former father was arrested and it was in the newspaper.

Oji-chan. He was my father more than 30 years ago, when I was a teenager. In other words, he was my mother’s boyfriend. We lived together for about eight years. I couldn’t call him Dad, so I called him Oji-chan out of embarrassment and affection.

He met my mother at a club in Kabukicho that catered to gangsters. My mother was a hostess. Oji-chan was a non-drinker and good at karaoke. When he quit, my mother quit the club, and the two of them ran a small machinery company.

My uncle was a former yakuza, but he was too kind to be a yakuza. “I’d like to eat a full stomach of Pudding, just once,” I blurted out, and a few days later, the refrigerator was filled with Puddings. I said I was full, but I didn’t say the refrigerator was full. It was pudding hell.

When my cat ran away from home, my uncle walked around all night in the cold. He was coming home too late, so I left the house to look for the man who was looking for the cat, and he was squatting in the parking lot, crying. “I thought he must be feeling cold,” he said, unable to stop crying and unable to reach the front door. I sat down on the parking lot next to him and watched the grown man’s white breath as he continued to whimper.

He told me all sorts of stories. Mainly about the underworld. A brother possessed by a fox. A boss who was stolen from him for carrying his own goods. A famous fortune teller with a name that sounds like fish eggs, actually… and so on. I couldn’t bring myself to believe them, but if they were true, they were just silly, talkative tales. I grew fond of him, as he told the same stories over and over again.

So I was often made to help out my uncle with his work.
“Musuta, can you help me ?” I did some side work. It was stuffing mailings to send to customers. I folded A4 printed paper into thirds, put them in brown envelopes, and stuck address labels on them. I did this for several dozen people every month. When I was done, my uncle inspected the labels for any inclinations, and if there were no problems, he would toss me his long wallet. “Just take as much as you think you’ve worked for,” he would say, pretending to be generous, to test me. His earnings were all that was in the family’s finances. My college tuition was also paid for there. So my mother would smile as I helped my uncle with his work.

Then one day, my uncle disappeared. He suddenly stopped coming home. He had been away for long periods of time, saying, “The work site is far away,” so I assumed it was normal, but this time, things were different.

My mother was clinging to the receiver, making calls here and there every day. I even heard a voice that sounded like a report or a message saying, “I was able to send some soap.” What kind of work site would send soap?

I don’t know what’s happening, but something is happening. Still, I’m scared to check it again. Tomorrow morning might be different from usual. As I was spending my days in fear, my mother bought me a sports newspaper. I’m sure it was on page three, and the headline was like this.

“Japan’s largest underground video business cracked down on” I asked my mother, “This?” She replied, “This.”

I was in my teenage years then. So, to be honest, I had noticed it halfway through. The DMs contained lists of adult videos. Boston bags stuffed with VHS tapes were stuffed into the closet and the trunk of the car. It was probably illegal.

But I couldn’t say anything. My mother’s laughing voice on the phone about “adult toys buzzing” had stuck in my mind. A mother who made her son do the dirty work and might even end up appearing in them herself. I don’t know the truth. If you want to stay a family, keep quiet. That’s how the Kusakabe family was.

Even so, it was the most uncool crime in Japan. As a result, my uncle was sentenced to prison, which was the umpteenth time he had served his sentence in his life. He was released after serving a short sentence. It seems. I say ” apparently” because he never returned to the Kusaka family. He went back to his legal wife. There was not even a word of farewell. From a family relationship to one of complicity. And then the relationship was dissolved. It was an anticlimactic one.

The reason he kept quiet was probably because of his last feelings as a family member, or because of his sense of honor. Although I was spared questioning, I was undoubtedly an accomplice and perpetrator as a minor.
It had been that way from the start. I was taken advantage of, and it was taken for granted. It may be a little similar to the English word for abuse. I still have

regrets, remorse, and repentance, even now, more than 30 years later. This is even more so now that I’m a parent. There is no statute of limitations for self-blame and self-hatred. We must not take our sins lightly. But all of this makes me want to clench my teeth. The closed room of the home. Life and further education. As a teenager, I was powerless to do anything.

So I want to remember. Perpetrators and victims are not things of a distant world. Moreover, many perpetrators were victims before they became perpetrators. Perpetrators who are trying to reintegrate into society are, in fact, victims who are also trying to reintegrate into society. There are cases like that. I, who was lucky enough to have escaped with a hair’s breadth, want to be sensitive to this, rather than the “perpetrators” who are hung out to dry by the media and criticized on social media.

I wonder if Oji-chan was also a victim of something. He never talked about his upbringing. And he never easily criticized others from a high position. Even if it was on the news on TV.

I remembered that at the prison art exhibition. I’m going to go again next year.