Yasuhiro Nakasone and his wife
*On this date in 1986, (then) Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said the United States' "intelligence levels are lower than those in Japan because of African Americans, Hispanics, and Puerto Ricans."
Responding to the Japanese leader’s speech suggesting that the racially homogeneous country was “intellectually” superior to the U.S. African American business leaders led by BE 100 CEOs, including Clarence Avant, Comer Cottrell, George Johnson, Byron Lewis, and Earl G. Graves, pressed for an apology and reciprocal trade in a full-page ad in The New York Times.
Nakasone later apologized, yet sociologists said Nakasone was only expressing what many Japanese believed, that Japan had benefited from a homogenous population. Foreigners comprise less than 1 percent of Japan’s 121 million people. ″Nakasone’s remarks aptly express domestic sentiments, ″ said Hiroshi Tanaka, a professor of Asian Affairs at Aichi University, west of Tokyo.
