Salevaa Atisanoe, who took the name Konishiki when he came to Japan in 1982, had grappled his way toward the pinnacle of the most Japanese of sports. Since February, when he won his last tournament, his fans have waited anxiously to see if he would be promoted to its highest level: Yokozuna (grand champion). Finally, as it became apparent the fiercely conservative Sumo Association would balk, Konishiki went public. “Strictly speaking,” he told a Tokyo newspaper, “this is racism.”
Three days later the wrestler retracted his own story. " It doesn’t matter what color YOU are," he announced. “My job is to go out there and try really hard.” It was the Japanese thing to say - however divorced from a far more complicated reality.
