Then why not War Machine or Valkyrie or Ant Man or Starlord or Scarlet Witch or Vision or Black Panther or Captain Marvel...

She makes no mention in the article about the first aspect you describe as far as I’ve seen. Instead she repeatedly paints herself as being British and not Japanese in the slightest, limiting her exposure to her birth country as merely summer schooling.

I think the thing that irks me is her whole argument is that she’s been here all her life and that she has no real connection to Japan as a country having only gone for “summer school” as she terms it. She actively ups being British and distances herself from the notion of being Japanese with her only complaint being…

The problem there is that you get issues of how do you balance years of residence and lifespan. If we went for all awards “you primarily live here five years and you’re British” for example then George Clooney is a British actor.

The Olympics is asinine. Everyone should just play for America

Americans often seem to have an incredibly blind spot when it comes to cultural imperialism.

Then they can apply for citizenship and go up for a BRIT award. It’s not the UK’s fault that Japan doesn’t allow dual citizens.

A nationality clause in an award set up to celebrate British and Irish artists is asinine?  Please do explain.

But that’s a vastly different situation. Your grandmother had no choice in the matter and it was the US that required her to revoke her citizenship for her career and livelihood.

The underlying premise of this article - that arts awards should not have national qualifications - could only come from an author sitting in the center of an empire against whose hegemony those qualifications were introduced in the first place. You’re the empire here.

That Windrush analogy was pure fucking disrespect.  

My favourite line was this:

I think a shallow understanding of British colonial history is a bit generous, considering this gem

If there is a case to be made with respect to the Mercury Prize that consideration should be given to expanding eligibility to both citizens and permanent residents (or whatever the appropriate category of resident would be) of Britain and Ireland (perhaps with qualifications based on period of residency), okay fine.

Blame Japan for not allowing dual citizenship, but who wants to tackles Japan’s massive amount of xenophobia? Better to blame the Brits instead.

“Sawayama tells Vice that she could have given up her Japanese passport to qualify for the ceremonies but chose not to.”

She’s an amazing artist and hugely underrated, but this rule doesn’t feel that archaic to me. These awards exist to recognise British artists, which they have defined as those who have British citizenship. She doesn’t want to become a British citizen, therefore she’s not eligible. Not much more to it.

The BRITS was established specifically to promote British and Irish acts in the face of American hegemony of the music industry, hence the rule. If they didn’t restrict it by nationality then loads of Americans would get nominated, and possibly win, thereby negating the whole point of the awards.

Hey look, it's every video game protagonist from the early 2010s

The funny part is that someone in a design doc decided that the Avengers, a team known for having fucktillions of members, would have a very limited roster of the MCU favorites + Kamala Khan.