Holland Got Talent judge Gordon Heuckeroth made several racist remarks at a Chinese competitor, singer Xiao Wang, last week. You might have already seen it, but if not, check the above. What's interesting, however, is the tepid, almost indifferent response from netizens in China, a study in contrast to the outrage expressed after the now-infamous and actually inoffensive skit by Jimmy Kimmel.
Aspiring American brodude outfit Day Above Ground finally got their big break on Thursday morning after cultural provocateur Angry Asian Man, comedian David So and several other influential media personalities shaped what was initially a locus of outrage in the Asian American community on Tuesday afternoon into a viral campaign and international news story.
How many deep-rooted Asian stereotypes can you cram into a five-minute music video? Dozens if you’re the American boy band Day Above Ground, the Los Angelenos who galvanized the Asian American community on Tuesday afternoon after blogger and cultural critic Angry Asian Man blasted the video for their song “Asian Girlz” in a scathing post.
While we’d love to offer a frame-by-frame analysis of everything questionable about the most racist music video we’ve ever seen, doing so would give us ebola. Our shortlist, however, includes:
A Bay Area anchor who works for Fox affiliate KTVU announced on Friday, out loud and on-air, that the names of the four pilots of Asiana 214 were Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow.
Okay, this looks bad -- replacing an L with an R in a story about a flight from Asia in which two Chinese teenagers died. But no editor could have possibly done this intentionally, right? Make an L-R confusion joke amid a tragedy, I mean. Spoonerisms really aren't even very clever.
Dr. Monica Stephens, a professor at Humboldt State University, has created a series of maps that illustrate which areas of the United States are most likely to send tweets with certain hateful words. It's called Geography of Hate, and here's how it works:
The data behind this map is based on every geocoded tweet in the United States from June 2012 - April 2013 containing one of the 'hate words'.
In an otherwise pretty decent ad for the Chevy Trax, GM has been forced to go on the defensive for using a song that includes the phrase “ching-chong, chop suey.” As South China Morning Post notes: The television spot for the Chevrolet Trax SUV, which had been running in Canada since early April and was... Read more »
"Golfer from China." "Chinese golfer." "Asian." Hell, just stick with "14-year-old."
"Chinaman"?
"Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature," notes Timothy Burke of Deadspin, who pulled the above clip from a newscast in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Its most controversial days are likely behind it, but we have one more update on Beijing Snacks, which some have taken to calling “the most racist restaurant in Beijing” thanks to its owner pasting a “no dog… no Japanese et al.” sign on the front window. RFH recently visited with friends, including a Japanese man... Read more »
The Beijing restaurant manager, a man surnamed Wang, who doesn’t want to serve customers from countries engaged in maritime disputes with China has removed this fairly racist sign from his Houhai establishment. He took it down Thursday by his own volition, according to AFP, but has “refused to apologise.”
So, it seems that some people have yet to fully understand why racism is a bad thing. With tensions in the South China Sea remaining high, we’re still being treated to bizarre examples of unhealthy nationalism. The latest can be found here in Beijing: the proprietors of a snack shop in Houhai called Beijing Snacks... Read more »
Anne Ishii, writer/translator in New York, writing in Slate: Martin Luther King Jr. said… Please stop. …we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin, but no one said anything about what’s in our pants. Oh fuck. There is an unspeakable fallacy that all Asian-American men must decide... Read more »
In November, Angry Asian Man noticed a very peculiar Android app that was being sold in Google Play: “Make Me Asian.” The program works by superimposing straw hats and fu manchus on user-uploaded pictures, which, um… yeah, don’t do that. Oh hells no. At the risk of giving this damn thing more attention than it... Read more »
I’m not going to call this racist because it’s the holidays and we’re all having fun, but some of these tweets are pretty borderline. Also, Angry Asian Man can do it for us:
One of my pet peeves is people, Asian or otherwise, pretending to be offended when someone intentionally or unintentionally uses the word chink in a totally non-racial context. (People who are actually offended are only slightly better.) Example: Jeremy Lin, ESPN headline: “Chink in the armor.” We get it: Lin’s Asian, chink isn’t the best choice... Read more »
Below is a truly eye-opening video that neatly summarizes almost every conversation I've had with Beijingers about African-Americans (or people with dark skin in general). I enjoy the fact that simply by having an online show called Xiao Shuo (晓说) -- and spending a bit of time abroad -- this guy has become an authority on all things African American. Though I've seen the host's face on billboards all over Beijing, I hadn't actually watched the show until recently - a quick Baidu search revealed that the host is in fact the well known drunk driver Gao Xiaosong.
This woman has no idea whatsoever what these words mean. Finally, a world without racism, where words are just words. Via Reddit user jjjmills, who notes his wife took this picture last week in Beijing. (H/T Candice L.)
Multipass is company that promotes travel to Asia, which means there’s a chance I’ll be seeing one of the above cretins here in Beijing. Oh, joy. Lots of folks are calling this ad, called “See Asia Like Asians Do,” racist. Eh, I say. They have different standards for racism in Eastern Europe, as this year’s Euro... Read more »
Less racist than Hyundai's commercial, some would say. Although really, Hyundai's commercial is not racist. Let's chill a bit with the R word, alright? The term has begun to lose meaning due to overuse. American culture almost has to invent new ways to differentiate between different levels of racism, kind of like what Inuits do with snow. We're basically at the point where "Chink in the armor" seems to be America's baseline racism, which is a shame, because I think that designation should belong to something like, "Get off my lawn you squinty-eyed squarehead." But as is, real racism now has to be designated "racistest" (or something), and a comment like "Asians are good at math" is "raci"... instead of, you know, true.
Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky posted excerpts of an email sent by the Asian American Journalists Association yesterday (earlier today for those in China) that includes a list of stereotypes for journalists to avoid when covering Jeremy Lin. As Petchesky hilariously points out, “Half of these are references nobody’s even made yet, so thanks, AAJA, for giving racists... Read more »
