#CancelColbert (2014) was a topic on Twitter about a racist joke that Stephen Colbert, a White American television comedian, made at the expense of Asian Americans.
On March 27th 2014, @ColbertReport tweeted this:
I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.
Sounds pretty racist. But those who had watched his television show knew it was part of a joke about Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, an American football team.
Snyder has been getting heat for not changing the name of his team, considered by many a racist slur against Native Americans. Not as bad as the N-word, but in that direction.
Snyder, instead of changing his team name, said he would start the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation, repeating his mistake!
Colbert mocked this. Thus the tweet.
The worst of it was probably not the words but that Colbert felt comfortable making a joke at the expense of Asian Americans – something he would not have done to Blacks or Jews: had he made the same joke with the N-word or K-word, his show might well have been cancelled.
Asians are a “safe” target of White racist humour, just as Blacks were before the 1960s. “Ching chong” (Mock Chinese), like blackface, comes from the old minstrel shows.
Suey Park was not having it. The “ching chong” insult has been thrown in her face since childhood. She had tried the “quiet, well-spoken” thing with White people. It did not work.
After talking it over with her friends for several hours, she tweeted back with the #CancelColbert hashtag.
It brought the racist idiots out of the woodwork and the thing went viral. So much so that many big US outlets of news and opinion covered it. Most of them told Park, in so many patronizing polysyllables, that, “It was just a joke, lighten up.”
She received rape and death threats and tons of racist hate tweets. Many of Colbert’s supposedly “progressive” fans showed themselves to be sickeningly racist.
Park says Colbert’s joke was hate speech excused as “satire”. If you have to explain it or if only racists are laughing, then it is probably not satire.
She did not expect cancellation of the show, just an apology.
Colbert did not give an apology, not even a White one. Instead, the press rushed to his defence.
The whole thing made clear that the mainstream media in the US is run by White men and their hangers-on, that they do not understand racism, that they are unwilling to question their own racism. Meanwhile, these men, who wear the Emperor’s New Clothes, set and frame public discussion of racism – like determining what should offend Asians!
It also made clear that White liberals do not see themselves as racist, that they do the Racist Uncle thing (here, Dan Snyder plays the uncle) where they point to a “worse racism” to pat themselves on the back.
See also:
- Twitter: #CancelColbert
- YouTube: Colbert not apologizing (and giving his account of events)
- Commentary: Ask a Korean!, Init_
- Suey Park
- Stuff White People Probably Shouldn’t Say
- minstrel show
- Asian Americans
- How to not be a racist – in 7 easy steps! – the Racist Uncle thing falls under #5.
I support Suey Park in attempts to address these issues. What is noticeable why is it mostly Asian women who become more vocal about anti-asian racism than Asian men?
Not only is Suey Park Vocal about Anti-asian racism she is an advocate in fighting anti-blackness in her community which coming from a Korean American woman is commendable. In the Asian community when addressing anti- blackness this issue gets slept on that has me believing majority of AAs are comfortable with their own racism long as it doesn’t come from white people.
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My husband and I watched that episode(and just about every other episode) and as soon as he did that joke I was like wow. I wondered out loud if there would be any backlash over it.
I was very disappointed in Colbert’s response to the criticism.
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Pretty soon the white population will have no one to make fun of besides themselves..
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He is SATIRIZING a racist. He’s playing a Fox News cartoon. His character is purposely obtuse and unaware of how racist he actually is, thinking he is not racist. That’s part of the joke of the “Stephen Colbert” that Stephen Colbert plays.
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Yep, you got it. People know that you cannot say those bad words about blacks and Jews and get away with it, even if it is a joke. They will get cancelled and lose their sponsors. But jokes about Native Americans and Asians are still immune from that.
I am originally from DC, so I know that most non-Native Americans would even think of the team’s mascot as being racist.But of course it is.
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@jonblaze5
If you had been following some of the other threads, you would be able to answer this.
Asians don’t have a big voice in the USA, but Asian-American women have much bigger voices (that will be heard) than Asian-American men. Have you ever noticed how many Asian-American talking heads there are? Is there any Asian-American man with his own national talk show or even an anchorman for the national news? The few that you will see are likely completely emasculated down to the wimpiest voice. Even CNN got rid of all their Asian male newscasters (except for Fareed Zakaria and Sanjay Gupta – not of East Asian or Southeast Asian descent).
Those that are out there (Richard Lui) are probably being intimidated by their white bosses to remain silent on this.
White men do listen somewhat to Asian women. They do not listen to Asian men.
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@Solesearch
the part about Michelle Malkin – OMG 😮
That was not appropriate.
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@GR, I think what Colbert did was worse because he denied that it was inappropriate. Even if Kimmel’s original comment was worse, he would never deny that it was inappropriate.
And there is a difference using Asian Americans as the butt of racist jokes vs. saying something about China.
IF you are comparing the severity of the original comment, then you are missing the point. The main problem is not the original comment.
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“Yeah, but you are the model minority so it’s all in fun right-lighten up” *end of sarcasm* Maybe that’s the rationale for using Asian-Americans as punchlines to tasteless jokes. White privilege at its best/worst (your pick).
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Has anyone noticed when looking at her followers a majority of them are african american? Any reason why that is ?
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Male complaints in general aren’t taken as seriously as those coming from a female. It makes you look weak and whiny. Combine this with the emasculated sterotype of Asian men and the “privilege” from having high education and you have one of the more easily dismissable groups out there. Asian feminists usually are closely tied to other feminist groups so have their backing and a platform to stand on. This is why I found Suey’s entire Stewy Park phase laughable when most well known Asian American voices have been female, from Maxine Hong-Kingston, to Amy Tan, Amy Chua, and now Suey Park.
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Jonblaze,
There are more African Americans on twitter and in America.
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Abagond:
I find it unlikely that very many people would place “ching-chong” on the same offensiveness level as pejoratives such as the N-word. This difference significantly undermines your argument.
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Kiwi:
Colbert’s comment was satire, and is actually predicated on the viewer being more sensitive to offensive terms and language directed towards asians than they are with similar language directed towards Native Americans.
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From George:
“Jimmie Kimmel had a kill everyone in china joke.
at least Colbert didn’t go that far lol.”
Is this the racist uncle thing?
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Glad you did a post on this. I was on quite a few blog sites reading the comments and they were just unbelievable, lot of them saying how it was satire and how stupid it was to get offended. Again, it was just unbelievable how people thought this was no big deal. Kudos to Suey Park, for being proactive.
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Goddamnit people! He was making fun of Dan Snyder, not Asians. smh
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To Kiwi:
My white uncle and his friends won’t say the N-word either but they have no problem saying “ching-chong” and laughing at mock Asian languages till their ribs crack.
You’ve also stated they call you their “ch!nk” nephew. Do you ever call them on this..? Or flip the script and call them your wh!te-tr@sh, inbred, redn*ck uncles..?
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I commend Ms Park. I stand with her. I am very disturbed about viewer reaction to her standing up and making herself heard. I do have a problem with Colbert’s response…he could have made things right but obviously did not feel that he needed to. He’s on to more money and a bigger gig.
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Personally, I thought the whole controversy was hilarious. Let the liberals fight it out. More and more SWPL types will wake up and see the PC gestapo for what it is, but it will be too late to reverse course. Demographics is destiny and things will keep getting worse.
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Yeah; its hard to fight the “just being too sensitive” bit when people start reacting like this.
Its not degrading Asian people or making fun of them, its making fun of people who would do those kinds of racists things.
Having to explain the joke does not mean it is not satire….it just means that you do not get the joke.
And they have a good point about Asian Men versus Asian Women here…..men are raised from a perspective of strength whereas women are raised from a perspective of weakness. So women feel more acceptable about using the tag of “victim”.
Though I do remember the interview she had with the british guy; kind of awkward, she wasn’t comfortable with interviews and he was being kind of a jack ass.
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@ Bobby M
Comment deleted for racist slur.
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@Randy,
“Ching-Chong” is HORRIBLE and has a very ugly racist history associated with it. It might not quite have the scope of the abuse of the N-word, but it does not undermine the argument at all.
Maybe Abagond will put up the post soon about the history and abuse of Ching-Chong to give us a better idea why it is so bad.
Randy, one reason why you attract so much negative attention here is because you have appointed yourself as the authority on what other people should find offensive and abusive. Do you ever think about listening to find out what people find offensive and abusive? You especially appointed yourself the authority on what constitutes and does not constitute Asian-American racism. As soon as you do that, your arguments are totally undermined.
Listen and learn about what people have experienced and don’t dictate to them how they should feel and how they should act.
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@ Randy
How is “ching chong” not an ignorant and racist thing to say? NO grown person should be saying that stuff. Why in the world should Asians put up with that crap? Why? Just because they put up with your (collective) racist ass does not mean you are not being a racist ass.
Why do Whites consider the N-word worse? They used to say the N-word all the time like it was no big thing (it seems to be making a comeback in some quarters). They used to freely use blackface too and thought it was SO funny. Ha. Ha. Believe me, Whites did not stop out of some sudden fit of Racial Sensitivity. It does not work like that, at least not with White Americans. It was because Blacks stopped putting up with that crap and had enough power to make it stick.
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After this event and some discussion on the other posts, I am starting to gravitate to a conclusion:
* Asian-Americans still have a weak voice in the USA and are generally not heard.
* Asian-American women are more likely to be heard than Asian-American men, whose voice has been completely covered over and its credibility taken away due to his emasculation. Asian American talking heads are almost all women.
* Asian-American women’s voices are only really credible if they are married to white men, and don’t say or do anything to offend white male sensibilities. If they are not married to white men, then their voice is not credible, esp. if they offend white men.
–> that is why Asian-American women can bash Asian men with impunity. It does not offend white male sensibilities.
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@Kiwi
This Model minority crap has been an evil tool used by both Republican anti-Affirmative Action rhetoric and white liberal media. It has GOT TO go.
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i been posted about this before, not to relate to my latest lexigraphical failing; no, really about south park episode ‘world war zimmerman’ is the totally racist clip ie when cartman shoots token worth it to further the ‘end’ “moral lesson” ie at the end of the episode
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@Peanut
But what group could he pick? Jews are already off the table. Appalachian or Ozark hillbillies? Mentally disabled whites? But they are off limits too.
I think white target groups actually get more media protection than Asian American groups.
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@V-4
Who decided this? You? Believe me, it is degrading. Do you feel nothing at all about the “N!gg3r C**n foundation for Sensitivity to Darkies (or whatever)”? If he used that to illustrate Dan Snyder’s insensitivity, would it be degrading?
I am sure that Suey Park *GOT* the joke. I am sure that if they replaced the words with the similar ones for blacks that most blacks would *get* the joke. The problem is not getting the joke or not.
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Jefe:
The form of Colbert’s type of satire is to use a term or situation commonly accepted as offensive in order to illustrate one which isn’t.
Abagond suggested a double-standard by claiming that had the offensive term in that satire been the N-word, then that would have been a firing situation. So necessarily, the level of offensiveness is important in his argument, not whether or not it is offensive.
Jefe:
I’ve commented on “reasonableness”, which, while subjective, is nonetheless an important measure. There will always be people to take offense nearly anything at all, so a binary property of “offensive: yes / no” is functionally useless.
Here’s an interesting take: http://isaiahlcarter.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/suey-park-would-have-hated-george-carlin-too/
Isaiah L. Carter:
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who decides this? the white media? or the affected targeted groups?
What level of offensive language towards Jews could be so much more extreme than the example used? What kind of level of offensive language towards Asian-Americans would be at the level of the N-word? Who decides this?
It’s a debatable argument, but not a baseless one.
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I wrote about something like this a while back about how Asians are viewed in the white mind:
http://brothawolf.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/asians-in-white-minds/
I also posted a response about the mainstream’s version of “satire:
Salon reports that Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, put up a defense when asked about his racist humor a few years ago. So, what does he do? Used the ‘It’s funny’ excuse with an f-bomb on the side.
Reading this, and Lavern Merriweather’s article about satire made it more clear and evident that white liberals in the entertainment biz see society’s ills as punchlines to get a cheap laugh or two from privileged audiences. Some think that simply being nonwhite, non-straight, non-male and non-anything-else is a joke in itself. Usually, they’re the types that can barely think of any other way to make the audience laugh.
But privileged satire, as I call it, is entertainment for the privileged, those who think that being the other living and struggling in this lopsided world is funny, because it’s true. The purpose seems less about thinking and more about being stimulated. The gist of privileged satire is to get people to laugh at the struggles of others for anything that is not their fault. As a result, it doesn’t question their privileged mindset; it merely tickles it.
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@Jefe
If she thought it was degrading to Asians….than no she quite literally did not get the joke.
It would only be degrading to Asians if it was not satire.
Now is it possible if Colber had tweeted something like “The Hey-Ho foundation for sensitivity to Negroes” that people would have got offended?
Of course; but then racists used to get offended when non-white people moved into their neighborhoods, probably still do really.
But that does not make their offended-ness justifiable or right.
Lets be honest; their is always somebody who is going to be offended. Plenty of republicans probably get offended by Liberals using studies and facts that support their viewpoint or when they call out the moral hypocrisy of Republicans.
Just being offended doesn’t put you in the right.
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As someone who has actually been called a “ching-chong” before, I will say that I DON’T find Colbert’s joke offensive at all. In fact, to say that the joke is “offensive to Asians” is a stretch. While it’s true that white people don’t get to determine what is offensive to Asians, neither does Suey Park – she can only determine what is offensive to her, and she is frankly the sort of person who gets offended very easily.
Someone above noted that Asian female activists like Park seemed to take up this fight more readily than Asian males. I’m not going to ascribe gender-based reasons for this, except to point out that many of the most influential Asian male voices (such as bloggers Angry Asian Man, Jeff Yang, Ask a Korean) defended Colbert’s satire. Could it be they had an understanding of comedy and satire more nuanced than Suey Park?
If some Asians decide that Colbert was in the wrong, must we automatically defer to them and agree? What about those Asians (I’m guessing the majority) who thought this was much ado about nothing?
Yes, “ching-chong” is an offensive term, but that doesn’t mean that Colbert’s use of it was offensive. Context is important. If “ching-chong” is some magic word that causes offence every time it is uttered, then why are we discussing it so openly here? Why don’t we refer to it as the “ch-word”? Why has everyone mentioning the word here not been labeled a racist?
Because of context. Most Asians who know anything about Colbert know that whatever he says while in his show persona is not to be taken at face value. And terms like “ching-chong” and “Oriental” are simply not incendiary enough to make most Asians ignore the broader context. (Note that Colbert didn’t use “gook” which has a lot more venom to it, and is a better parallel with the n-word.)
I’m not going to defend any of the racist or misogynist bile that got thrown at Park after she started this Twitter campaign. That is inexcusable. But that doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with what Colbert said. He has nothing to apologise for, and I’m glad that he did not, because that would just empower well-meaning but clueless people like Suey Park.
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One thing I have to wonder is how do the #CancelColbert people feel about “A Modest Proposal”?
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@ Abagond
Colbert’s piece was a satire. It’s a difficult sell to just label it racist humour; maybe it can be done but not in the easy and quick way that one can label blackface as racist. I watched Colbert’s response he explains the satire, the parts about Michelle Malkin and the brief mention of A Modest Proposal are well done. I think his response holds together very well.
There is something else going on. Whites should stick to satirizing white groups. Colbert should have satirized Snyder by saying satirically horrible things about the Irish, for example. The common sense is plain, I think: you can call your own family horrible names but you must surely come to blows with an outsider who uses the very same insults.
I wish Park had asked why Colbert didn’t pick a white group to mock as part of the satire against Snyder. The default for the producers and for Colbert was to pick the safe East Asians to utilize in their satire, why is it so natural for them to pick a group of colour? They are too comfortable and entitled but also they know their audience is white and it feels more natural to target non whites to get guaranteed laughs.
^ Maybe I myself have pointed out why it is “racist humour” but it takes awhile to get there but again it isn’t the racism of a good old fashioned Cross Burning, it’s a smarmy, entitled kind of racism in a well done satire–it’s a tough one. Like I said, hard sell.
@ random commenters
Don’t say a word about “Freedom of speech”. Most everyone on this forum understands Freedom of speech.
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V-4, it’s not a matter of being offended. That wasn’t even the point of the post.
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@ V-4
Have a look at Colbert’s response to the whole situation, it’s worth watching.
(http://youtu.be/hDqP82SQCZc)
I searched for it independently of Aba’s post. When I checked Aba’s link they are one and the same.
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Legion, I think u r basically right.
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^ but not totally right? Add the missing bits then, I’m interested.
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Legion,
“^ Maybe I myself have pointed out why it is “racist humour” but it takes awhile to get there but again it isn’t the racism of a good old fashioned Cross Burning, it’s a smarmy, entitled kind of racism in a well done satire–it’s a tough one. Like I said, hard sell.”
Tough for who? Some of us caught on pretty easily.
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V-4 said: Just being offended doesn’t put you in the right.
Yeah, if Park’s whole response was about being offended then she kind of missed some broader things to address. For me that broader thing is the assumed normalcy of going down the list of non white groups to use in one’s satire. It’s hard to see right way but there’s even some white savior in Colbert’s satire*: It’s okay to just take some non white group and use them in the satire against Snyder because it should be assumed that Colbert is a progressive sophisticated white savior using the vehicle of satire to fight the true evil of a guy like Snyder.
Someone with media clout should point out that in the same way that Snyder doesn’t want to go to the trouble to de-brand and then re-brand his very famous football team for economic reasons, the great saviors and “progressives” over at Colbert Report want to shape the style of their satire in line with what is obviously a majority white audience.
If Park missed pointing all of that out then that’s a pity. I can imagine Bell Hooks possibly talking about it in this way but it will be to a lecture hall of pointy heads, not the mainstream media.
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Tough for who? Some of us caught on pretty easily.
Solesearch, I know you won’t like this but here’s my answer.
Some of the discussion on what is racist and why it is racist needs to be explained to white people. Black people and other people of colour can’t (on every issue) simply knowingly nod our heads at an understanding of the wrongness of certain things. Most whites are going to just see that the piece was a satire and nothing more, and if someone says “racist” the white response will be “you’re too sensitive”. Therefore, it is not sufficient to simply use the ‘r’ word when talking about this Colbert piece to whites, most of them will not buy it. Like I said the satire was very well done. White people are not viewing the world from the same vantage point as non whites, one’s manner of discourse needs to take that into account sometimes when explaining race matters to them.
*Sigh* ok dear, let me have it! 🙂
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@ George Ryder
Did you catch how Colbert threw in “Rosa Parks is overrated?”
It doesn’t matter, it is safe for him to say that and he damn well knows it’s safe.
He did not, for example, say the following:
“Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus because she had stuffed her black ass full of chicken and watermelon as a lunchtime snack.”
Colbert is going with what is safe and with what he feels entitled to in order to keep his gravy train going.
George, you need to get a clue and those posters on your wall apparently aren’t helping.
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Legion,
It’s not about labeling it as simply racist. Many POC have explained it over and over again. There were several articles on salon, the huffington post and elsewhere, long discussions on twitter, other social media sites, and forums.
Lets not act like white people or whoever else doesn’t get racism because it hasn’t been properly explained. Like POC have a problem explaining the issue in terms that can be understood by rational white folks instead of our emotional ranting and r-word yelling.
It has been explained numerous ways by numerous people of different backgrounds and the response is always: “you don’t understand satire.”
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It’s telling and hypocritical when white people poke fun at POC at their expense and we’re supposed to laugh along with them and not get upset. But when we have serious discussions about whites, that’s when they start crying foul and get mad.
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^^^ Yup. That is the irony of the “oversensitive” thing.
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@ Solesearch
There were several articles on salon, the huffington post and elsewhere, long discussions on twitter, other social media sites, and forums.
It has been explained numerous ways by numerous people of different backgrounds and the response is always: “you don’t understand satire.”
Okay, I didn’t have first hand knowledge of those discussions. I’m guessing a number of internet outlets had higher quality discussion than, say, CNN. Very well, if the response was mostly, “you don’t understand satire”, even when the explanation was well said and well reasoned then, at that point, intransigent whites ought to be labelled as racist or stupid or both.
————————————————–
I feel like the best response (at this point) would be black and other people of colour satirists with their own t.v. show to satirize annoying entitled “progressives” like the clever Colberts of the world but there is no such thing, to my knowledge, on U.S. television.
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@ George Ryder
I was thinking more about the Malcolm X poster but you only had it up due to it’s aesthetic qualities, based on what you said about it in the Malcolm X thread. The man’s politics and convictions were what was substantive about him not his ability to make a fetching artistic subject.
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Legion,
“Okay, I didn’t have first hand knowledge of those discussions. I’m guessing a number of internet outlets had higher quality discussion than, say, CNN. Very well, if the response was mostly, “you don’t understand satire”, even when the explanation was well said and well reasoned then, at that point, intransigent whites ought to be labelled as racist or stupid or both.”
You didn’t have knowledge of poc’s response to this issue so you assumed the problem was POC not giving “well said and well reasoned” responses to the good, logical white people of the world?
Did you also not read this post or the responses?
MLK was probably America’s most well spoken and reasonable citizens and yet racism still exists.
Do you think your “well said and well reasoned” comment is setting off light bulbs over white people’s clueless heads?
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Suey Park:
More:
http://time.com/42174/we-want-to-cancelcolbert/
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“Yes, “ching-chong” is an offensive term, but that doesn’t mean that Colbert’s use of it was offensive. Context is important. If “ching-chong” is some magic word that causes offence every time it is uttered, then why are we discussing it so openly here? Why don’t we refer to it as the “ch-word”? Why has everyone mentioning the word here not been labeled a racist?”
_ _ _
Bull’s eye.
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@ Legion
I agree: he should have made the joke at the expense of Irish Americans. At the very least he would then be in a better position to judge how off the joke was.
Logic does not matter in this case: To admit Colbert was racist would be to admit they are racist too. They cannot throw him overboard like they can Paula Deen or Don Sterling. It would shatter their treasured belief that only extreme racists are racist, that most Whites are Basically Good, that people of colour are just whining and imagining stuff.
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Park:
Non-sequitur.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Ms. Park. Nobody should be the target of threats for voicing their opinion. Also, it seems paradoxically unfortunate that her inapt, humorless “advocacy” received such a wide viewing. Most of us can eventually walk back from our strident, poorly reasoned youthful rants.
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Abagond:
That wouldn’t work, precisely because anti-Irish racist humor is socially acceptable. Colbert’s satirical joke only works if people recognize that the subject of the joke is offensive.
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@ Randy
When the NAACP campaigned against blackface in the 1950s, I am pretty sure they were “humourless” too. Maybe, just maybe, because they found nothing to laugh at.
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@ Randy
Colbert’s “satirical joke” did not “work” for me. It made me feel uncomfortable and embarrassed for him, particularly when he dug out that crude racist stereotype he did in 2005.
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@ Solesearch
You’re assuming something about me. Before we go further I want to look at a basic thing:
Of course I read the main post. I wouldn’t address Abagond directly without at least reading his main post. It is not an obligation to read any of the subsequent comments, that is something people choose to do or not do however, I did read some of the comments. I always do read some of the comments but not because I am obliged to.
You didn’t have knowledge of poc’s response to this issue so you assumed the problem was POC not giving “well said and well reasoned” responses to the good, logical white people of the world?
Sole, get real will you. To express that there is always a contingent of super sensitive and waiting to be offended poc is not some hideous thing to believe, it’s banal. It’s banal because that contingent does in fact exist, not just on race relations but with all sorts of things. Just go back and check that lame Quvenzhané Wallis thread, that thing went for hundreds of comments with people getting on the bandwagon, that Abagond started, about the mispronunciation of that kid’s name being yet more damning evidence of the racist media right down to the reporters they send out to do jobs. People went on and on in that thread complaining and whining over something that was as trivial as some rascal sticking chewing gum in your hair. As I recall, King pointed out that there were certainly slim grounds to cry racism and he pointed out with good reasons why that was the case.
(Yeah, yeah, there was also the super nasty stuff by the Onion but that was not even from the heads at the Onion it was from an idiot at the Onion jumping to say something “satirical” and just saying something stupid. If I remember correctly, I don’t even think Abagond had all the facts when he did that post.)
… not giving “well said and well reasoned” responses to the good, logical white people of the world?
You wound me Solesearch, there’s no need to go shoving a lance into me. Look, we went over this in the Mindy Kaling thread at length! I think you know where I’m coming from even if you don’t agree with me. It is NOT that I think white people are “good” and “logical”, it is that the best way to hold them to account, in a number of situations, is to put forward the best argument to make it harder (or impossible on really successful occasions) for them to avoid the truth. As I told you before, just using the r- word is not always effective. Anything that gets overused loses it’s meaning or it’s punch.
MLK was probably America’s most well spoken and reasonable citizens and yet racism still exists.
Are you looking for Utopia? Some advice: stop looking.
You think MLK was supposed to extinguish racism with his magic rhetoric? We launch good arguments not to usher in Utopia but to defeat the argument at hand. Anyway, it’s just a matter of opinion that MLK was “probably America’s most well spoken” citizen. The man was a preacher and every speech I’ve heard from him had a sing-song quality that, I personally, do not consider all that attractive or impressive. I don’t want anyone singing to me on matters of huge import, but that’s me.
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Yes, because people who through it around know it is something used only to hurt people. Please go back to kindergarten and listen to your teachers words. We should use words that are aimed to hurt. Yet, I guess that is too simple of a view. I try to imagine it in my class of 4 and 5 year olds. Mind you some of my kids are Chinese and Hmong but the majority of them are white. Could they use the term and be anything but offensive? I just ask because in my opinion I would have to scold them and then ask them to apologize. Well, I guess that is the benefit of being an adult is doing things that even a preschooler should know better than to do.
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comment in moderation. don’t know why though.
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@ Randy
That wouldn’t work, precisely because anti-Irish racist humor is socially acceptable. Colbert’s satirical joke only works if people recognize that the subject of the joke is offensive.
No, it could easily work. Just pull out those old images of the Irish looking like lower primates and come up with something clever to say.
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This was an interesting take on the #CancelColbert thing…….
http://benefsanem.blogspot.com.tr/2014/04/the-irony-of-failed-satire.html
According to this guy, people are just too comfortable with anti-Asian prejudice for it to effectively lampoon racism – so comparing anti-Native racism to anti-Asian racism diminishes the severity and significance of the former.
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There seems to be a couple points
1. Colbert’s satire is meant to be somewhat offensive. That is his style.
But as some pointed out, there are some subjects that are taboo, including black racism. I remember seeing SNL’s skit last year after Linsanity. They had black newscasters using all sorts of Asian derogatory racial epithets and then feeling violently offended when other newscasters used black racial epithets. I think that they did bring did point out the double standard that is held between Asian and black derogatory racial treatment. That was an educational moment. That was NOT done in Colbert’s take.
2. Ching Chong is not really that offensive
Well, neither was the N-word, blackface, “c00n”, etc. until the 1950s (in the viewpoint of whites). Who decided what would be offensive? I really don’t think that the appropriate gauge should be whether we need to refer to it as the Ch-word or not. The N-word became taboo because black activists decided it should be taboo and only after white people accepted that it is rather taboo, that it became taboo for society. Still, many white people believe that it is not taboo, and they resent that anyone should control their right to use it.
Ching Chong (and its longer form, “Ching Chong Chinaman”) dates back to the minstrel shows of the late 19th century, a time of very extreme violent racism and ethnic cleansing that resulted in the disappearance of 200,000 Chinese in the US, about 60% of the population in just 2 decades. It was used in connection with that expulsion and genocide. The history is not as long as the N-word, but it was coined and used during one of the horrendous black periods of Asian-American history. It is not a harmless word. Its use in American culture is probably on the level of about the word “c00n” for African-Americans, which also harks back to the 19th century minstrel shows, so its social level of offensiveness is probably similar to c00n.
I don’t think that we are in a position to gauge how offensive Ching Chong is by surveying individuals. Obviously, the white media doesn’t even find it as offensive as “c00n”, much less the N-word. And you will find a wide range of variability on how offensive that term is among various sectors of society (and what circumstances it can and cannot be used). By the way, he did not just use “Ching Chong”, but combined it in combination with other offensive terms to be even more offensive than Dan Snyder. Obviously that was part of his satirical effect.
It probably makes more sense to select Ch1nk and j@p as C-word and J-word. I associate those words with nothing besides racial violence. Chinaman is *very* close to that, so, combined with Ching Chong, I think it is very close to the C-word.
Colbert makes his living on testing offensiveness to the edge. So, I personally had mixed feelings about it. I appreciated his satire, but Ching Chong is really about on the edge of what I can tolerate – It was very different to just laugh at it. It is a horrible thing to grow up with and I even heard it in my 20s working in a consulting firm from other colleagues and managers.
which leads to the next point
3. Asian-Americans are a “safe” target for racially offensive treatment, even in the name of satire.
It was not that appropriate for him to select Chinese-American and Asian-American racially charged language to illustrate his point. I agree that he should have chosen one of two
– Irish-American ethnic slurs – as he himself identifies as Irish-American
– Jewish-American ethnic slurs – as Snyder identifies as Jewish
The first one might not deliver the punch he wanted. The 2nd one is, well, taboo. So he chose Chinese-American and Asian-American slurs. It does not really offend white sensibilities but is still offensive enough to register something with white sensibilities. So, it satisfies Colbert’s satirical objectives.
But why is the offensiveness standard based solely on (“liberal”) white sensibilities? Does it make any other sensibility standard irrelevant?
To conclude,
Colbert’s style succeeds on his ability to be offensive in delivering satire within the level of white liberal sensibilities. There is still a line. He did not cross that line with the Dan Snyder satire, but he did cross the line of sensibilities with some people, mostly Asian-Americans, but probably some whites and blacks also. If someone brings that up, it should not be simply dismissed as being too sensitive. It should be addressed. In fact, the white media should have done exactly what we are doing here – discuss why there are double standards in deciding which groups can be the target of racial slurs and which cannot. Educate the US society on the origin, history and use of those terms (just as we demonstrate the origin of “redskin”) and why it can be very offensive to some people. And we need to examine as a society why Asian-Americans are regarded as safe targets for racist mistreatment, but blacks and Jews are taboo.
But the white media does not do that.
(I think it is part of the price for using the Model Minority Stereotype. It demonstrates that “honorary whites” still have no control of the racial stereotypes and discrimination used on them by “real” whites.)
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@Miller
Yes, agree that it was an interesting take.
I noticed his comment about Charlie Chan
I like how he calls whitewashing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian American racism as the “Charlie Chan” effect. (Not to mention that Charlie Chan was always a white actor in yellowface, further desensitizing white Americans to the notion of anti-Asian racism).
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Legion,
“It is NOT that I think white people are “good” and “logical”, it is that the best way to hold them to account, in a number of situations, is to put forward the best argument to make it harder (or impossible on really successful occasions) for them to avoid the truth. As I told you before, just using the r- word is not always effective. Anything that gets overused loses it’s meaning or it’s punch.”
“Sole, get real will you. To express that there is always a contingent of super sensitive and waiting to be offended poc is not some hideous thing to believe, it’s banal. It’s banal because that contingent does in fact exist, not just on race relations but with all sorts of things.”
This is where we disagree: I don’t think there is a dearth of best arguments being put forth in discussions on racism.
I don’t think most discussions consist of black people just throwing around the r-word. I think when black folks do just throw around r-word it’s because they are exhausted and frustrated after their best arguments only illicit more racism. I think your characterization of the discussion on racism as black people just throwing around the r-word as wrong, condescending and racist.
You mentioned the Q. Wallis post and thread. But what about this entire blog? Is it mostly a bunch of over sensitive POC rantings? No, it’s not. I also think it’s unfair to critique that post as over sensitive. You might disagree with it. I think I did also but it wasn’t over sensitive. Black people’s sensitivity to race issues is warranted considering the extreme violence and oppression we’ve faced. It wrong to characterize our responses as over anything.
If a battered wife flinches when her husband raises his hand to turn off a light or even to caress her she isn’t being over sensitive even though she was mistaken.
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@ Solesearch
This is where we disagree: I don’t think there is a dearth of best arguments being put forth in discussions on racism.
Oh? That is where we disagree is it? For whatever reason you are trying to create a disagreement where none exists. I did not say, on the Kaling thread, nor here, nor do I even secretly believe that: “there is a dearth of best arguments being put forth in discussions on racism.” I accepted, quite readily, your assessment of the various internet outlets that you have read and I have not that the explanation of the Colbert situation was well done. I would not have been so accepting if I thought that the overall state of discussions on racism was that only a, “dearth of best arguments [is] being put forth.”
I can believe that there are always a group of over sensitive individuals who reach for convenient and quick explanations and I can also believe that they are not the totality of all discussion and that plenty of developed and articulate anti-racism discussion exists too; I can believe those two things because they aren’t mutually exclusive.
• What about the rest of the blog?
Abagond has done some excellent posts. I’ve learned things here. I’ve had changes in perspective on things. I’ve read with interest. I’ve read with enjoyment. I’ve also read posts I didn’t like or just thought they were no good. He knows that because I speak up about such posts sometimes.
• Do I think the blog is a collection of oversensitive poc?
No, not overall. Again, there is, in my view, a subset of oversensitive people that come and go like the tide coming in and going out. During the Wallis thread, the tide came in.
• It’s wrong of me to label the Wallis thread as oversensitive?
Wrong as in I’ve committed a heresy? If you just think I should not be allowed to have said that people were oversensitive and made much ado about something trivial than we do have a real disagreement there but not on the “dearth of best argument” stuff.
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Abagond:
My understanding of blackface is limited, but I don’t recall learning that it had been used as a tool to expose and discredit prejudice, which Colbert’s joke attempted to do.
Legion:
I respectfully disagree that using the Irish would have had the same effect. See here: http://www.theonion.com/video/st-patricks-day-boston-first-punch,35535/
Did you recall any #CancelTheOnion campaigns over that piece? Of course not. It’s commonly permissible to deride the Irish.
Using the Irish could have provoked the opposite effect than the one Colbert desired, as people may have said, “What’s so bad about the term ‘Redskins’? We Irish are exposed to insulting stereotypes all the time and don’t raise a fuss.”
Jefe:
They can’t and they won’t, as it’s taboo to even discuss the taboos. This is one reason why american liberalism is derided by non-“progressives” as being akin to a dogmatic regime, and a hypocritical one that is selectively intolerant of intolerance.
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Jefe, that was excellent. Thanks.
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I’ve never watched his show, they say it is just satire but why is it at the expense of poc. If he wanted to point out how ridiculous dan Snyder was why not make a joke about white people, to get them to understand how ridiculous it is.
it does seem people do not care when it comes to native americans and Asian americans because they are a small population. I saw an episode of totally biased that hit the nail on the head where they went to a bar and asked fans if they thought the redskins name was offensive, they said no, and when the guy started naming offensive terms for blacks, and whites then people were saying yeah that wouldn’t be a good name for a team that is wrong. here’s the vid http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=totally+biased+redskins&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=CE07CF5AA9346BEDA2F7CE07CF5AA9346BEDA2F7
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Randy:
Abagond: When the NAACP campaigned against blackface in the 1950s, I am pretty sure they were “humourless” too. Maybe, just maybe, because they found nothing to laugh at.
Randy: My understanding of blackface is limited, but I don’t recall learning that it had been used as a tool to expose and discredit prejudice, which Colbert’s joke attempted to do.
Just a quick scan of the comments so far but I wonder if you are looking at this statement honestly Randy!!!!! I think what is being said is that whenever people satarise aspects of peoples race and culture if and when people are offended, the ‘white’ response is ‘its a joke, they need to take the chip off their shoulder’ I wouldnt be surprised if this was the kind of response that the NAACP got when they challenged this.
From what I have seen on this thread, you seem to think that the word ‘ching chong’ is not as offensive as say the N word. My concern looking at this is that once you ‘allow’ people to label you in a way that relates to your race/culture etc, this can be a slippery slope to offending people. Some people are not attuned enough or aware enough to carry this off and it can degenerate very quickly.
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I think that the golden age of using all of those insensitive racist language about blacks in popular media to discredit those that discriminate had its heyday from the late 60s to the mid 80s. You could actually hear the N-word (together with jungle bunny, monkey and ape epithets, blackface, c00n, darkie, etc.) used on television and public media then “as a tool to expose and discredit prejudice”.
I think of Richard Pryor’s satire as an example of that era. But the reason it was effective was because of black activism in the 50s and 60s
But by the 1990s, all that became taboo. You cannot even use those words in public media anymore (Because after all, the media is colorblind). Then you had to replace it with “inner city”, “people from a different culture”, etc. to refer to black people (but interestingly, not to Asian people so much).
Asian American racist language existed, but was not that prevalent in that time period, at least compared with black racist language. It probably did not even register with white sensibilities.
Now we are at the stage where racist Asian language registers with white sensibilities without actually offending them. Actually, it is treated as a joke most of the time as Asians cannot be offended by any of that because of the model minority status that they now enjoy. Currently, there is no movement against using racist Asian language in popular American culture now like there was against black racist language in the 1950s. Maybe it is because the perpetrators are not the racist Southern segregationalists, but the liberal white media themselves.
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@mstoogood4yall
20 million Asian Americans now and rising. In a few decades, there may be more Asians than blacks. They already outnumber blacks in many areas of the country.
I really don’t think the problem is small numbers per se. There is another dynamic at play. I think it is related to the model minority stereotype – meaning that due to their elevated minority status, they cannot get offended by this sort of thing.
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Legion,
“I can believe that there are always a group of over sensitive individuals who reach for convenient and quick explanations and I can also believe that they are not the totality of all discussion and that plenty of developed and articulate anti-racism discussion exists too; I can believe those two things because they aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Then what is all this talk of JUST using the r-word. The “just” explicitly makes it mutually exclusive. That is where we disagree. The group of people using just the r-word is one constantly changing in membership depending on how exhausted a particular member of the larger group calling out racism is. I think anyone of us have a right to be exhausted and just say “you’re a racist.” But being exhausted comes after you watched those well reasoned arguments get dismissed by racists, so it’s not fair to characterize it as just using the r-word. Those people just using the r-word are part of a much larger group. Maybe you should think of them as the bullpen or the bench.
Also, this is not a freedom of speech discussion. You have the right to say whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it right.
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@ Solesearch
… it isn’t the racism of a good old fashioned Cross Burning, it’s a smarmy, entitled kind of racism in a well done satire–it’s a tough one. Like I said, hard sell.
I was making the point that it’s easy to label some things as racist because some things are plainly racist. I expect that most whites won’t want to view the Colbert piece as racist and will use the satire as a convenient cover to hide behind and engage in and enjoy a little racist fun. I agree with Abagond that the piece is racist but feel that it is a tough sell to whites that it is racist and I went into why I think that. I wasn’t talking about others at that point, I was just making a point to Abagond about the not totally straightforward racism that is the Colbert piece.
The “just” explicitly makes it mutually exclusive.
No, it doesn’t. You’re taking the “just” that I used out of it’s context. As I said I wasn’t talking about others when I said “just” to Abagond. What I was getting at was that the piece was a clever satire and not just racist, because of this sticky situation, it is not a slam dunk to simply tell a random white person that the piece was racist and expect them to ‘get it’ in the way that they get that a Cross Burning is racist or a caricature of the Obamas fist bumping each other is racist.
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@ Solesearch
Also, this is not a freedom of speech discussion. You have the right to say whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it right.
I don’t know what you mean there. Are you alluding to what I said about MLK, or the Wallis thread, or something else?
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or a caricature of the Obamas fist bumping each other is racist.
Racist? Not sure on that one actually. It is remembered as bizarre and not going over too well.
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@ Sharina @ Eurasian Sensation
I added links in the See Also section to Ask a Korean and to Init_, whose analyses you linked to in the Suey Park thread. I found them both interesting. Thanks!
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@ Abagond
Interesting how? You’re being vague. It impressed you enough to add it to your See Also section.
(I’m asking about the Ask a Korean write up.)
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@ Legion
I used “interesting” because it was the adjective that applied to both.
Ask a Korean’s commentary on #CancelColbert:
http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/against-hashtag-warriors.html
My commentary on his commentary:
I liked Korean’s “magic word racism”. He did not say it, but clearly “ching chong” is not a magically racist word in the eyes of Whites. And even if it were, he thinks that is a naive way to view racism. I agree. Whites go by magic words because they lack any subtler grasp of what is racist.
But in other ways he seems to be naive or ignorant about racism:
1. He seems to think it is rare for Whites to look down on Blacks. *Needle scratch*
2. He makes racism about intent. That is the NYPD definition of racism, the White apologist definition, the Rupert Murdoch definition.
Intent is sometimes part of it and should certainly always be considered, but racism can take place without any consciously evil intent at all. Because society is built that way. Because the more racist you are, the more you are blind to it. If racism was just intent, we would all be living in McWhortertopia.
For example, Colbert’s repeated anti-Asian jokes could simply be structural: he might not have any Asian comedy writers or only whitewashed ones or junior ones too afraid to speak up and “make a big deal” about “trivial issues”. Or the issue was raised but the decision makers were White or whitewashed. That kind of stuff would lead to repeated anti-Asian humour without any “intent” on the part of Colbert or anyone.
Other points:
1. Korean thinks that Suey Park wanted to cancel Colbert. He is all about reading the tea leaves of Colbert’s intent but not hers. Instead he just assumes she is “dumb”. He uses that word repeatedly. He does not understand that she was gaming Twitter, that what she said she wanted was an apology. If she had hashtagged her intent, #ColbertPleaseApoloigize or #ColbertBeFunnier, we would not even be talking about it because it would have never gone viral.
2. He takes Angry Asian Man’s opposition to #CancelColbert to mean he found Colbert’s joke unproblematic. Not true as far as I know.
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@ Abagond
I did not find fault with your choice of adjective, you know that. I just asked in what way(s) you found the write up(s) interesting.
He makes racism about intent.
Yeah, I noticed that, seemed strange to me.
…but racism can take place without any consciously evil intent at all.
Yes, if it’s just structural to how parents raise kids or how institutions are run then you don’t have to “make” individuals into racists. They just practice it anyway and with no awareness. This seems so basic; it’s strange to make racism depend on just a factor of intent. It’s a very nice ‘out’ for clueless people and ‘basically good’ people.
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oh dear
should be a comma between “awareness” and “this”
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@ abagond:
1. Korean thinks that Suey Park wanted to cancel Colbert. He is all about reading the tea leaves of Colbert’s intent but not hers. Instead he just assumes she is “dumb”. He uses that word repeatedly. He does not understand that she was gaming Twitter, that what she said she wanted was an apology. If she had hashtagged her intent, #ColbertPleaseApoloigize or #ColbertBeFunnier, we would not even be talking about it because it would have never gone viral.
But this is also part of the problem. If someone makes an outlandish and completely unreasonable statement, ie. Cancel Colbert, to get attention, and then says “No, I only wanted an apology”, that is totally counterproductive. She’s attacking something a lot of people love, which gets a very negative reaction, then saying after the fact that she didn’t actually want anything that radical. Given that most people already view activists like Park as being too radical and unreasonable, her “gaming Twitter” in such a way does not do much other than give her kudos in the eyes of the radically-minded who would already agree with her, while alienating a lot of other people who might be potential allies.
I disagree with your belief that intent is so unimportant. I think it is, as well as context. Let’s take another “magic word”, the n-word. Undoubtedly that is offensive. Yet whether or not it is offensive is contextual – depending on who uses it and how they use it. A lot of black people would be quite content hearing it said 100 times during the course of a Notorious BIG album, yet get very angry hearing it yelled at them by a white person. Likewise with “ching-chong” – I’m going to get mad hearing it used to abuse someone, yet not when Colbert uses it in a joke making a broader point about racism. I am smart enough to distinguish between the two contexts, and I believe most Asian people are too.
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So are the people who do not agree with you 100% somehow not smart enough?
Angry Asian Man is also “not smart enough”?
Abagond is also “not smart enough”?
I am not “smart enough”?
Anyhow, I think use of the racially charged language was only a small part of the problem. It was that in combination. Reading your posts makes one think that you are not listening to the other voices, but trying to “silence” them as well (as obviously, they have no idea what they are talking about. :P)
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@ jefe:
Put it this way: Colbert made the joke with the assumption that his audience has a certain degree of knowledge – ie. that he is playing a character, that he is not actually mocking Asians but making a point about the ridiculousness of trying to help people by using insulting racial terms about those people. That he is playing a character with outdated racial attitudes in order to make fun of how stupid outdated racial attitudes are.
Anyone who watches the show regularly would come already armed with that knowledge and thus would take the racist terms in context. Otherwise, Colbert would have been cancelled years ago because he says offensive things in every single episode. As he says in his response to the twitter campaign – why wasn’t there an outpouring of rage when he said Hitler had some great ideas, or when he said Rosa Parks was overrated?
The whole premise of The Colbert Report relies on the audience grasping the distinction between what he says and what he is actually getting at. So if you are offended, as far as I’m concerned, you either just don’t get it, or you are too sensitive, or you are misdirecting your anger about racism at the wrong target.
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@ ES,
From the Suey Park thread, Jefe said today:
“Sure, I first heard it starting at 4-years old from the playground taunts. But it got much worse. First came the extended “Ching Chong Chinaman” verses. Then they used it to taunt prior to bullying. After several many years I associated “Ching Chong” as a precursor to violent attacks by groups of older boys – when I heard “Ching Chong” I would run and hide lest I get beat up and my face kicked in. (The term still can send shivers down my spine even today.) People still did Ching Ching when I was at university. After university, I was a substitute teacher in a secondary school (about 50/50 white /black) and the students treated me with Ching Chong all day long, e.g.,
Me: Class, please sit down and open your books to page xxx.
Them: Ching chong, ching chong, ching, ching chong, . . . . .
A lot of the boys would start prancing around the room, hurling karate kicks and yelling out “Ching Chong, Ah-so” They told me they watch me on TV every Saturday and that’s what I was doing. Sometimes the principal or vice-principal had to come in they were so loud and unruly. Once I substituted for one of my former teachers that I was friends with. When she got back she saw it on her students’ faces – she found out that they had “ching chonged” the teacher all day long and she made them write apology letters. I received at least 200 letters and over half of them said stuff like “we didn’t mean to disrespect you just because you are a Chinaman”, “We should know better that we shouldn’t be treating foreigners like that.” “We are sorry – we didn’t realize that you might be trying to learn English.” I am an American with ancestors dating back to the Revolutionary War era. Should those letters make me feel better? Even other teachers asked me what country I came from and where I learned English. It did improve after a few months, but that was my baptismal in the workplace.
Afterwards I worked in international management consulting firms in Washington, DC and New York. AGAIN, the ching chong stuff was rampant. You would think MBA graduates and managers with 20 years’ experience would know better but . . . . They knew that Ching Chong was not a polite thing to do, but they did it anyway. They wouldn’t dare use the n-word, but they could ching chong all they want with impunity. After experiencing “ching chong” and see managers promote colleagues ahead of me, I finally decided to bite the bullet and leave the USA.
My father got “ching chong” and even “g00k” at work from his colleagues, who would play pranks on him even after he got into his 50s.
I recognize that you find “ching chong” to be some immature childish prank only, but please consider that it might mean different things to different people.
But, as far as you’re concerned, Jefe either just don’t get it, or is too sensitive, or you misdirecting himself at the wrong target?
ES, somehow I have the impression that Jefe gets it, understands satire and the way things work in US media…
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*correction: quote marks after …. please consider that might it mean different things to different people.”
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I am curious on whether it really matters if he was in character or not. How many people were in character and did a not so good racial joke and have a not so good career as a result of it? The new trend then becomes it was acceptable because I was in character.
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On top of that this was tweeted and not on the actual show (from my understanding) so how was a reasonable person. To determine character?
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“I am curious on whether it really matters if he was in character or not.”
Yes I think it matters. Colbert’s show is based on parody and satire of white right wing media types. He’s making fun of them. There’s no evidence that Colbert actually believes the things he says. It’s no different, fundamentally from DeNiro or Gandolfini or Pesci playing racist gangsters.
One can make an argument that Colbert is so good that people unfamiliar with him don’t realize he’s in character or that some slurs shouldn’t be used no matter what but Colbert is no different than an actor or writer who creates a fictional persona.
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@Bulanik
I guess someone assumed that I don’t watch Colbert, and somehow do not have the knowledge or intelligence or I was too sensitive and easily offended. I am just too “dumb”.
I almost had to check twice that it wasn’t someone from the white liberal media replying. 😛
I wasn’t really *that* offended by the original Colbert line although I did wince a little at the “ching chong” part. But the after response to Suey Park by the white media and saying those things (that were just echoed above) – that really is annoying.
I am sure that
– Suey Park is intelligent
– she watches Colbert
– She understands and is armed with the knowledge that is required to understand his humour
– she has no problem understanding satire, including Colbert’s satire
– she knows the entire context behind the Colbert remark, and the whole thing about the Washington Redskins, their mascot, the uproar and about Snyder’s reaction and proposal
– She understands that Colbert was trying criticize Snyder
She got it. I am sure of it.
So I find it surprising that people apply the tactic that she does not understand the satire – I find that argument to be completely ludicrous. Anyone who asked her that question completely lost credibility with me. Of course she fully understands that point.
I didn’t agree with all her tactics or what she said, but please, she is not stupid or dumb. And those people who tried to silence her by calling her dumb or stupid DID NOT even listen. And she has the right to pursue any objective she wants. There is nothing wrong or ridiculous with her asking them to answer her questions why Asians are the default group to ridicule with racial slurs and that they acknowledge that some people might find Ching Chong to be too abusive to be used in the context that it was, EVEN in the context of satire.
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@ Jefe
Well, I was sipping my cup of Barry’s Gold Blend Irish tea and blinking at the screen of my laptop for quite a few moments in utter disbelief when I read that reply, let me tell you…
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Shady_Grady
Thanks for the response. I personally am one who is not familiar with his work and as such did not know him to be in character or out of it. Plus I was not really aware of the Dan Snyder situation to format any context of the joke ( I am not big on American media).
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@ Jefe and Bulanik:
have I called Suey Park dumb or stupid? I don’t think she is. I think her opinion on this particular issue certainly is.
If you think she gets satire and understands the context (which she may well do), then this is perhaps more pertinent.
Suey (and a large percentage of people in the far-left anti-racist camp) start with the basic assumption that virtually anything that comes from white people is probably racist. So any joke a white person tells that involves POC is assumed to be racist. So Josh Zepps’ rudeness to her during the interview is immediately assumed to be because of racism, as opposed to other factors. (For what it’s worth, if I interviewed Suey Park I would probably struggle to hide my disdain as well – is that my whiteness too or is it just my opinion?)
And when Suey saw the tweet from the Colbert account, her first response was “F*ck you Colbert” and her second was to start #CancelColbert because of his alleged racism. Other people saw the same tweet and thought “That’s just Colbert playing the Colbert character again.” Did he get the benefit of the doubt? No, despite having attacked racists and racism for years on his show through the comic medium.
Take, for example the massive uproar from the race activists when Dave Chappelle made ching-chong sounds not in one, but in two separate sketches on his show:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/82024174/
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hMIBhnNBzk)
Oh, wait, there was no uproar, not a peep. In a weird inversion of the bias the mainstream gives towards white people, the far Left gives POC comedians a pass that they don’t give white comedians like Colbert. (For the record, both clips I posted are from extremely funny sketches which I don’t find offensive at all – it’s all about context.)
You may think I’m trying to defend white people; in fact I’m just defending the right for anyone not to be automatically labelled racist by people who make a career out of opposing racism. Suey Park and a lot of anti-racists have a narrative that they have to uphold, that of the hegemony of white racism. So a lot of things are made to fit that narrative. (And I’m not saying there is no hegemony of white racism, just that not everything neatly fits into the narrative the way that a lot of people want it to.) The Left media is full of people trying to shoehorn things to fit that narrative – take for examples the alleged racism of Lorde’s song “Royals” or the alleged racism of Lily Allen’s music video that mocks Miley Cyrus.
So when a white person does something possibly controversial and a Suey Park or an Abagond announces that it is obviously racism – well, of course they would, because that’s what they do.
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@ George
If you notice, the White liberal press gave Colbert a pass too.
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@ES,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I winced a bit when I heard the original Ching Chong joke but I wasn’t *THAT* overly offended or up in arms. I would not have sent out Suey Park’s hash tag. That tactic was probably not the best idea. IF I would label anything as not too bright, I might do that. I would not label Suey Park as dumb herself or not intelligent enough to understand the satire. It is not a matter of whether someone is intelligent enough to understand the satire.
I also feel that the technique of labeling someone a white male, and therefore, incapable of understanding, was not a wise way to retort either. It makes both sides look like they do not respect each other. She is still immature in that respect.
On the other hand, I think she did raise a couple of legitimate concerns and they were simply dismissed and she was called dumb and stupid for not understanding. Yeah, her tactics were not the best, but some of her concerns could still have been addressed. It is at this point that I start to have a few problems.
Anyhow, it will come up again soon enough and maybe there will be a national conversation on it, esp. the issue of Asian-Americans as being the “go-to” target for racist parody. I just hope that it does not cause Americans to feel that they have to be even more colour-blind. That won’t solve anything.
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What was racist about the song “royals”?
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@ George
There is no double standard. White liberals give both Colbert and Chapelle a pass. Suey Park, who disagrees with them about Colbert, they dismiss as stupid.
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I had a brief (because it was going nowhere) argument once with a white guy who insisted Chapelle was funny, he wanted to encourage me to watch Chapelle. I just said flat out that Chapelle is not funny and I’m not interested in brainless “humour” of a black comic who uses the n-word. This guy just stiffened up in his body language and said, no he is funny. It was sort of a my dad/your dad thing, it just wasn’t going to go anywhere. Just because there’s a laugh track and a studio audience, doesn’t mean the production is funny. I also can’t stand Chapelle’s voice and his Mary Jane folksy demeanor.
I have no idea why Chapelle thinks his skit here is so thoughtful and useful. How is it beneath him to do drag for a Hollywood films but it’s okay to do vapid ni&&er jokes? Apparently ALOT of people think Chapelle is super talented and super funny. He probably is talented (I never followed his career). His show was totally his own brainchild from what I understand. But funny?
My tolerence for comics using the n-word started and stopped with Richard Pryor. A conflicted and funny and talented man who regretted using the n-word, or claimed to regret using it. In any case he never used it in the bizarre pointless fashion that Chapelle does here.
Is this a satire? Does it just suck? Chapelle thinks the skit is a worthy exploration, I think he’s smoked too much Mary Jane.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f67ca41f6b/chappelle-show-the-niggar-family
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^ I laughed precisely zero times as I watched this, it’s just stupid.
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@ ES
A word about assumptions:
I don’t know about the “percentages” of the people you talk about.
Nor would I claim to KNOW all that much about THEIR assumptions.
When I saw the interview with Suey Park and Josh Zepp, he spoke over her.
I have seen this kind of “talk over the stupid woman” thing many times, across ethnicities, over many years. I have seen men being spoken over by other men. Over the decades, I’ve seen quite a few things. Haven’t you?
I’m not from US, don’t live there, have no access to US tv, never heard of Colbert or Park or Zepp before — only what I saw about the subject here.
I looked up Suey Park, saw the interview with Zepp, by accident.
I saw what I saw.
You say you would “struggle” to be other than disdainful if you interviewed her?
Fair enough, ES; I appreciate your frankness.
In my book, everyone deserves a slice of courtesy, ES, even a little slice.
Even folk who some peole might consider intellectually inferior(?), or merely the young and out of their depth.
To be honest, if I interviewed Suey Park, I would be careful NOT to automatically make too many disdainful assumptions about her.
After all, she’s a stranger and a guest on my show.
I wouldn’t feel I could simply talk over her because, privately, I actually think she’s stupid.
I’ve seen snippets of Bill O’Reilly and female Fox news people act like their guests are stupid and pieces of dirt, so perhaps its the done thing.
But to me, it’s not cool, so I would not copy them, despite the fashion…
People make assumptions all the time. Remember this one from you to me, from just yesterday, you asked:
“How would you feel if you were debating an issue with someone, and they told you that you were incapable of understanding it because you are black?”
I am not sure why you assumed that.. 😀
And, even though I touched on my Asian-ness, I made an assumption that you might have replied to me about that — but, alas, No.
Don’t get me wrong: you didn’t have to say anything on that, you didn’t know my mixed-ethnicity, you clearly missed that completely, assuming something — but it’s just a small point to show how your assumptions are looking from my perspective…
I’ve heard of Dave Chappelle, I’ve heard of his of Southeast Asian wife and am a little familiar with inter-racial name-calling between various Asian ethnicities and mixed race blacks. It’s a little different — no, a lot different — when white people call non-white peoples by those same names…so, I am not sure what those clips you posted prove: that black people racialize others and joke about it? Story of my life!
Seen Russell Peters? an Asian who jokes about other Asians, Afro-Jamaicans, etc., but he doesn’t call anyone names as such, yet is extremely funny when he talks about the differences we have from each other.
Black people also “racialize” blackness for laughs: I recall Richard Pryor used to use the “n” word ALL the time, and then heard him saying he stopped using the word after he went to some African countries. I’ve also, of course, heard black people who use the “n” word for, and among, each other…Do you think they are labelled racist by black activists for doing so? Does it really work so simply just like that, ES, seriously?
Aamer Rahman:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M)
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@ES
You also said:
Do you think people who oppose something they consider racist are only making career moves? Do you think Suey Park, or Abagond, are as powerful in the media as the mainstream or even the liberal mainstream?
Do they have the same resources and backing?
You talk about “context” ES, but I wonder whose rights you are defending.
I tend to agree with Brothawolf on the Racist Uncles thread.
Brothawolf said:
“Colbert represents, in my opinion, the kind of liberal racism that uses race and racism as entertainment. Today, it’s used as punchlines in their “satire” routines. A perfect example of this is Seth Macfarlane’s animated programming. They don’t use it to show how harmful racism is. They use it to show how hilarious it is to their audiences that there are nonwhite people out there that are “different”…”
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@Legion
Well, there are black people named “White” and white people named “Black”. I guess there could be the Ch1nk family.
I will NOT tell you my Aunt’s husband’s surname. They get all sort of flack for their name (I think Abagond knows what I am talking about).
But yep, not funny. Supposed to be satire, but NOT.
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yeah, Richard pryor was able to use it more effectively in satire.
Nowadays, this stuff is just designed to make white people laugh, just like the minstrel shows over 100 years ago.
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I’d be able to take Suey Park more seriously if she had at the very least, watched the entire clip of Colbert’s quote in context. She got egg on her face, and then tried to act like it wasn’t there. Colbert is likely one of the least racist newsmen on american television, and I say this as a longtime viewer of his show.
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Nowadays, this stuff is just designed to make white people laugh…
I never thought of it so plainly before but I think that’s got to be it.
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@ Legion
I only laughed once during that Chappelle sketch, the part about the table at the restaurant. A Black person using the N-word to make White people laugh is minstrelsy. Oops, was that “humourless”? Do I need to “lighten up” and “understand satire”? Was I being “oversensitive”? Should I shut up because there are more important issues?
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^ GR,
I don’t see how Abagond was trying to accomplish the same thing with talking about National Geographic Lens. He was trying to explain how Nat Geo presents things – either as exotic or tribal through a lens. It was for informational and discussion purposes.
That is not what Chappelle was doing. He was trying to make people laugh at jokes by creating a satire on racial epithets – racial epithets towards black people (n-word) and other POC (e.g, the “w3tb@ck family). That is very minstrelish – something that hails from 100-150 years ago. Was Abagond’s Nat Geo take minstrelish?
To take a turn the lens and make it something about whiteface. I think it would have to be like what Eddie Murphy did in the late 1980s and make a parody of experiencing life in “whiteface” (with exaggerated white privilege). At the time, that seemed funny. But, if a white viewer found it very derogatory because it harked to historical racial epithets and discriminatory practices, I certainly would take the opinion seriously and open for discussion. I would not dismiss that white person’s concerns by stating that they did not understand satire.
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Park is confused by a number of things, as are some of the commenters:
Being paler is in many parts of Asia a “thing” irrespective of whites. The same is true in India, though there a case can perhaps be made that it is the result of British rule. However it precedes British rule, and relates more to the two different major subsets of India and the caste system. This is not a case of living up to American standards of beauty, at which Asian women do very well anyone with high cheekbones, slender builds, exotic eyes, etc.
Colbert was in his satire imitating someone else without getting to deep into racial politics. Maybe that was a mistake. It certainly wasn’t worth all the angst to anyone who watches his show.
There are Latino and Black comedians who make fun of whites all the time. They are funny in that they see us doing ordinary things I never think about until they mention it.
Finally the term POC implies a relationship which doesn’t exist. The blacks I knew in college considered Asians to be far more racist than the whites at the college. One merely need to read through the ads on backpage.com for escorts and note the number of Asian ads which state “no black men” to see what I mean.
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@ Abagond, Jefe
Blackface performers are, “…the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens.” — Frederick Douglass
I don’t know much about the minstrel shows of the past. If I had had a fuller grasp of the history I would have been able to tell that white fool that Chappelle and others like him are just a repackaged form of blackface, making a modern day comeback; “Neo-blackface”?
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@Kiwi
To white men yes, with the fold difference. Not better or worse, just different.
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@Kiwi,
I guess Joshua didn’t consider the effect of using words on this list:
Sometimes I wonder if white men married to Asian women say that to their own children.
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You’re right, I didn’t. and won’t. Growing up in a state that was 99% white at the time they were definitely exotic. Demographics in the US make that less true all the time though.
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@Legion,
I also think that that video skit from Chappelle was a repackaged form of blackface. The only thing is, they cannot get away with white people playing blackface nowadays, even on a black comedian’s show. Actual blackface actually offends modern day white people’s sensibilities (but, interestingly, yellowface does not).
But, replace blackface with something else that symbolizes blackface, i.e., a family name that sounds like a racist slur – and white people can laugh at white people in blackface again. Frederick Douglas’s quote still applies even 130 years later.
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@GR,
Of course I am not surprised. I have heard it all my life.
It is super creepy.
Most whites might consider learning, then, that it is NOT a complimentary description to most recipients of that term.
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Escort advertisements are proof of what? First time I heard someone use escorts as proof of Asians not liking blacks. Wow.
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GR, I wouldn’t call it an insult exactly, just super creepsville. It’s like the creepy neighbor that you hope you don’t run into in the elevator or the supermarket check-out line.
But, you can see that if someone like Suey Park tries to tell these things to Joshua, he will think that she is either “weird” or “too sensitive”. He already had negative comments about her above, in particular, saying that she is confused.
There were a number of other things that were a bit creepsville or patronizing in his comment above. Undoubtedly, anyone telling that to him would probably also be viewed as “confused”.
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Perhaps I missed the post but joshua….who on this thread mentioned anything about Park or Asian standard of beauty? I had to check to see exactly what all was said in regards to it and only see you mentioning it.
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Who reads escort ads?
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@ abagond
ROFL. I would answer that but it may go into moderation.
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@Joshua
While most people like to point to Asian need for pale skin and it’s history, as a means to say Asian are not obsessed with western iced standards, it is really only a small portion of the story. Yes pale skin in Asia has to do more with class than racism. Simple.
Though Asian women still seek to conform to western used standard in other means. This link explains it.
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/22/assimilated-beauty/
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@ Sharina
(not patronizing you because I know you know this, just want to take the opportunity to mention the following point):
When looking for evidence of something that most would like to deny or keep hidden or ignore, we sometimes have to use unorthodox evidence or unscientific anecdotes, etc to see, at the very least, there is smoke somewhere and a likely fire if we look a little closer.
Joshua’s example about East Asian escorts is just a way of observing a preference set: these Asians are dead set against black clients. If they were just women on a dating website or women meeting men in the course of daily life, they could simply employ the normal ways of rebuffing a man, without revealing a racist preference set. BUT! because these women are selling sex in the marketplace, as a commodity available to anyone with the money to pay, they are forced to reveal their anti black client stance. Prostitutes are members of society just as others are, and data from that world (sex industry) deserves to be studied and learned from just like other areas of interest.
I see Joshua’s example about the Asian escorts “inside out” from how he presented it (i’m not saying his presentation was wrong, i see it differently because we each have different mental filters. You know I take mental filters seriously from the woman thread.) The “inside out” view of mine: I take it for granted that many East Asians are racist against blacks, and so, Asian escorts with a no black client parameter does not surprise me, it’s just a logical subset of East Asians from the larger set of East Asians.
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@ Jefe
Thinking about my lack of knowledge on minstrel shows, I did a brief bit of searching. Have only read a little so far but the following site looks like a good bit of context and history:
http://black-face.com/minstrel-shows.htm
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^ If you watch some of the utube footage of blackface while thinking of the escapist defense: “you just don’t understand satire,” it is like the awful sound of a circular saw ferociously slicing it’s way through wood.
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@abagond
You’ve never read them for giggles? I hadn’t even heard of backpage.com until a friend pointed it out, but the ads are illuminating.
@Sharina
Proof? No. Evidence, yes, most definitely. It isn’t an aberration. AT least half of the escort ads by Asians say “no black men” in the SoCal area. You can ignore it, conduct your own survey, whatever. On the “standards of beauty” you are correct, I seem to have conflated this article with another here. The point on pale skin is that it can’t be blamed on whites, however much you’d like to point out the rest of the portion you see.
@jefe
I would never refer directly to someone as “exotic” when talking to them. However, when discussing the attraction of one person in the general sense to another, exotic most definitely plays a role. Always has. Many white men find many Asian women exotic. If you have a better word cough it up, don’t simply complain.
Also I wonder how much the tonal nature of SE Asian languages plays into the men being seen as emasculated. Japanese men for example aren’t seen that way, because their language isn’t tonal. The tonal aspect comes across to many ears, mine included, as somewhat feminine.
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@ Jefe
Actual blackface actually offends modern day white people’s sensibilities (but, interestingly, yellowface does not).
Yeah, from my perspective, whites are often about following what is fashionable. It’s not fashionable to do blackface (in an obvious way where people will instantly recognize it) so they don’t do it, and they also put on a posture of being abhorred by blackface. If they followed principle, rather than fashion, they would be abhorred by yellowface too.
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Legion
Not that I disagree that there are east Asians that don’t like blacks but who really takes escorts seriously? On top of that are escorts really to be taken as a view of East Asia n’s in general?
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Also legion he stated:
“The blacks I knew in college considered Asians to be far more racist than the whites at the college. One merely need to read through the ads on backpage.com for escorts and note the number of Asian ads which state “no black men” to see what I mean.”——so I am curious on how Asian escorts with a no black policy is “evidence” That blacks considered Asians more racist.
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@Joshua
OK so evidence, but you still did not answer my question. So allow me to rephrase ….Escort advertisements are (evidence) of what? Blacks think Asians are more racist?
I did not blame pale skin on whites as I am aware of its history in Asian. What I did say to you is when people argue on the standard of beauty they often focus on pale skin and ignore other standards that actually are about looking more white. When we talking of westernized beauty standards it is never just pale skin no matter how much you or anyone else prefers to just focus on that.
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And legion I hope my post to you did not come off rude as it most certainly was not meant to.
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Correction whites as I am aware of its history in Asia.
When we are talking of westernized beauty
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@Sharina
It’s evidence that the assertion of the students I knew in college is correct. I rarely see that tag on the ads of any other races, white, Latino, or black. Not sure why you’re hung on “escorts”. They are no more or less valid as a sample than any other except for profession.
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On top of that are escorts really to be taken as a view of East Asia n’s in general?
No. Basing generalizations from this sliver of East Asians would be beyond absurd. They are a sliver, they are a small data set but the forced revealing of the preference set is not without some measure of meaning.
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Joshua said:
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And legion I hope my post to you did not come off rude as it most certainly was not meant to.
Not at all. 🙂
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Sorry. I often make a mess of my blockquotes, italics, spelling, wording..
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Joshua
I’m not sure what gives the the idea that I am hung up on the particular profession(escort) so much as I am trying to get an answer out of you for a seemingly simple and harmless question. But I will let you know when I am hung up on something so you won’t have to waste words assuming.
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@ Joshua
Can you explain what you mean by the above, please. You’ve lost me a bit…
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Legion
I see what you are saying and I don’t disagree. Though can it also be reasonable to say that perhaps they don’t service black because they believe that a black man penis is bigger and would not like him to ruin the …..let’s just say feel and desirability of other men. Would that be considered racist? Or a means to better market themselves? I mean it holds on to a stereotype so my curiosity is peeked here.
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@Sharina
I answered the question. It’s not proof of anything. It is evidence that in fact SE Asians have a thing about blacks. I’m sure with very little effort I could come up with much more, say in relation to intermarriage.
Also: “are escorts really to be taken as a view of East Asia n’s in general?”
Looks like you are more concerned about the profession than the data to me.
@Bulanik
Funny the Indians I work with say it is to a large degree. A very dark India from the far SW is very conscious as well that lighter skin in India is an advantage in their society. One also sees this in their film industry.
Also: “2. Joshua makes a distinction between “Asia” and India — which, considering his “off” remarks about East Asian women, makes me a tad suspicious (light “Asians”, dark “Indians”) about why he specifically did that,”
Tad suspicious of what? I referred to the two largest groups of inhabitants in that part of the world, well, really in the whole world – SE Asians and Indians. In both groups lighter skin is seen as desirable. That’s all I said.
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@Bulanik
I was accidentally referring back to the following comment by Jacque in the “Uncle” article…
“It (racism) becomes a part of the psyche (wanted or not). All those
who benefit from white privilege know this be they are racist or not.
They are afraid of guilt by association…And to be honest many
know that they are guilty.. the employers, teachers, professors, legislators,
commentators, coaches, businessmen,pastors you name it. Racism has been globalized to the point that people of color need to take precautions when vacationing.”
Again, POC (whatever that means) have always been racist as well. It has little to do with whites globalizing it, if that is what Jacque meant.
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Joshua
Um mm duh. You answered it so why are you still talking about it now? Is there something you feel you need to prove by continuing? If so please carry on, but if not I just see you as a repeating record with no cause.
“Looks like you are more concerned about the profession than the data to me.” —-I glad you have clarified that only YOU see it that way because to me it is a mere question. You are making it more. So perhaps you would like to take your assumptions away from the table or perhaps you would like to pick apart the many other questions I asked?
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@ Joshua,
A very dark Indian you know believes a lighter skinned man is at an advantage in his country — I don’t doubt this, but what does it have to do with my question?
My question, was NOT whether colourism in India or among Indians, existed.
The British enforced discrimination based on skintone.
*
Further: You had been speaking about “Asians”, their supposedly exotic eyes, etc. You did not say East Asians this and Southeast Asians, that. You said “Asians”, because when you did talk about Indians or South Asian it was about skin colour. “Asians” to you, are female, slender and exotic.
Indians, though, have skin colour, it seems. You only seemed to remember Indians are from Asia when I reminded you! lol.
*
PoC — whatever that means? You know very well what it means.
What would you prefer? Non-whites, or would Minority be better?
http://www.spanishforsocialchange.com/2007/12/people-of-color.html
I am also guessing the main point of your posts is to:
1. prove that PoC are racist, or more racist, everyone is racist, etc., and,
2. that light skin/dark skin desicrimination has notihing to do with white people and never did.
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@Sharina
You implied here that I hadn’t answered your question: ” I am trying to get an answer out of you for a seemingly simple and harmless question.”
Notice the verb tenses. If your writing is unclear it isn’t my fault.
On the penis size explanation you brought up, the answer is no, I doubt it. Nobody believes that particular myth, certainly not prostitutes who see all shapes and sizes. A possible explanation is that they see black men as sexually abusive due to TV and film, but I have no data for that either.
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Bulanik
I have read that while paler skin is preferred it does not mean darker individuals can not progress in society. Is this true? I would like some clarification as I too have often read people associate the pale skin as a means to racism.
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@Bulanik
Yes, everyone knows that India is technically part of Asia, but they’re rarely referred to as “Asians” by anyone including themselves. As far as the characteristics, since I am not an Asiaophile (sp?), though I have had Asian girlfriends decades ago, I was referring to those people who see them as especially desirable. Both “Asians” and “Indians” have light and dark skinned peoples, but in both, isolated from each other by a natural barrier,
light skin is higher status. Until recently there haven’t been enough Indian women in the US for a similar “exotic” tag to be applied to them by other races.
My problem with “POC” is that it implies a commonality, a joint cause, where in fact none exists. It sounds good from a numbers perspective, but there really is no reason to imply that it means anything other than “whites against everyone” when used politically, and “those with more melanin than (northern) Europeans” when not.
You are correct on the last two points. Everyone is racist. That is a human “us vs them” failing. The higher status of light skin among these two largest geographic groups on earth is self created. I don’t know why this is as there isn’t any objective greater beauty or whatever in those with lighter skin.
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Joshua
Had you read or even quoted that in full context it would be clear exactly what I said and meant.
“I’m not sure what gives the the idea that I am hung up on the particular profession(escort) so much as I am trying to get an answer out of you for a seemingly simple and harmless question.”
Plainly explaining my goal to get an answer to a question and not that I was hung up on escorts. Sorry but that lack of understanding is all you babe.
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@ Sharina,
People of darker skin can and do progress in India and other parts of South Asia.
But Joshua is quite wrong: European imperialism did have not only a damaging but also a lasting affect on the people they conquered.
Through the British in India it meant that light skin was often rewarded with higher status, more opportunities, considered more beautiful, etc.
That is the legacy.
Moreover, skin lightening is big business — I mean REALLY big business: it exploits peoples’ insecurity, especially women’s, because the preference is for employees and marriage partners who are fairer rather than dusky.
Most Indians, though, from what I’ve gathered, are NOT fair-skinned.
Indians are only now researching and countering this social evil.
(if you have the time, this discussion touches on it:
http://jyotigupta.org/blog_mod/understanding-colorism/)
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!
But people DO believe in stereotypes
And lies. Even when they say they don’t. You think Asians — I mean East Asians — are exotic…did you think that up in a cultural vacuum or something?
Haven’t you heard of the black brute?
Haven’t you heard of the black rape statistics?
Mandingo? Big Black C0ck stereotypes so beloved in pornography.
It’s a trope, I suppose. You must be very sheltered!!
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Joshua
What penis size explanation? I was not using that to explain anything but rather for a purpose of inquiry. An inquiry with legion.
Nobody believes that particular myth, certainly not prostitutes who see all shapes and sizes.”—‘As to nobody I would not be so sure to peddle this as I can find quite a few that actually do.
http://isp.netscape.com/love/package.jsp?name=fte/10sexmyths/10sexmyths
So if they believe one myth by TV standards then who is to say they don’t believe any other myth? Even escorts hold certain ideas about people, even if it turns out not to be true. And I am not asking for data.
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@Sharina
Nope, your verb tenses were all present tense, as if I hadn’t yet answered the question. Your writing is unclear if you fail to use proper verb tenses.
“I’m not sure what gives the the idea that I am hung up on the particular profession(escort) so much as I am trying to get an answer out of you for a seemingly simple and harmless question.”
You are still trying. I haven’t answered the question.
Change it to:
“I’m not sure what gives the the idea that I am hung up on the particular profession(escort) so much as I WAS trying to get an answer out of you for a seemingly simple and harmless question.”
You are no longer trying. The question was answered in the past.
@Bulanik
The fair skinned ideal existed before the British, though they may have reinforced it there. I suggested this many posts ago.
As far as “exotic” is concerned, that translates to “unusual”, which was true in the US for a long time. Not so much in many places anymore. It has nothing to do with a stereotype.
I have heard of the things you mention. I still doubt that penis size is the reason they don’t want black men. Those are particularly American stereotypes.
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@Sharina,
This dude Joshua is funny. The problem he’s trying to avoid is not one of supposed “evidence” weak tea as it is. It’s that his evidence is wholly unrelated to the circumstances of his assertion. So, he claimed that some blacks he knew in college thought SE Asians were more racist than Whites and the evidence he offers for that is SE Asain escort ads at backpage.com that exclude potential Black male customers? Um….what?! Not only is that rather odd “evidence”, it’s apparently not related to any actual experiences of the black students he’s supposedly speaking for above.
As an aside, it was also hilarious how quickly dismissed the “big stick” explanation for the no black customers but helpfully offered a “sexually abusive” alternative. How nice.
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Bulanik
Thanks for the link.
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Also, it’s even more amsuing that dude is whitesplaining to us about the term PoC.
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@ks
Not weak at all. You may not like it. But I fail to see why it distresses you.
As far as the “black students I am speaking for”, I only know what they told me. YMMV. Not my problem really.
I also explained why I dismissed the “big stick”.
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@ks
Will you next start playing the victim? I actually made an argument, all you seem to be doing is telling everyone you’re amused. How nice for you.
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Joshua
You can argue over verb tense and change it any way you like, but the fact still remains it pretty clear and the I am/I was is a cover for your own misunderstanding. Especially seeing as I made similar error in other posts above and you got what I meant pretty quick.
Secondly if you knew yourself you already answered it then who fault then is it your choice to repeat? Again that is all on you babe.
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@Sharina
Good luck with your rudimentary English skills, dear. Your inability to clearly write is NOT my problem. I replied to you a second time BECAUSE of your poor writing and that is all on you, babe.
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Comment in moderation to Joshua. Anyway:
@ Joshua
Yes, you did, and you were wrong then as you are now.
The British MAY have reinforced it? Don’t tell me bleeding rubbish. They gave the jobs and education to the light-skinned.
It was in British interest to exaggerate and force colourism down the Indians’ throats.
Heard of Krishna? That is the full incarnatin of the Supreme God.
Krishna who is beautiful AND dark skinned.
Heard of Drapadi? She is also called “dark skin one”.
This light-skinned-is nice-business is a modern construct.
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As a bonus tada I changed the statement to include was….
I’m not sure what gives the the idea that I am hung up on the particular profession(escort) so much as I was trying to get an answer out of you for a seemingly simple and harmless question.
So it changes what? It invalidates what I said how? You still made an assumption on what you believe I was hung up on and was wrong. Would you now like to debate over the position of comas and other punctuation?
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Joshua
“I replied to you a second time BECAUSE of your poor writing and that is all on you, babe.”—You replied based on a choice you made knowing full well you had already given an answer. Sorry but while my writing is on me.your choice to repeat is own you. So good luck peddling the victim of someone else writing bs babe. 🙂
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@Bulanik
You go ahead and tell yourself that, but it simply isn’t true that it didn’t exist prior to the British.
As far as Krishna is concerned, I see representations in many colors, including blue. I see the same for Draupadi, and ONE of her names is as you describe. Shiva is pale. Brahma is pale, Vishnu is blue or green.
It is hardly a modern concept.
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But, Joshua you also say that the British MAY have reinforeced colourism and racism in India (Asia)…perhaps I am telling myself that too?
When the British were in India they classified the population according to racial typologies, aka, Scientific Racism
Some were sub-race of Caucasoid. Then they concocted a race called “Homo Dravida” who had more in common with Australoids, and a kind of Negroid. Later, these same people were considered Mongoloids.
After that, the Indians were subjected to “The Martial Races” theory, because the wanted to divide the sheep from the goats, or the warriors from the civilians.
What did India’s leaders say about the British style of rule:
“we in India have known racialism in all its forms ever since the commencement of British rule. The idea of a master race is inherent in imperialism … India as a nation and Indians as individuals were subjected to insult, humiliation and contemptuous treatment. The English were an imperial race, we were told, with the God-given right to govern us and keep us in subjection; if we protested we were reminded of the ‘tiger qualities of an imperial race’.
(Taken from “The Discovery of India”)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_India
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Ks
It is like trading one stereotype for the worse one aka black brute.
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As far as Krishna is concerned, I see representations in many colors, including blue.
Heh. Lord Krishna is the black cosmos. Is it an ancient concept.
So, what does Krishna mean in Sanskrit? Answer: “black” or “dark”.
And, Shiva turned blue through imbibing poisons from the ocean
.
In the paintings you see of these gods, the deep blue stands in for black. How else would Krishna cosmic-black features show up?
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I mean: “It is an ancient concept. “
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@ Abagond
I forgot to indent the following quotes from this comment in moderation: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/cancelcolbert/#comment-234587
Please replace it with this one below, which has the correction instructions.
Sorry, I am not very good at typing things properly.
Thank you
@ Joshua
No, everyone doesn’t know that.
Australians, for instance, will tell you Asia begins in China. This is a typical and taken for granted, and certainly not a sign of ignorance.
And if you are in the UK, “Asians” are Bengalis, Indians, Pakistanis, etc. — and sometimes this will also include East Asians, called “East Asians”, or by their nationality.
And no, again, the Asians I know refer to other Asians by their general region or their specific nationality. It’s not a big deal: they are all Asians.
Isolated by a natural barrier? What do you mean?
Among the South Asian families I know, many of them, some are born light skinned, and some are born darker skinned. They have the same mother and father. It is NORMAL.
I am not sure if you appreciate the usefulness of the term PoC, or why it used, and nor do you want to (it seems), because although info is out there about it, you’ve simply ignore it.
PoC is not a completely satisfactory term — by any measure — but it does have some uses at least some of the time.
I sense that “the numbers” aspect of it doesn’t sit well with you, because enhancing the divisions and stress between different ethnicities is preferable. For those want the racist and racial status quo as it is, it is vital that the coalitions between different racialized remain FRACTURED, that they remain IGNORANT about each other, and that any RECOGNITION of commonalities is trashed and/or trivialised.
After alll, why draw any attention to the fundamental role of racialization in the US, for example. These different peoples have nothing to learn or gain from each other, right?
*************************************************************************************
And yes, your point for being on this blog is to prove to all that:
– PoC are racist, or more racist, and that,
– Colourism has nothing to do with white people, because discrimination based on skin colour, is purely and exclusively the invention of people of colour.
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Wikipedia also says: ” The Rigveda (one of the Vedas) referred to two classes of people, the white-skinned Aryans and the black-skinned Dasas. The Aryans were religious and followed the Vedas, performing all the rituals while the Dasas (at a later stage merged into the Shudra class) were to serve them.[17]”
The referenced work is not an active link, so I can’t follow up with that. The implication is clear here though.
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Jefe
I was actually not aware of the history of the term “Ching chong” so it is nice to see some background on it. I know it has been touched on in other threads but I want to also mention it here. I feel that people don’t take Asians or their causes seriously and Asians (rather some) feel Content in keeping their heads down and not make trouble. But in allowing people to dismiss their claims what does that accomplish? Even in serious disputes on race, people seem to dismiss Asian claims.
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Link can be found here and does not contain any openning issues.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_based_on_skin_color
It further states:ndividuals in South Asia have tended to see whiter skin as more beautiful. This was most visible in British India, where skin color served as a signal of high status for British. Thus, those individuals with fairer skin color enjoyed more privileges and opportunities than those with dark skin. Anglo-Indians with more European features were often more upwardly mobile and were
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The referenced work [17], Sharina, not the link to the article. Sheesh.
17. Nandini Chavan; Qutub Jehan Kidwai (2006). Personal Law Reforms and Gender Empowerment: A Debate on Uniform Civil Code. Hope India Publications. p. 44. ISBN 978-81-7871-079-2.
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It has also been mentioned here bulanik if you would like to view it yourself.
http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=111806
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Joshua
Kudos but none the less the same statement is and can be found on Wikipedia the one you appear to be using as your source. Not the book reference you can’t reach.
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@Sharina
So what? The fact that the British had an impact on colorism isn’t in dispute. The fact that it existed before the British apparently is by Bulanik. Since Wikipedia is a poor reference I was trying to follow the cited work which indicates that yes, it existed from the dawn of recorded Indian history in the Vedas.
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Joshua
My point is bring that out was not to prove anything in regards to the british. My point was to show that the article contains much more than the single quote you dragged out. Thus my second source for bulanik to view in her spare time. I am not a fan of half information. If you are going to share the truth. Share it all.
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@ Sharina
@ Joshua
Thank you for link, Sharina.
However. This is precisely the problem many people have with “racial” interpretation of ancient texts especially ones that suit and fit modern itnerpretation.
If you return to Wikipedia, under the meaning Dasa:
“In the Rig Veda, Dasa, Dasyu and similar terms (e.g. Pani) occur sometimes in conjunction with the terms krsna (“black”) or asikni (“black”). This was often the basis for a “racial” interpretation of the Vedic texts. But Sanskrit is a language that uses many metaphors. The word cow for example can mean Mother Earth, sunshine, wealth, language, Aum etc. Words like “black” have similarly many different meanings in Sanskrit, as it is in fact the case in most languages. Thus “black” has many symbolical, mythological, psychological and other uses that are simply unrelated to human appearance. Bhagavan Shri Shanmukha Anantha Natha is the first scholar to define that the ‘blackness’ of Krishna is not a racial interpretation but refers to the Absolute in its phase of manifestation as denoted by Samkhya philosophy.[citation needed] The Rig Veda does not refer to ethnic terms but philosophical realities. Krishna too is described as an Asura and this does not mean that he is a ‘black Indigene’ waiting on the banks of the Amshumati river to fight with Indra (RVIII. 85. 13-15) but that the Absolute is in a stage of manifestation allegorically depicted by the ‘black drop’ in the Rig Veda.
Also Iyengar (1914) commented on such interpretations: “The only other trace of racial reference in the Vedic hymns is the occurrence of two words, one krishna in seven passages and the other asikini in two passages. In all the passages, the words have been interpreted as referring to black clouds, a demon whose name was Krishna, or the powers of darkness.”
Initially the Dasa were named as “enemy”, and not Indians.
“In contemporary usage, the word Dāsa has a meaning of “slave, servant” in Hindi. In religious context, it is used in the sense of a servant of God or “devotee”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasa
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@Sharina
Rubbish. I quoted the part in dispute, not the part that isn’t. Neither of us quoted the entire article intact. You’re ridiculous (again).
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@Bulanik
You’ve exceeded the value of Wikipedia now as a reference. It also reads like apologetics.
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Joshua says to Sharina
You did not say the it was a fact that the British had a colourist impact on India.
You said it “may” have, because you are an apologist to the fact. You made light of that impact, “may” isn’t much.
And, the work you are citing, which supposedly clinches the deal that colourism was just “enhanced” by the British, because the Indians have it in their religion — is an example of intnterpretation and translation that is not only poor, but utterly untrustworthy. And in the wrong hands, we see what can be done with it, don’t we…?
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@ Josh
Aha! But when you use, referring to some obscure, and hard to find source, it mgith be a clincher. Considering how many sources I’ve linked compared to yours, you shouldn’t really be admonishing me a tthis stage… 😛
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No Bulanik, neither of us have cited any work. I’ve tried, but the link is dead. Your Wikipedia reference is no more a cite than mine, and reads like an apologetics tract. The fact is that colorism preceded the British, and when I find a good link, I will post it.
The dispute on the British only in the degree of influence. I say “may” because nothing I’ve seen shows anything but adoption of already established biases towards the paler elite.
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Afraid you trying to hard now, Joshua, because the only thing you have proved here is that you are guided by a prevalence of opinion and a paucity of fact.
When there is an obstacle in that path, you simply feel it is so, because YOU say so…
It is NO FACT that colourism was an ancient practice.
The Vedas, in fact, speak of a battle between the light and the dark.
This was conveniently transformed into war between dark-skinned Dravidian and light skinned Aryans. You CANNOT ACCEPT scholarship that doesn’t uphold that because it is inconsistent with your racial world view.
Your knowledge of influence of the British Raj on Indians is also part of that white-apologist world-view.
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*you’re
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Joshua
You can project your ridiculously childish behavior on me as you see fit, but the obvious problem is YOU.
” I quoted the part in dispute, not the part that isn’t.”—Does it matter? You still did not quote the full context of the article being used. You feel it is disputed when the article contains more information than what you offered up. Even if it may not be information you like it is still information none the less. To pick and choose could be consider an act of confirmation bias.
“Neither of us quoted the entire article intact.”—Why should I quote the entire article? My goal was only to point out other information in that entire page that is right under what you are saying. Quoting the whole thing won’t really change that. *shrugs*
You are free to excuse the worse on the basis of it being unreliable but it is what it is.
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Bulanik
“The Vedas, in fact, speak of a battle between the light and the dark.
This was conveniently transformed into war between dark-skinned Dravidian and light skinned Aryans.”—-Interesting you say this as I just read an article on that like a ten minutes ago. It is a good read
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@Sharina
I’m not sure what to make of Joshua’s perspective.
If he really cared about the impact of British colonialism in India, he’d know that independent Hindu scholarship was an unavoidable after the British left, and Indians became more educated and confident about their culture/history.
Before that, so much had been written by European Indologists.
I would have thought he would look at that in a positive light, rather than trying to prove what cannot be proven: that Hindus followed their scripture by practicing colourism 1000s of years ago.
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Correction you are free to excuse the Wikipedia source
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Sharina — lol! It’s a meme!
I think the “racial” misinterpretation of the battle between the light and the dark has become something of a classic whenever this kind of thing is talked about! I’ve more than one of 2 Hindus from India, and another from Mauritius tell those words because I stubbornly believed that because they so brown (one, very) they could not be Brahmin. They all seemed to be saying that it’s a falsification of their faith that has entered the mainstream.
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/rig/ch8.htm
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Bulanik
I have noticed with a lot of religions that misinformation and bad translation leads them to believe light and dark equal white skin vs dark skin. It seems to be a divide and conquer tactic.
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@Bulanik
He did say he grew up in a state that was 99% white. It is amazing then that he knows so much about castism and colourism in India, about how the race relations between Blacks and Asians and feels compelled to educate people the kinds of racist thinking that whites feel is normal, therefore, they do not find it racist.
At the same time, he has been actively responding in ways that makes one think he has been planning this all along, not just someone who wandered here.
Not much from me to be gained from this discussion.
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@Sharina,
Kids learn to use Ching Chong by 1st grade, yet none its history in the USA is taught in school. You don’t find it in publicly produced docmentaries or explained in the media. So people just do it, thinking it is harmless.
Even children of brain drain immigrants will experience it.
Asian-Americans who have been duped by the Model Minority Stereotype learn to endure “Ching Chong” and a host of other treatment as a small price to pay to keep this model minority status. But it is clear who has the racial upper hand and who dictates what is and what is acceptable.
It is actually whites now, who determine if using N1663r will be treated as a racist act or not. They identify the sort of unacceptable behavior that they want to pin on racist uncles.
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@Joshua,
“Not weak at all. You may not like it. But I fail to see why it distresses you.”
I’m not distressed at all. As I said I’m amused. You made a silly assertion and offered spurious and unrelated “evidence” to back it. Escort ads? Really? Calling it weak was being generous to you because such dubious reasoning is more accurately called rubbish. In any event, your suspect assertion is likely just a story you made up as a ruse to argue about and hide behind.
It’s amazing how folks like you always invent convenient magical “black friends” who tell you exactly what you believe and want to hear. I guess that’s where the magical part comes in.
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@ Sharina
I see what you are saying and I don’t disagree. Though can it also be reasonable to say that perhaps they don’t service black because they believe that a black man penis is bigger and would not like him to ruin the …..let’s just say feel and desirability of other men. Would that be considered racist? Or a means to better market themselves? I mean it holds on to a stereotype so my curiosity is peeked here.
Haha! Naughty girl. I defend unorthodox inquiry and you run with it! Touché my dear. 😀
You know, it’s funny: I recalled how the prostitute (or one of the prostitutes) in Full Metal Jacket negotiated with all the G.I.s that wanted to “buy some time”. In the case of the one (token) black G.I. she was just straight up that she wasn’t taking his business. After a kerfuffle over racism, it came out that she was trying to avoid taking on more than was “safe” in the case of the black soldier.
That part of the scene is supposed to be funny, it isn’t though. The writing for that part of the movie is sort of awkward. There is something clearly racist that takes place between a character named Animal Mother and the black soldier (whose name I do not recall). It’s too tedious and pedestrian to discuss here. You’ll know what I’m talking about if you saw the movie. If you haven’t seen it then watch it some time when you’re bored maybe (that movie had it’s time).
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“Doc” was the name of the black character, I believe. Also, what I meant to say was, that part of the scene was meant to be funny but I didn’t find it funny.
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Legion, was it “Doc”? I thought it was 8ball — you mean the one who was Animal Mother’s friend? That scene was pretty pointless, but I can’t be sure after all this time.
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^ You know, I may be remembering a “Doc” from Hamburger Hill. Maybe it was 8ball. We shall have to keep this short before we are made fun of for not simply checking. lol!
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Legion
Sorry it took me so long to respond but there were two things I wanted to do.
1. Re-look at Full Metal Jacket. I need to get a good clear idea of the scenario before I proceed.
2. Do a little more research in the jobs of escorts and other people of the night. The reason being is because they do market themselves as a certain type. If Asian escorts have a certain amount of stereotypes then they will believe that black men will not pay them enough or they are one time deals. Where they will see potential regulars in white men who engage in yellow fever fantasies.
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Kiwi:
I have called my white uncle a “cr@cker” in jest once to make a point.
I have never heard the word cr@cker used to describe whites outside of the media or online forums. It has absolutely no impact when I read or hear the word, outside of mild amusement. In contrast I have been called “white boy” on multiple occasions often in conjunction with assault or the threat of assault.
In any case, I did not feel comfortable or derive satisfaction by saying those things and would not have done so if he hadn’t directed offensive language at me in the first place.
Understood.
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@UM, I think it is most common in Florida and Georgia.
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Jefe:
I visited Florida dozens of times from 1965 to 1983 (had a great-grandmother who lived in Miami and grandparents in central Florida) lived for a year (late 70s) in Georgia and for 5 years in a state (late 70s, early 80s) that borders Florida and Georgia and during that time I can’t recall a single instance of the word cr@cker being used to describe whites. Generally the pejoratives I heard for whites were redn*ck, white tr@sh, or trailer tr@sh. Maybe I wasn’t around people who used the word but I am guessing it had fallen out of widespread use by the mid 70s and then was reintroduced by various forms of media (Music, movies, online forums, etc..). I have never been called a cr@cker in my life but ironically I was called a n*gg*r once in San Mateo, California. (Yelled out of a window of a car passing by..)
(Abagond…have another post in moderation.. presumably because one of the words is flagged as a slur.. I have added asterisks or @ to all slurs.. you can remove the other post..)
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Actually Uncle Milton I had a long conversation with a friend (white if that matters) who lived in Florida. As she described the dynamics she referred to certain whites as Florida cr@ckers. Before I could call it a racial slur she immediately said “it is not considered a racial slur in Florida because that is what they call themselves. ”
In my own experience poor whites do refer to themselves as such in the south. Though redneck is much more commonly used.
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Asian Americans make nearly twice as much per capita as White Americans. They, like the Jews, are a safe target of much American comedy because making fun of wealthier people is seen as “truth to power” while making fun of poorer Blacks and Latinos is “kicking them when they are down”
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^ By and large, Jews are quite a taboo target for American comedy. In fact, it would have made more sense to use Jewish ethnic slurs as Dan Snyder is of Jewish background. But, THAT was carefully avoided by Colbert, as well as everyone else.
The reason why Asians are a safe target for American comedy is not because a portion of them are well educated or have above average incomes.
BtW, they do not make “twice as much” as white Americans, not even close. Taking into account education and experience, they actually make less.
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TV makes fun of Jews all the time. They just usually don’t get all twittery about it.
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Kiwi,
The thing is, Jews are still considered an ethnicity unto themselves. Many still do not consider Jews to be white, and there are a lot of Jews who are not pale-skinned at all (e.g. Indian and Ethiopian Jews).
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Kiwi
@ evansaul
And almost nobody considers Asians to be white. That makes a huge difference as that’s where the line is drawn. For example, nobody would think to use black jokes on white Jews but as for Ethiopian Jews, that’s a different story.
————————————————–
You do know there are asians out there that are more white than a white person yes? Many shun the sun their entire lives. They are whiter than snow with their porcelain skin.
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