Esther Ku Not Funny

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

Offensive, sure, but not funny. The only people who think she’s funny is white folks who feel good when they hear their racist humor spouted back at them by an Asian person and feel vindicated in not being racist.

Sunny Vergara, a former Asian American Studies professor at SF State and whom I’ve had the privilege to hang with on a few occasions writes this in the American Pop section of Asian Week…(Read More)

Paper Citizens

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

Natalie, the YouTube director for Community Channel posted a good response to a racist e-mail she got about her being Asian and obviously not Australian (duh! Aussies are only white!). I’ll blog more on this latter…I think.

Rejecting the Model Minority Tag

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

A. R. Sakaeda blogs at the Chicago Tribune News Blogs:

When people talk about the model minority, “model” is code for never making other people feel uncomfortable about racism. “Model” means not being like all those other troublesome people of color. It means keeping your mouth shut and your eyes lowered. It means smiling brightly and nodding along. Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir! It means never complaining.

Members of the model minority often are used to shame other people of color. They can do it, why can’t you? If you would only have those same close-knit families. If you only valued education more. If you only worked harder. Racism is a thing of the past.

Holding up Asian Americans as a model divides communities of color, making it difficult for us to see our commonalities.

[Hat Tip: angry asian man]

LiveBlogging: Emmi de Jesus, Sec. Gen. of GABRIELA

All times are PM.

A discussion on the situation in the U.S. with BAYAN orgs and with the situation in the Philippines with Emmi de Jesus, the secretary-general of GABRIELA.

1:36: Folks from local BAYAN USA orgs have begun showing up. Folks are setting up food and snacks.

1:41: Mmmmmmmm…chips and salsa.

2:37: Done with food and talking and we are beginning the “sharing” and introduction session.

2:39: Riss, the chair of babae, introduces the folks from Liwanag Kultural Center (LKC) and League of Filipino Students-SFSU, (LFS) Pilipino Youth Coalition (PYC), as well as everyone else (around 15 folks).

2:44: Shea from LKC talks about the organization, which was set up around two years ago in order to serve the Pilipino youth in the Daly City area as there was very little in the area for them; despite the fact that Daly City has around a 36% Pilipino population (The San Francisco Bay Area is the second largest metropolitan area in the world with a Pilipino population, just behind Manila, Philippines).

2:48: Sergio from LKC:

“Just this past month Gov. Schwarzenegger announced a huge cut in the education budget…We are educating the community around how the [school] district works…and the lack of understanding of the history of this area…We’ve been doing a lot of ‘in searching for deeper answers…’ We’ve found a lot of our community does not have spaces to study…A lot of our community is living in two family residences…They go home to really crowded homes,” which is why many of them don’t end up getting all of their homework done. “We do after school programing…We are focused mainly at Westmoor High School…We teach them [Pilipino] culture before Spain came” and colonized the Philippines. “There has been this gap of service with the community and is building up relatively quickly.”

2:53: Heather from PYC:

“It’s a Bay [Area] wide thing…We have one in Sacramento and there used to be one in Stockton and Tracy. It started out in 1996 when there was a lot of gang violence in Union City and the community wanted to create something positive in that area…Back then it was based on culture and issues going in on the community…I started when I was 13 and now it is in Daly City with [LKC]…We serve the youth in Daly City…It’s doing really well and a lot of them were helping yesterday at [Diwang Pinay]…[The youth] are very excited to be apart of the community and to help and they could be doing other things but instead they are doing something positive.”

2:55: Brian, Sec. Gen. of LFS:

“LFS-SFSU started in 1996 when a few students went on an exposure trip to the Philippines and wanted to bring that organizing space back to the U.S. and San Francisco State. It started back then with 5 students and we have now 30 something. SFSU has a 10% Pilipino population; we saw the need to bring that militancy back to that activism which has been gradually been lossing since the 1960s…When SF State held the longest student strike in history…We want to bridge the connections with the issues of the Philippines and the situations here…We have many different programs as well, Diwang Pinay, our women’s event, JUFRAN…It’s our internship program, 12 weeks of workshops which is geared towards students who are on the edge or are thinking of joining LFS. We have had a image of being too hardcore so we break this down for them in the internship” and break down the history of Marxism and the Philippines into more digestible bites in order to make it more broad and appealing to a large segment of the student population. “A lot of Pilipino American students want to get into education” so we are thinking of adjusting our program accordingly.

3:02: A question on the common issues that come up with Pilipino students at SFSU. Brian says:

“They’re very happy some how, I duno?” Laughter. “Well, there’s an increase in tuition fees and we have a large coalition with that with other folks” not just Pilipino, “They’re cutting…part time teachers…Half of Asian American Studies are part time teachers.” It takes longer to graduate because you can’t get your classes and in turn costs students more money. They are going to have a 10% increase every year over the next few years. When some folks in the room started at SF State just five years ago it cost close to $1,000 but it now costs $1,700. “A lot of students are more upper class.”

Sergio:

“A lot of the students in our community depend on financial aid and some students are undocumented [immigrants]” and they might not be able to get certain loads and government aid to go to school.

Brian, “Overall the school is shifting to be done like a business to make profits.”

Emmi, “Sounds familiar…I remember at the University of the Philippines. Admission used to be 300 pesos and now it is 21,000 pesos.”

Chito, a union organizer and former LFS member from the Philippines, from 1987 to 1989 was a secretary general for an LFS chapter and also organizes with the International League of Peoples’ Struggles [ILPS]: During the early 1980s there was a lot of tuition fee increases, as well as in the late 1970s. “Students barricaded the school and were very militant.” One year there was a 300% increase; there was a three day barricade of the school.

3:17: Chito, “It’s going to get worse because we have not seen the worst of the economic recession…The budget will go down and the first thing they will do is to cut social services. However it is not all glum…Issues will come up, people will start to think and question, ‘Hey, why is this happening?’ It will hit home, people will lose their houses and income and it will be a good condition to organize” because people will now be able to see the contradictions between those how have and those who have not and will better see the flaws in the system.

3:21: Riss, “Everyting is interconnected. babae is about three years old, since February. Just coming from youth and studnet organizing and to come into community organizer. It was a challenge with us for the first year. The pace is much slower and you have to make yourself more visable. Most of the member ship we have are petty bourgouisie women now. We want to focus more on working lcass women and we need to see what services we need to provide to bring them into the space such as child care and…”

Chito, “You just mentioned it…It will be an entry point to organize.”

Riss, “Yes. That’s a long term project. We know there is a need there, how to you tap into financial resources for that.”

3:26: Riss:

“Another one of our campaigns is violence against women…domestic violence…In San Francisco the past three out of the six domestic homicides have been Pinays…We have built a name for ourselves in the [domestic violence organizing] community and we are tyring to figure out how to do something nationally with that…We also coordinate with BAYAN-USA on stopping the political repression [in the Philippines].”

Elaine, a babae member:

“We have a young women’s org at the [Filipino Community Center]…We meet just once a week” and are trying to build up the org within and as well as get more middle school youth…”[Those women] are hella sharp. Sharp-sharp.”

3:30: Riss, “We have eight members but only three [executive committee] members. But its good because” babae has very dedicated and smart women in its org.

“We’ve started Pinay Brunch which started with Fire in New York” to build stronger ties with other Pilipina women’s orgs in the Bay Area.

3:34: Riss to Emmi, “Any questions for us?”

Emmie, “No, I’m just absorbing.”

Joanna from babae. “The thing is we are babies [BAYAN-USA and its orgs] and we will stumble along the way and we are trying to figure out how to build the mass bass here” and to bridge the political with the mass line in order to please those whom are highly political as well as attract those who aren’t political.

3:42: A question to Emmi on how to solidly organize among the female youth section in the Bay Area:

Charm, from LFS, “It’s been ingrained to not trust women” in U.S. culture “and I want to understand how to better build my relationships with other women.”

Emmi, “When it comes to organizing the bottom line is its the principles of the organization…The struggle and competition comes along the lines as organizing. In the early years [of GABRIELA] we were branded as ‘ultra-feminists’ and were considered ‘class-reductionists.’ When it comes to women organizing you always have to prove something. But with the organizing it is always the political.” Relearning and over viewing the politics of the organization and the political analysis of the organization.

Question: There are hang ups on labels. What do you categorize yourself?

Emmi, “For [GABRIELA] we don’t debate but we always want to deepen and expand what type of feminism we have. We are not feminists because it is about fighting for equality between men and women within the status quo, which is capitalism. We don’t do that, we want to smash the status quo. What we do is define our work, the bottom line is always alanlysie things within the context of the national structures that bread oppression and oppression toward women and how these structure perpetuate patriarcy. The labeling thing is slowly being set aside and is more on substance…We we argue with women in conferences and with women in academia, we always start with patriarchy and violence against women. Which to us is nature, because they are coming from the point of view from the gender question. You don’t antagonize and at the same time you compromise. Highlight unity first. We say yes, yes we are feminists…While that is our practice we don’t really deepen our discourses on feminism because of the situation we have [in the Philippines] we have to prioritize the issues we study on. Such as handling they are more on studying of feminism and gender issues because they are from the academia. For a while we thought everything was OK but we realized that some of the lines they were openly discussing were not the lines we believed in. When it comes to the international arena maybe we should be firm…It’s a lot of talk about fighting and struggle against men and women but that’s not our line” as it removes the discussion on imperialism and capitalism. “In the Philippines it is easier of course.”

Question: In one word how was your three weeks here?

Emmi, “Overwhelming!” Laughter. “Overwhelming in a positive way…It’s an opportunity to see the realities because I read ‘This is what we do in the U.S.’ It’s like you exposure trip!” Talking on the exposure of trips BAYAN-USA orgs take to the Philippines in where they hook up with BAYAN orgs in the Philippines.

4:03: Discussion ends.

Related Post:
LiveBlogging: Emmi De Jesus from GABRIELA

LiveBlogging: Emmi De Jesus from GABRIELA

I will be LiveBlogging at a get together of activists at a fellow activist’s/friend’s house with GABRIELA Secretary-General Emmi De Jesus.

GABRIELA is an umbrella organization in the Philippines and is apart of the national democratic umbrella org BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance). The organization is named after Gabriela Silang who lead a revolt against the Spanish in the 18th century.

Ms. de Jesus will be fielding questions and will be talking about her experiences in the Philippines as an organizer and a women and for fighting for true democracy and freedom from imperiialist and capitalist expansion.

Image From
Fire (Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment)

That’s Racist!

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Phil blogs about Chicago Cubs fans buying racist themed t-shirts to “celebrate” their first Japanese player, Kosuke Fukudome:

As you can see above, on the front of the shirt is the traditional Cubs cartoon bear face but with slanted eyes and wearing oversized Harry Caray-sized glasses. It’s accompanied by the words “Horry Cow” in cartoonish “Japanese” script. (The late Caray was the Cubs’ longtime announcer, and among his catchphrases was, “Holy cow!”) Fukudome’s name and number are on the back.

Great. I don’t know what’s worse—the fact that somebody (who is apparently “an Oriental guy”) made this shirt, or that it’s so damn popular amongst Chicago fans. What a way to welcome the franchise’s first Japanese player. That’s racist!

Fetishizing of Asian Women

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

Just finished reading this disturbing article on the consequnces of mainstream America (white society) exotifying Asian women:

A week ago, InSight, the only Asian-American women’s organization on campus, gathered for a weekly dinner meeting, and the topic of conversation turned to the prevalence of the “Asian fetish” in American culture. We discussed the social significance of this obsessive sexual fixation on Asian women in a larger context, including the stereotyped portrayal of Asian women in the media and its relation to the growing mail-order bride industry.

What we didn’t realize at the time of the discussion was the disgusting form that this fetish had taken on a nearby college campus. Recently, Princeton graduate student Michael Lohman admitted to police that he had been silently terrorizing more than 50 Asian women on campus…(Read More)

Support the Fight for Asian American Studies at Hunter College

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Rage, at down on the brown side, blogs about the fight for Asian American Studies at Hunter College:

I’m writing this in response and in support of the righteous students and organizers at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York, who are organizing and pushing to protect and expand Asian American studies at their school. I stand with these students and urge any reader here to check out their information (here’s an article to start) and see how you can be supportive of their cause. I’ll post more information up as I get it about how allies and supporters around the nation can show them love and let them know that we stand with them in this struggle.

“Hmmmmm…Needs More White Folks.”

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Alvin blogs on Hyphen Blog about the controversy surrounding the movie “21″ in where a mainly white cast plays the roles of real life Asian Americans who won big in Las Vegas:

While there have not been too many complaints in mainstream media over these developments, one cannot help but wonder what the backlash would have been like if, for example, Hollywood had made the movie ‘Coach Carter’, with a Caucasian actor replacing Sam Jackon’s role, which was based on a real-life story. In terms of marketing or box office numbers, it is also puzzling why they would cast Sturgess (a relative unknown) as the lead student instead of Aaron Yoo (also in the film as a minor role), when the movie already had cast such big-name stars as Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne.

“We Must Eat Dust”

Cross-posted from The Ghost of Tom Joad.

When it comes to labor history and race relations many unions were active agents in oppressing people of color during the Jim Crow era and even now. The Teamsters is one example. Looking at the demographics of my work it’s made up of primarily people of color. I’d say around 60% or so, mainly Black and Latino with a sizable Asian population. However the locals in my area, especially my local, has mostly white males at the helm of leadership; however, in my local the majority of the nine shop stewards (seven of them) are people of color (but no women unfortunately). The ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) was one of the few exceptions in this, and has always had a militant and socialist/communist history behind it. ILWU Local 7, for example, was dominated by Pilipinos in the canneries and shipyards and took a militant stance against the government during the McCarthy Red Scare era…(Read More)

If It’s A War This Honky Wants…

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Holy fucking shit! Just finished posting this at my blog:

This was actually in a campus newspaper! I believe it’s an independent newspaper, not affiliated with the University of Colorado journalism department (thank God!) but it is a newspaper none the less for the UC community.

I’ll get straight to the point. Here is an excerpt from the Campus Press’s recent Op-Ed piece titled “If it’s a war the Asians want…”:

I’m such a fool for not realizing it sooner. I can’t tell you how many times the Asians have treated me like a retarded weasel and I’ve forgiven them. But now I know that Asians are not just “a product of their environment,” and their rudeness is not a “cultural misunderstanding.”

They hate us all.

And I say it’s time we started hating them back. That’s right-no more “tolerance.” No more “cultural sensitivity.” No more “Mr. Pretend-I’m-Not-Racist.”

It’s time for war.

But we won’t attack their bodies or minds. We will attack their souls.

Than the newspaper gave a half-assed apology saying it was “satire:”

Angry Asian Man blogs:

What is wrong with this guy? Is he really asking for it? The article appeared in the opinion section of the paper’s website, is apparently supposed to be satirical… but is it really? If you ask me, the guy is trying to vent some of his own frustrations and hate with the Asian student population at his school. “The Asians.” Here’s a link to the actual column: If it’s war the Asians want….

That’s racist! It’s ugly. He goes on to outline his “plan” for attacking the Asian soul. I think he’s trying to be funny. He’s not. I’m not trying to fan to the flames here, since it’s obvious Karson is the kind of guy who writes this stuff to get attention for his pathetic aspiring journalism career. But damn, this guy is a true flaming idiot. Sadly, I’m sure there’s a future place for him at Fox News.

Jenn at APA for Progress comments:

Wow. Max Karson, a columnist at Colorado University, wrote a “satirical” piece in the campus newspaper declaring a war on Asian students. Pronouncing that Asians “hate us” (because, of course, Asians can’t actually be “us”), Karson advocates a ridiculous three-phased attack on Asian students, chock full of ludicrous anti-Asian stereotypes.

Or at least it would be ridiculous if the fantastical plan didn’t seem so reminiscent of extraordinary rendition and a mass lynching.

…

If this piece is supposed to be satire, than Karson is a terrible writer, unworthy of the energy it took to put ink to paper. But this column is not satire: it is a racism-fueled hate fantasy that should make the Asian American students of CU fearful and angry at just how intolerant their campus really is.

I urge each of you to write a Letter to the Editor of Campus Press, and CC a copy to Max Karson (max.karson@colorado.edu). Include a copy of your letter in the comments of this thread for Instant Activism Karma(tm).

Here’s a template. Edit (or just copy-and-paste it on to Campus Press) as you so desire

Joe Nguyen comments:

There hasn’t been a worst decision to run a column this bad since Asian Week ran Kenneth Eng’s, “Why I hate blacks.”

But should it be surprising that Karson is stirring up trouble? This is the same man who made controversial remarks about the Virginia Tech massacre and has a history of pushing the boundaries with his columns.

Juno Don’t Like Chinese Babies

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

Read this good article in the San Francisco Chronicle a few weeks ago. It touches up on some good issues:

San Rafael real estate agent Lo Mei Seh was shocked when she saw a theatrical trailer for the hit movie “Juno” in December. In one scene, the title character sarcastically tells the rich suburban couple hoping to adopt her unborn child, “You shoulda gone to China. You know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those T-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.”

Seh, the mother of two adopted Chinese girls, noticed a young Asian girl sitting behind her getting noticeably upset and muttering, “That’s so mean and unfair.”

“I calmed myself down, saying these things are just going to happen, and as a parent I have to teach my children to be strong,” she says. But after that particular scene was shown on televised award shows like the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards, she became angry all over again.

“I know some people will say ‘lighten up,’ but that’s not the point,” Seh says. “The trailer is misleading” about the complexities of adopting infants from China.

“It’s not only hurtful, but harmful,” she says.

…

The irony of the “Juno” line is that adopting from China is very difficult.

…

The parents also say that the “Juno” line also plays on racist Asian stereotypes in an unacceptable way.

“Could you have made that joke with any other minority?” Scott says. “I don’t think so. You’d catch hell.”

The Blogosphere and the Super Bowl

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Some reaction from progressive and anti-racist bloggers:

Angry Asian Man:

Look at us. We’re mad, we’re talking about the damn ad, and now they’ve got another story about their company in the New York Times. Hell, they didn’t even have to hire an ad agency. With the announcement that they’re pulling these ads, there will now be legions of folks who flock online to watch the commercial and see what the fuss is about. All this, and now you’ve got a lot of people suddenly aware of a no-name company nobody would’ve given a crap about in the first place. Nobody’s sorry about anything here.

XicanoPwr (Hat Tip: Inteligenta Indigena):

Of course, the stereotypes and jabs aren’t always so blatant, though they can be just as unsettling. True, there are people who do think a Ghandi-like Indian accent or a Chinese “ching chong” are hilarious, but, the sad truth is, they are missing the point. When a stereotypes are repeated, those stereotype do become the norm and a frame of reference for a person’s entire cultural group and ultimately it becomes more difficult to avoid the stereotypes and clichés from our current racially biased system.

Understanding racial cues is very important, because depending how we interpret these cues will shape our opinions towards members of racial and ethnic groups. When commercials like these air, they tend to make explicit references - either by visual or auditory cues - to race, which then trigger racial thinking by activating past information held within our long-term memory about that racial and ethnic minority group. In other words, racial attitudes are primarily based on personal experiences, salient facts or events.

Bae Gang Shik:

While there has generally been some backlash against SalesGenie for their slew of offensive commercials, nobody dares mark this as racism within popular culture. In fact, it seems that in most analyses the ads are only seen as “cultural insensitive” or “inappropriate.”

I’m sick of nobody calling these sort of media portrayals as they are, Racism!

KoreanPower999:

Also, there is something disturbing in the fact that they thought it was ok to stereotype Asians in this commercial because I would doubt that they would do that for African Americans and Jewish people. They know if they did this to other groups, there would definitely be a backlash. It just tells you that it’s ok to be racist against Asian Americans in this nation and we saw it on display in the biggest television event of the year. I just shutter to think how many millions of people watched that and just laughed and thought nothing of it. We got a long way to go in this nation on the issue of race.

A Cross-Section of Americana: Analysis

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

So what do all these Super Bowl ads tell us about America and race relations. Well, for one, despite all this talk about being color-blind, which is what most people say they are when it comes to “viewing” or talking about race, we can see that America, is in fact, not color blind. If whites were truly color blind (and the rest of America for that matter) these commercials would make no sense.

“Huh, pandas? I don’t get it. Just pandas speaking plain old English.”

“What does a shrunken head have to do with that man in face paint? Weird?”

“Why is a mariachi band playing right now?”

Etc.

The one subject that really binds all of these commercials is “foreigness,” as all ads feature foreigners whom are people of color and whom have “funny” and “weird” accents (save the Latino from the Taco Bell commercial). One thing about their accents is that they are supposed to be at the expense of the person with the accent; especially the commercial in where Carlos Mencia is teaching “his buddies” on how to pick up “American” chicks (cause, you know, America women totally don’t have accents). We are supposed to laugh at them because they do not speak English “properly” and/or speak it with a “funny” accent.

One thing that is bothersome about the “funny” accent bit is who has the funny accent and who doesn’t. Having a French or Italian accent is sexy, having an English accent means you are smart, and having a upper class Spanish (from Spain) accent is also sexy and “exotic.” While the sexy and intellectual accents are solely confined to Europe the weird and funny accents are confined to people of color (save that one Russian dude). Having an Indian accent means you are a nerd, having a Chinese accent means you are stupid.

I remember Amy Tan talking about how smart her mother was but because she had a Chinese accent many would mistaken her for dumb and when she would talk to sales reps over the phone or tried to do business with others over the phone Mz. Tan would have to eventually cut in and talk for her (or even pretend to be her with her mother whispering in her ear what to say) in order for her mother to be taken seriously. Again, English accent, “Oh sooooo smart!” Chinese accent, “God! Can’t you understand anything I’m saying!”

Of course there were the two SalesGenie.com ads. The thing about these two ads is that they involved no research on Indian or Chinese culture and language. All they were was a bunch of stereotypes taken from memory and written down on paper. The Indian guy had to have an accent and had to have a bunch of kids and had to work in a cubicle under a white boss. The pandas had to have Chinese accents, use bamboo font for their signs, and they had to own a small business. There was nothing really to these ads. They didn’t really have any jokes and no points. The could have easily used different ethnicities (or the same) in similar situations and nothing more. But they instead decided to opt for two “foreigners” in their ads that came straight out of a Simpsons cartoon and a yellow face movie. The writers views of Asians weren’t from first hand experience (obviously, though not that that would help them) but instead through popular culture such as TV shows, commercials, and movies.

The other one (more than likely) shows a First Nationer with stereotypical body and face paint, a grass skirt, something frilly on his head, and a wood cane. This is one stereotype that I have blogged about before as Hollywood producers and writers (whether it be for TV shows, commercials, movies etc.) can’t seem to get away with portraying First Nation natives as anything more than blow darting, human eating, primitive sub-humans. And almost always for comedic affect. Not only that but in the commercial for Cars.com contrasts the half-naked native with well clothed intelligent whites in their modern (and convenient) building.

These of course aren’t all of the ads but this little snipit of the ads tells us a lot. America is considered a “National holiday” by many; a day were all Americans sit down at the tube and watch, what is considered, America’s sport (sorry baseball). Super Bowl ads also reflect America. They are big-money corporations spending top dollar to make sure that (1) were are entertained by their commercials, and (2) that we (most importantly) buy their products. And of course the media obliges to this by constantly showing us news stories about the upcoming Super Bowl commercials. So you’ve got many things here that show us America: food crazed, sports hungry fans being bombarded by greedy money grubbing capitalists looking to turn a simple procedure of supply and demand economics into a spectacle.

So if anything these ads are supposed to appeal to a wide swath of Americans; or, more precisly, what corporate America thinks Americans are, which is normally 18 to 35 year old beer guzzling, sex crazed, comedic starved white males.

What we saw in these ads was very much the underlying popular image of race in America. One that views Asians as either hard working and/or slightly dumb with funny accents, natives that shrink you head, “pathetic” and nerdy foreigners with “hilarious” accents (what’s up with the African dude and the chicken?), and Latinos meant to entertain us hard working uptight whites.

The one thing to keep in mind with this is that these ads didn’t invent or come up with these stereotypes. What they did was use the stereotypes already circulating in pop culture; they essentially plucked the first stereotypical thing that came to their mind and tried to make it into popular entertainment.

Super Bowl Ads: A Cross-Section of Americana

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

Ok, first off, I totally want to see Wall-E?

[Can’t embed the video on WordPress for some reason, to see the video go to the link above.]

Now that I got that off my chest I want to talk about what of the first genuine “Holy shit that’s so fucking racist!” moment I’ve had in about a month or so. It happened watching the Super Bowl and it involves pandas.

“Oh! Pandas, I love pandas. Being so cute and cuddly soft.”

Yeah, so do I. But you won’t really love these pandas or, more precisely, the creators of the pandas. Here’s the vid.

As you can see from the video the two pandas speak in stereotypical “FOBy” Chinese accents reminiscent of older, and more openly racist, movies of the past that featured Asian characters (unless of course you are Rob Schneider).

The two pandas are inappropriately named “Ling-Ling” and “Ching-Ching.” Just by the names themselves you could tell the writers weren’t concerned with actually getting Chinese culture “right” they were just concerned with giving the audience Orientalism; that is, Asian cultured projected outwards as seen by Western eyes. These guys couldn’t have come up with better names? They couldn’t have spent ten minutes on the internet to look for actual Chinese names? (I have yet to meet anyone with the names “Ling-Ling” and “Ching-Ching”)

Most of what whites project onto Chinese Americans (as well as the overall Asian American community) can be seen in this ad. The pandas have “funny” accents and are small business owners; they are slightly dumb (Duh! because of their accents!) and can’t run the business well.

Jenn from Reappropriate puts it best:

The commercial’s soundtracks include gongs and mandolins, and the writing is in that “chopstix” font that is supposed to be reminscent [sic] of Chinese. “Ching Ching” the wife panda is clearly supposed to be a manipulative laze, who sits on her ass while “Ling Ling” does the work of running the store, playing up the “shrew” stereotype of Asian wives that has become more prevalent of late. “Ling Ling” meanwhile, is viewed as idiotic — eating his (implicitly shoddy) products.

While yellow face isn’t practiced in Hollywood anymore (again, save Rob Schneider) Asians continue to be stereotyped in American society through the mainstream media (anyone remember the Abecrombie & Fitch controversy?) as the perpetual foreigners, the model minority, the always working but never having fun males and the “exotic” undersexed women, they continue to be stereotyped as having funny accents (speaking “Chinglish”), and as well as knowing kung-fu and adhering to “old and wise traditions.”

Asians are also one of the few minorities in which it is “OK” to make fun of. Would that ad have passed muster at SalesGenie if it featured a bunch of crows speaking Ebonics, being lazy, drinking 40s, and a whole other number of “lazy” Black stereotypes (well…it did pass muster at Disney); answer is probably not. But Asians continue to be seen as the “nonthreatening minority” in many white American eyes and thus OK to make fun of. But those weren’t the only ads during the Super Bowl that protrayed racist stereoypes. In fact, the ads ran a whole range of pure Americana. I’m only going to go over them briefly here and give the rest of my analysis for all of the rest in my next blog post.

The first that caught my eye that night was another SalesGenie.com ad. This time featuring a stereotypical Indian with name “Ramesh Chalkrapani” (where the fuck do they get their names from, Simpsons writers?). Instead of having a small business like the “Chinese” pandas Ramesh has a stereotypical Indian job: a white color business job where he is stuck in a cubicle. He also has “seven kids,” cause…you know…dem Hindus just love to have tons and tons of kids (as did Apu in The Simpsons). One thing about both ads, writes Tom from 41 mtf:

What really monkeys my wrench is that I don’t understand why these commercials were so blatantly racist without making any kind of joke out of it. It was as if Salesgenie.com really didn’t know they were using stereotypes in the first place.

[Can’t embed the video on WordPress for some reason, to see the video go to the link above.]

The next ad was for Budlight which featured the horribly racist and vulgar comic Carlos Mencia who is known for stealing jokes from Black comedians and not giving them credit. As from the previous two commercials I blogged about this one predominantly features accents and “awkward foreigners” trying to pick up “American” (read: white or “white-washed” women).

Another internet startup is the culprit in this one. This time from Cars.com. It features a “witch doctor” from either The Amazon or Africa (they probably purposefully try to make him an ambiguous native) in where he shrinks heads and is referred to as more of a commodity than an actual human. Apparently according to mainstream media every single “native” is an expert in shrunken heads or cannibalism as those are the only non-North American natives to appear in popular mainstream media in many years.

[Can’t embed the video on WordPress for some reason, to see the video go to the link above.]

Right after that little racist commercial came the infamous “Ching-Ching” and “Ling-Ling” commercial.

Finally there is Taco Bell. The ad features a bunch of white business people trying to get to a meeting. But WAIT! They have the new Taco Bell “Fiesta Platter!” So that means they have to have a fiesta. And of course you can’t eat Mexican food without a bunch of Mexicans surrounding you playing music for your enjoyment. Taco Bell can’t seem to get away from two bit Mexican stereotypes in their commercials.

[Can’t embed the video on WordPress for some reason, to see the video go to the link above.]

Just to keep this post short (like I said earlier) I’ll write more of my analysis in another post.