1.12.2006

juvenile

So this is all getting a little juvenile with the vile name calling, the hahaha that's not what he said comment, and the "ching chang chong." This is not an intelligent exchange of thoughts or ideas, this is elementary school playground mud slinging. I'm going to turn off comments and leave you with this for now, from
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2002/04/23/eguillermo.DTL:

"There's already some backlash against Asian Americans, who are seen as
anything but fierce champions of freedom, fighting racism wherever they find it.
Instead, they're now being portrayed as humorless scolds -- politically correct,
even -- as if standing up for some moral principle could ever be considered
wrong or shameful.

Hey, I can take a joke. Most Asian Americans can. But maybe what's
needed here is an updated lesson on ethnic humor. For example, if I want to call
myself a slant-eyed laundry boy, that's okay. That's funny because it's
self-deprecating. (Even President Bush is good at this style of humor, though
sometimes unconsciously so. We don't just laugh at him because he's president.)
The beauty of self-deprecatory humor is that it gives people permission to
laugh. It makes the teller the butt of the joke, and invites us all to be in on
it.

But if a non-Asian makes references to Asians as caricatured slant-eyed
laundry boys, then we have a problem. That's not self-deprecation. That's just
denigration imposed by another."

-- Emil Guillermo

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