Stereotypes?:
A couple of days ago, I came across an interesting article from one of my favorite blogs, www.angryasianman.com - citing an article from the Daily Princetonian that poked fun at a Yale freshman who was rejected from Princeton, despite having perfect SAT scores, near perfect grades, and a plethora of extra-curricular activities. This Yale freshman, Li Jian, brought a lawsuit upon Princeton - accusing them of harboring an apparent bias towards Asians and Asian Americans, in an attempt to limit their enrollment at top universities in the United States. The law suit is still pending, but the topic of affirmative action and the model minority has once again been thrust into the media limelight. Of course, this story broke weeks or months ago, and the lingering memories of this whiny student has all but dwindled in the spotlight; that is, until the annual Joke issue of the Daily Princetonian and the article mocking this student, caught the eye of the national media here.
The controversy surrounding this article mostly has to do with something Asians have been all too familiar with: tasteless humor aimed at exploiting the stereotypes of Asians being 1) bad with grammar (the column was written in broken English); 2) dog eaters 3) perpetual foreigners (references to the General Tao province); and 4) overachievers. These are only a few that I could think of, but I'm sure there exists plenty of examples.
So let's examine the pros and cons that can be elicited from this event. I agree with the editors in a sense that the controversy that has erupted since the article publication has served its purpose in thrusting the topic of race and college admissions into the spotlight because, as I've mentioned earlier, the story surrounding the original law suit had all but died down. The pros all but end there.
As for the cons, the article simply was not original, it was done in poor judgement and taste, and one might have expected more from such a prestigious university as Princeton. The jokes were not funny, and only served to perpetuate stereotypes in the mainstream that Asians have tried for decades to shed.
As expected, critics from both sides have flooded columns and blogs alike with their incessant view point on the matter. The editors in charge of the newspaper have issued a statement that falls somewhere along the lines of "oops, we didn't know that it would be offensive...we seek to draw attention to racism in hopes of strangling it...at worst, it was a bad joke, at best, it exposes racism...yada yada." Again, the same kind of response that can be expected from anyone who didn't seem to know that perpetuating stereotypes do have the potential of offending most if not all people in that particular racial column.
I was particularly disappointed with the response from the editors because, for one thing, the editor in chief is of Asian descent and there are numerous Asians who comprised the staff at the Daily Princetonian. It is one thing to have a group of white students write and make fun of Asians - they would be easy to criticize for being racially insensitive. The fact that there are Asian students on the newspaper staff speaks at length about the internalized racism that these students must feel towards their own culture. How can anyone in the right mind and sensible awareness of their cultural existence, be inclined as to contribute to such a poorly intentioned article?
Students being students though, the controversy surrounding this article will serve to be a learning experience for all those involved - hence the importance of a college education. At the same time, as much as I may disagree with the content of the article, all too often people jump to conclusions - labeling the perpetrators as racists or bigots - when in fact, they probably just had very poor taste in humor. All too often, liberal groups jump head first into debates surrounding race and race relations - citing racism and prejudice or what not. When I was in college, I took a west African Drumming course, where the professor was a 75 year old Ghanaian with a giant potbelly and a incessant desire to tell his class that he enjoys the pleasures of having intimate relations with his wife. One day in class, I had my feet up on the drum, which prompted an outburst from him. After that, he asked me what race I was - which I told him. His response was 'that's why' - implying that my being Chinese was the reason that I had disrespected his instrument and ultimately his livelihood.
Almost immediately, reactions from the liberal student crowd almost immediately went from slightly bored, to that of a venomous serpent - ready to pounce on the prey in the form of a kind hearted but culturally misguided teacher. I couldn't tell if the people were angry or surprised at the fact that I didn't have more of a reaction. I received emails of support that night for the supposed injustice that had occurred in the classroom. Of course, I wasn't the least bit offended, having had the chance to meet his acquaintance before hand and understand the linguistic barriers that existed between over-privileged private college students, and an African man. I actually spoke to him rationally afterwards, and managed to elicit a kinder, gentler response from him outside of the class. We were able to express our differences without reverting to labels of 'racism'. The other people, without this rational dialogue, probably walked away from the class thinking the man is a racist.
My point is this: as an Asian-American, we do not need to jump down the throats and be resentful of those who might make a few stupid, ignorant comments about our race, history, stereotypes, etc... We have to understand that in a society that prides itself on free speech, there will be people with access to media channels, that are going to make some remarks that will offend a few, if not, many people. People like Adam Carolla, Rosie O'Donnell, Sarah Silverman and the like, are comedians who make a living making fun of people and their lives, and they will do whatever it takes to draw laughter from their perceived audiences. I would like to believe that they are not racists, because being a racist implies that you think that you are superior to everyone else simply based on your race.
Instead, they're just people looking to create laughter by playing on those stereotypes that have emerged throughout the years. Of course, there is good comedy (Dave Chapelle, John Stuart, and Stephen Colbert, to name a few), that possess the unique talent to write comedy that offends just about everyone. The problem that I have with crappier comedians (see above), is that they would single out un-original stereotypes as a last ditched effort at drawing laughter. Ha ha. The Chinaman does laundry (actually, the Chinese were forced to open laundromats because they were systematically discriminated against in the job market after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.). Ha Ha, The Chinese eat dogs, their men are effeminate tools, and their women are desirable sex objects (Ummm...cultural differences; allegedly in the 1800's the Chinese men were depicted as rampant sex maniacs in which the white women were supposed to be protected against...sort of like the black stereotype now; oh yeah, well, Asian females are just perceived to be exotic...would you rather have a hamburger or some exotic far east meal you can't pronounce? human nature). Can't these comedians think of better material than to play off decades-old material?
Back to this article. On the one hand, I see the need to address the issues that arose. Playing off out-dated stereotypes to elicit laughter is merely a demonstration of unoriginality and lack of creativity. On the other hand, it's not necessary to call these people racists. That would just be going too far.
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