Asian Americans 2 Radio 0
 

It appears that the Asian American Community isn't going to take it anymore. This is the second time in the Northeast that Asian Americans were mocked over the air in 6 months, the first being after the tsunami with the Hot 97 song.

I'm glad that they are stepping up to the plate, but at the same time I'm cringing to think that there could be some Asian American spokesman similar to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton rising into the spotlight.

As you know, I am in favor of citizens using their power against media. The oppression in our lives today that interests me is media oppression. I am always heartened when citizens gain a victory over offensive media.

This mildly infuriates me, not sure why:
Anyway, I don't think an Asian American (whatever that means) spokesperson would last very long if they were as crazy as Al Sharpton. What I'm worried about is more of that "this world is too PC" garbage. I haven't heard these mockings myself, but this kind of thing is so easy to dismiss as "PC nonsense" because so many people have decided that PC means being overly sensitive, no matter what the reason. The second anybody tries to call this "PC," the Movement loses a lot of momentum and credibility.

Audio of the show.

After listening to the audio, I'm quite appalled that this kind of predjudice is still tolerated and considered "okay" by most people.

I hate all shock jocks, no matter what group of people they choose to target. It is not good radio, even if it pulls in the listeners.

And yet I am disheartened that people still allow themselves to be offended by material in someone's entertainment act.

We have become used to being assaulted by media. The audio of this show has one of the commercial-interest-microphone-wielding-human-celebrities saying he is offended by the situation that prompts his offensive remarks - how quaint.

The word "offensive" is a subjective one isn't it? "Subjective" refers to an individual human perception - that's a person. Media is not a person - it is an overwhelming assaultive force.

It's not a complicated thing for me to choose to support individual perception over and against media mouthpieces.

I'm nowhere near competent enough to tangle with you over "media," as you are clearly our resident expert on that subject. However, I do know a little about entertainment, and that was the thrust of my comment.

Is it possible for me to agree with you on giving a "hooray" to the little people for winning a victory against Big Bad Media while simultaneously hanging my head in despair over those who will never be able to see the forest when it comes to entertainment?

Ever since the "Runaway Bride" story broke open, I've been unable to watch a national talk-show without being assaulted by "Southern cousin-marrying cracker" jokes. Although they're not funny to me, I recognize that a lot of folks find those jokes a hoot. Instead of launching a campaign to have Jay Leno's advertisers pull out of the Tonight Show, I choose to change the channel. I guess my assault on "media" is more low-key, because if the Nielsen folks ever came back to my house, I'd tell them why I watch Court-TV instead of Leno or Letterman.

Dang, ART, it's good to be back.

...and good to have you back in the mix, bro.

Sure, the problem as I see it is that - in the main - our media-culture-education system is not in the business of producing people with critical thinking abilities.

Exactly my point. I do not even know why some of them exist, it's just very inappropriate plus very offensive. I would rather have a world where everyone got along than just a few groups making fun of eachother.

What a sedate, serene, and boring world that would be. I suppose in "The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers" you were rooting for the pods?

We'll never know. Not getting along is boring too.

Yes, what boring world we would live in without war, disease, racism, poverty, slavery, and crime. Thank goodness we'll never save any of those problems. :crazy:

I liked how they kept saying, "I don't have anything against Asians" even though they were making blatant racist remarks. That's like, "No offense, but you're an ugly moron. But no offense."

And the guy himself is Italian whose grandparents were immigrants. Why does he even think of himself as a "true American"? Just because he's white?

The Moonies and Hare Krishnas called. They have brochures for some of you.

Man, after reading this, especially the comments about how Asian Americans would never be fully accepted as "actual" Americans, I suddenly had a deep, ardent wish that every "American" would live a few years abroad, specifically in an Asian country. Living in Japan for almost 2 years has taught me this: there's a difference between acceptance and tolerance. The Japanese want to be exposed to the English language and non-Japanese customs/ways of life, but only on their terms.

I'm happy the Asian communities spoke up in the States, but this sort of thing never happens in Japan. Americans seem to be of the opinion that any immigrant wishing to make it in the US should learn English, work hard, then reap the rewards. Over here, most Japanese think of their language and culture as so inscrutable that any foreigner (who is never designated by his country of origin, always as "foreigner"), shouldn't even bother to learn them. I still get complimented on my usage of chopsticks (shit, there're tons of Chinese restaurants in Montreal that I've been going to for years beforehand) and people think it's an act of god that I can string together more than one sentence at a time or read kanji characters.

Again, yay for the Asian community speaking its peace. I only wish such voices were heard in other countries as well...

Sorry to thread jack. It just struck a nerve.

Has anyone seen A Day without A Mexican? What would the world be if we went one step further? A Day without An Asian? Think about it, if just half of the sweat shops in China took a week off. Japan, Korea cut their electronics, automotive output by 1/2. Wal-Mart would have to close half its stores. Many car dealerships across the nation would have to either close up or change to sell "American" (not necessarily built in US) cars only. How many recalls have Ford, GM, Chevy had in the last 2-3 years? How about Toyota, Honda, Nissan or Hyundai? Can we still call them "foreign" cars? See below:

http://www.hondanews.com/CatID1020?m...01257&mime=asc
http://www.toyota.com/about/operations/na-affiliates/
http://www.conway.com/ssinsider/bbdeal/bd001113.htm
http://www.conway.com/ssinsider/bbdeal/bd021230.htm

Recently I read a report in a local news paper, it mentioned quite a number of students with high academic achievements. All (about 10 of them) but three were "real" Americans, the rest were Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and Indians (India). Yet, when I looked up this website,
http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/SEARC...m?city=Fishers

Asian students only make up 4% of the school population in most cases. Go visit any university in California, from UCSD, UCLA, UC Berkley, to Stanford, you see all these Asian students. Are they all beneficiaries of the Affirmative Action? I don't think so.

I doubt many, if any, of these DJs have any idea just how the "minorities" have contributed to the society? These individuals are as shallow as the comments they make. The same goes to the program managers, producers, and station owners, for failing to educate their employees.

Sure, I will probably never shake my accent although slight. My 2 and 4 year old sons can understand and communicate in 4 languages we regularly use at home. I'd be shocked if they (DJs) can speak grammatically correct English!

It's nice to see people directly affecting change in media. I find this much better than government regulation.

I can understand what you are saying and I agree and all but in regards to the car thing,not to hijack the thread but to prove a point,it's not like American car companies are hunks of junk and the Japanese only put out super reliable automobiles across the board.
http://www.alldata.com/TSB/0459_mo.html
http://www.alldata.com/TSB/0441_mo.html
http://www.alldata.com/TSB/0424_mo.html
http://www.alldata.com/TSB/0425_mo.html

Those are all the recalls and service bulletins that were issued for Toyota,Nissan,Honda,and Hyundai. As you can see nobody is perfect it's just that when an American company has a recall it's really big news as opposed to some Japanese companies and their recalls it's basically ignored.
And as far as long term quality there are two Japanese companies that are above the big two American companies(BTW GM and Chevy are one company and Chrysler doesn't count anymore as they are owned by the Germans) and that's Honda and Toyota. Everybody else is as bad or WORSE. Nissan for example is a company a lot of people push as being quality and their cars are just as likely to be junk as a Ford.

And as far as can you consider those cars foregin cars even though they are built here? Yes. Because at the end of the day those profits are going back to Japan and not America. The jobs are going to be there regardless so the arguement of "they are employing Americans" doesn't really stand up. If all the people buying Civics were buying Foci there would be more Ford asssembly plants here in the States and possibly in our neighboring countries of Canada and Mexico. Which it greatly behooves us to have them with solid and stable economies as opposed to making Japan even richer.

So again not trying to come down on you but it's just not accurate or fair to say only American cars being sold in America would be a horrific thing on the level of large amounts of the workforce suddenly not showing up for work.
Just giving info. :thumbsup:

Explain to me the difference between the negative reactions above and those towards 'Piss Christ' by Andres Serrano. I am fully aware that the MATERIAL is vastly different, but I don't see any difference in the REACTIONS.

In both cases, I see a group of people who are personally outraged over something that hits home to them, and they want the whole show shut down.

Just because people make fun of each other doesn't mean they can't or don't get along. My friends and I are always making fun of each other and playing practical jokes, and we're still friends.

My ethnic background is Irish, German and French, and I've seen and heard plenty of mocking about all three. I've never been offended by any of it (I've found a lot of it to be funny, in fact), and all I ask is that anyone who does the mocking be willing to be mocked in return.

Shock jocks are the source of human diseases?

I can understand being upset when your particular ethnicity or whatever is targeted, and I can respect the "little guy" taking a dump on the media machine by having an impact via loss of ad revenue... but everyone is the butt of the jokes at some point.

Think about commercials here in america. White men are most often the goofiest, stupidest, most lazy, ignorant, etc., people you ever met in most of these commercials. Why? Because it's our turn. Because now that we've made fun of everyone else for a while, and they all decided that doing so any longer was unacceptable, the sights are now set on the white male. You can say ANYTHING you want about a white male, his personal sexual habits, his eating habits, his spending habits, anything- and not one person bats an eye, they're too busy laughing.

The point is, everyone has their run in the gauntlet. The best example is a comic I saw a few weeks ago. He was a black man, and telling jokes about black people- himself and his stereotypically-portrayed black friends. It was hilarious. I'd say the audience was less than 25% black people (who, to my witness, laughed just as hard at the "black jokes" as everyone else). Then he launched into a small bit about asians and "how they drive". The room's laughter response damn near cut in two. And he perks up, as it was expected, and says (with a large smile), "oh it was funny when i was telling the nigger jokes, but stay off the asians, I got it." Then he launched right back into some jokes about himself and his stereotypically-portrayed black friends and the laughter was full volume again. I found him after the show and shook his hand

It's sad that sometimes people can't understand the difference between racism and entertainment. I'm SO SURE they've NEVER done skits making fun of irish people, muslims, jews, stupid white men, british people, actors, actresses, janitors, doctors, the list goes on to infinity. I'm surprised these people are taking this situation in this manner.

EDIT: Oh- and just to add... i'm italian, and much of my family is from the new york area. I can't tell you how many times in my ENTIRE LIFE i've heard people do the "new york italian mobster" accent and treat every italian from new york like they're either a construction worker or in the mafia. Never once has it occurred to me to be offended by this. This isn't an issue of being PC to quell the masses, this is people being thin-skinned PC radicals.

I agree with this one hundred per cent. All the majority of media does is mire the human consciousness in a swamp of petty debates and tittle-tattle, tupenny ha'penny 'entertainment' and current affairs which is clearly skewed in favour of the ruling elites.

updated information:

follow up
LINK

Thanks for the follow-up(s) Cyn, but where's your commentary? You live in the area right? Have you heard their show? What do you think?

Sounds like "the system worked" to me in the sense that people used the available and appropriate channels to address their concerns/grievances. I believe that to be a good thing and I have no problem with it.

dirtyyyyyyyyyyy jerzeeeeeeee.

speaking as an asian pacific american, we need to do something about this racism. being a part of CAPAY and sticky rice project, i will introduce this information to the community.

I don't know, I'm of two minds here. Part of me is thinking that these offended parties need to lighten up, but I recognize that A) I haven't heard the relevant broadcast (the link above didn't work for me) and that B) I'm not part of the minority it relates to and therefore not fully able to relate. What I do know is that as a Scot (in terms of heritage, anyway) I'm not about to start a campaign against groundskeeper Willie, even if he does seem to be the cultural equivalent of those WWII anti-japanese propaganda cartoons in that he plays up to every stereotype there is about Scots. As a Canadian citizen, I'm also not about to start a campaign against the South Park movie, either. I didn't find it all that funny, but I recognize that some people do.

Don't ask me where I'm going with this, because I'm not really sure. It's ultimately up to the individual as to whether they find certain material offensive or not, but at the same time, remember that "blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."