Also in 1975 people could fly the Confederate flag in part black neighborhoods and it doesn’t mean anything other than “I’m a rebel!!!..ok my soviet flag and ecology flag is at the cleaners”
And i could get into a fourth grade argument with a classmate that had us hurling the most vile of racial insults at each other without anyone even raising an eyebrow nevertheless being suspended a month.
so…different times y’all.
I wonder if those in this thread supporting Bill Maher would side with a Republican talk-show host saying the exact same thing.
A Republican talk show host would not have made a joke about the about the racist history of southern states.
Hey, yeah, same here.
Bill Maher, like many comedians on the Left, has long assumed that he gets a pass to be edgy… cause hey, everybody knows THEY’RE not racist! Only Republicans are.
Thus, morons like Stephen Coal-burt think they can safely make “ching chong” jokes without getting any flack from Asians. Don’t those insensitive minorities understand that liberals are the Good Guys?
Same reason I don’t go up to a random woman and call her bitch. Or go up to a random anything and call them a worm or anything else that could be interpreted negatively. Why start an unnecessary conflict?
In fairness that was a deliberate parody of racial insensitivity. Yes misjudged.
But it’s not in the same ballpark as Jesse Watters wandering around chinatown making fun of the local people (especially those who couldn’t speak English, so couldn’t answer back) to the soundtrack of “kung fu fighting”.
Stephen Colbert’s “ching chong” thing was explicitly anti-racist. He’s a satirist, and he was playing a character that you are supposed to ridicule and thus, by extension, ridicule who he represents.
I am glad to hear that Maher apologized. I am quite surprised. There may be some hope for him yet. Kinda like how I think Howard Stern became a much better guy, without losing that edge in his comedy.
I like Colbert, but that doesn’t excuse it. He knew better than to have a satirical “jive-talking” character that enjoyed watermelon and fried chicken – the ching-chong character may not have seemed as bad, but they’re both using racist tropes for laughs, and deserve criticism.
Colbert’s ching-chong was very different from Rosie O’Donnell’s ching-chong. Rosie was being racist for laughs. Colbert was attributing a racist use of the phrase to a racist character. The laughs came from the satire, not for the racism. Was Randy Newman advocating slavery in “Sail Away”?
My memory may be off, but I thought Colbert did the ching-chong shtick himself… which to me is little different (and still worth criticizing) than doing a quasi-blackface character eating watermelon, even if it’s followed up with denunciation or some other context to make it clear that it’s undesirable. But it was a long time ago.
Randy Newman also performed the song himself. They were both playing racist characters.
From my memory, the ching chong thing was acting out an ugly stereotype. I don’t think that fits Newman.
That wasn’t Stephen Colbert’s character at all. (And yes, he played it himself) His act was playing an insensitive, racist buffoon – mostly based on Bill O’Reilly. Didn’t you ever watch his show?
I watched pretty much every episode of the entire run – I’m talking about the single ching-chong bit/thing/character he did (just once, I think). I object to that particular instance, while still admiring and being a fan of Colbert.
Why that one in particular? His whole schtick was playing someone who was an insensitive moron, so that was completely within character. He did that as “Stephen Colbert”, the host of the show. Dude was mocking people who use those kinds of words sincerely.
It’s kind of like people who freaked out over the black face episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” episode. The whole point of the show is that the characters are total douchebags with few, if any, redeemable qualities.
Damn time limits!
He never created any kind of Asian character. That’s not how it happened at all. The whole thing was a dig at Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, for starting a charity for Native Americans while still insisting that there was nothing wrong with the term “redskins”.
No offense, but if you’re going to criticize his actions, at least get the circumstances right.
Bill Maher joins the ranks of white people who don’t understand that they don’t get to say that word. And yet… it’s so enticing to try.
He really did a video bit (in 2005) acting out the ching chong stereotype thing. Can’t link to it right now, but it’s a real thing he did on his show.
And I find it ugly.
Not the end of the world, and I adored his show, but I think it’s worth criticizing.
Here’s a snippet of the 2005 Asian character:
I'll look for more. Again, this isn't the end of the world -- I just think it's a bit ugly, similar to doing a stereotypically black jive talking and watermelon loving character, and worth criticizing.