I’m really pissed about this but lack the down and dirtiness of the Pit so I will post here. Dartmouth just elected its 17th president, Jim Yong Kim, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
So naturally this was greeted by a “joke” based on his ethnicity (Korean, BTW).
An e-mail that referred to College President-elect Jim Yong Kim as a “Chinaman” and warned the campus to prepare for “Asianification” has sparked controversy on campus, less than three days after the announcement that the Harvard professor and global health leader would be inaugurated as the College’s 17th president. The e-mail, which was sent to approximately 1,000 students and alumni, was the Tuesday morning edition of the Generic Good Morning Message, a student written and edited tongue-in-cheek compilation of each day’s news.
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“On July 1, yet another hard-working American’s job will be taken by an immigrant willing to work in substandard conditions at near-subsistent wage, saving half his money and sending the rest home to his village in the form of traveler’s checks,” the message states, in part. “Unless ‘Jim Yong Kim’ means ‘I love Freedom’ in Chinese, I don’t want anything to do with him. Dartmouth is America, not Panda Garden Rice Village Restaurant.”
We really could have done without this “joke”. Is it too much to ask to just elect the most outstanding candidate who may also happen to add diversity, without this crap? I know it’s a joke, it’s one tiny set of students, but it was just not needed.
Wow. On the one hand, yeah, that’s incredibly stupid. It may have made people laugh thirty years ago, but no longer. Especially out here in Dartmouth land. On the other hand, college students making bad jokes? NO!
Sorry, but I do think it’s mildly amusing, and not particularly offensive. The email was so blatantly over the top that no one could possibly think there was any kind of real bigotry behind it. It was obviously making fun of racists. Sarcasm: a fairly common kind of humor among young people these days. Crazy, I know. We were raised a diet of the Onion and the Daily Show. Who would’ve thought we might use sarcasm in our humor?!
Was that another example of sarcasm or do you seriously the person who wrote this email was so dumb that he thought not a single person at Dartmouth would object to an email comparing the new president to illegal immigrants?
Seriously, if this email was maliciously meant, it wasnt a joke. And I dont mean it wasnt funny, but just that it didnt function as a joke at all. For someone that racist, it would just be a statement of fact.
Seriously… Unless ‘Jim Yong Kim’ means ‘I love Freedom’ in Chinese, I don’t want anything to do with him. How could anyone possibly take that seriously? How humor impaired does one have to be to think that is honestly a racist sentiment? It could have been said by Steven Colbert. It was almost certainly inspired by him.
It sounds like a shitty attempt at a joke like this, except they made the mistake of trying to be as offensive as possible, which doesn’t necessarily produce funny.
You know what’s scary? The thought that someone may be making barely-over-subsistence wages, yet still managing to send half of that income back home, while others who make decent wages can’t save enough to buy a “find my financial ass with both hands clue.”
I KNOW it was meant as a joke. It’s just really tired and it would be nice to elect whoever, with whatever characteristics, and just let it be. I know I can be hypocritical on that in the sense that I would also want to turn around and be happy that he represents diversity, but I could even give that up if it meant it is not noticed at all.
Dr. Kim was gracious about it:
“Finally, I want to ensure that the student who wrote the email understands the enriching role that people of diverse backgrounds will play in his life. But I also don’t want this lapse in judgment to limit his prospects for the future. Dartmouth students are very talented, but we all make mistakes - especially when we are young.”
but it would have been great if it had never happened at all.