Next thing you know, the Leprechans will be all riled up over these guys:
>> I just don’t think that the Asian community is picking a very good fight here
I’d like to see the credentials of those who claim to represent the entire Asian community. Those self-appointed leaders probab;y represent themselves and few others.
I was telling my Chinese friend about this and her only comment was an uninterested “I keep telling you Americans are weird”.
How can you look at these t-shirts and not see how an Asian might be offended by it?
When you say that NASCAR fans are all drunken rednecks, then some NASCAR fans will be offended. If you put Sambo on a t-shirt, expect some blacks to be offended. If you put a racial caricature on a t-shirt and make fun of them, some people of that racial group will be offended. HELLO!
Just because you think it’s hee-larious to make fun of an Asian’s accent, it means that the Asians should just suck it up and get over themselves? Please.
A&F have the right to continue selling the t-shirts. They opted to not continue to offend a certain part of the Asian community and pull them. I say good for them. Just because you can be an insensitive clod, doesn’t mean you should be.
“Asians are slanty-eyed yellow-skinned midgets who wear Raiden hats and pwowounce Engwish wewwy stwangewly.”
(Again, I’m Asian and while I personally don’t find the shirts offensive, I can see why some folks would.)
This particular line of t-shirts are pretty stereotype-ish/charicature-ish (the only thing missing was the buck teeth). That doesn’t mean every line of Asian-themed decoration is, of course, but I think A&F were smart to pull these.
Esprix
A&F should make a t-shirt with a caricatured dying Jesus for comedic values.
</sarcasm>
Personally, I don’t see anything horribly wrong with the line of shirts except for the afformentioned Buddha one. They were probably smart in discontinuing the line, though.
Take any caricature of a white person, say Uncle Sam, and the racist message is whites are decrepit, pale skinned, evil looking who wear top hats with the American flag (and everything evil it symbolizes) and say “I want you” (meaning they want to exploit you).
I guess if you are looking for bad things you will find bad things in the most innocent places. Shall we analyze Charlie Brown and find in how many ways it is offensive to whites?
If anyone sees that Tshirt and comes to the conclusion that “Asians are slanty-eyed yellow-skinned midgets who wear Raiden hats and pwowounce Engwish wewwy stwangewly” then he has far more serious problems to deal with.
I was going to comment, then decided not to…it seems everything’s been said.
Sailor, could you explain why Uncle Sam is a caricature of white people?
Caricatures are distorted and exegerated drawings that emphasize characteristics that, in the case of ethnic groups, are stereotypically assocated with said group. Not every drawing of a made up white person is a caricature, just as not every drawing of an made up Asain person would be. Unless there’s some stereotype about white people that I’m unfamilar with (white people have long white beards maybe?), Uncle Sam is not a caricature.
Now, a month or so ago there was a thread on this board about a school on an Indian reservation changing their masoct to “The Fightin’ Whites”, and part of their new logo was a very Father Knows Best looking white guy. That was a caricature of whites.
And the vast majority of whites (that I heard of at least) thought it was funny. They wanted to order the T-shirts for themselves! I think A&B thought Asians would take these campy, over-the-top caricatures the same way and find them equally funny (which, I suspect, many of them did).
And so we come to it:
How many Irish Americans find Notre Dame’s “Fighting Irish” mascot offensive?
Heck, how many rednecks really get up in arms and feeling all victimized by caricactures of rednecks? Hardly any, I imagine. Instead, they probably have T-shirts that read “you know you’re a redneck if . . .”
And in various ethnic enclaves around the US, such as the Swedes in Minnesota or the Germans in central Texas, you’ll find members of those groups proudly playing up their respective stereotypes.
And as for the Irishers’ Celtic neighbors, I have four words:
“Welcoom to Scotch Whirrled!”
Well, you’ll protest, all those groups are part of the mainstream.
And there’s the rub. So are Asians, at least in the eyes many, many people. So why can’t they laugh at themselves, the same way I can proudly characterize myself as a pugnacious short-tempered Scotch-Irish mix?
And the thinness of skin displayed by certain folks over these T-shirts is really a way of protesting, “no, we’re not part of the mainstream! We’re alienated, victimized minorities just like blacks, just like Indians, just like Hispanics!”
WHICH IS RIDICULOUS.
Your ancestors weren’t enslaved, lynched, or dispossessed. Your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents came to the US because they wanted to be here, and (sorry, blanket statement) have carved out a generally successful and well-adjusted life for themselves, and for you.
So have a laugh, and if you want to get even, call me a mick or a kraut or a redneck.
Just smile when you say that.
Can someone PLEASE give me some examples of white caricatures/stereotypes which are offensive? Because I can’t come up with any.
Uncle Sam is a caricature of a white AMERICAN, not a white.
Until we have a racist stereotype of whites which can be used on T-shirts, I don’t see that companies have the right to use racist stereotypes of other races/cultures.
The worst bit is, I bet none of the top brass at A&F (or the ones who had the final decision on the T-shirts anyway) are Asian. I’m hoping someone will prove me wrong on that, however.
Having looked at the shirts close up, I just have to say that these sensitive souls had better steer clear of Hong Kong. You’ll find Chinese people there selling far more ridiculous stuff in the gift shops.
Personally, I would like the Pizza Dojo shirt. How about you?
Tsubaki: you can’t come up with any examples of offensive white charicatures because by and large we won’t be offended. We feel comfortable with ourselves and have this little thing called a sense of humor.
And so do most Asians, BTW and from what I’ve seen. I hung around a couple of Asian student groups when I was in college and many of the club T-shirts and other stuff they designed for themselves were in much the same vein as these A&B shirts.
No doubt each one is free to be find offense where ever he wants but when people find offense so easily where none is meant, I think it is a reflection on them.
I have a good friend who is overweight and hispanic and she is the most collected person I have seen. There is just no way to offend her and if you try really hard to offend her what happens is that she starts to wonder what is wrong with you. She is calm and collected and balanced and secure and you will not offend her no matter what you say. She is a person who is a pleasure to be with as she has such a positive outlook on life.
Well, some years back, at a party, some woman started bitching about sexual harassment and how the whole world is fucked up and went on and on about this and was just driving everybody down. She might feel it was a worthy cause but boy, listening to her you just felt like life wasn’t worth living in such a lousy world.
So my friend jokes: “actually, I consider sexual harassment a perk of my job” and we all got a laugh except that woman who just got very angry and left. Someone, trying to relieve tension said “well, she is right in a way” and her father who was in the room and about to leave said “well, she may be right but she’s impossible to live with”.
And I appreciated the point. Who cares if you are right if you are going to make a big stink about every little thing? Just because my friend makes a joke and refuses to go into mourning about the injustices of the world does that make her guilty by complicity? That woman has the best personality I have ever seen. My point is that you cannot be offended unless you are insecure to begin with and you are looking to be offended.
One more point about the budha: In being so PC you are projecting your western ideas on a culture which has little to do with them. I have been to China a number of times and have entered many temples. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of budhas and many are, indeed, jolly fellows with a paunch belly and a funny smile. There is no way in the world the figure on the Tshirt would be insulting. Budha is not god. He is a wise man. And part of his wisdom shows in that he is portrayed as a jolly old man. So saying “how would you feel if they showed Christ like that?” is just plain ignorant. Now, if you crucified the budha then I can understand they would be upset.
I find it amusing that people would decide what others should be offended by.
Please clarify, are you trying to say Asian’s in America were not discriminated against owing to be Asian? Are you trying to say there is no discrimination against Asian’s now in America? Just for fun, you might want to look up what have become known as the Oriental exclusing acts, Japanese internment camps, etc.
Not sure if those stereotypes you allude to include wearing a conical straw hats, dressing like peasants, speaking pidgin English, writing nonsensical characters on advertisements, and other clearly* ignorant* stereotypes. Maybe you do not find these stereotypes blatantly racist or derogatory, but I fail to see the positive aspects of promoting ignorant stereotypes.
archmichael has some pretty valid points. Some American’s of Asian decent find these shirts funny, some produce something similar for their own groups and organizations, some find them racist. I do not think mainstream America should be dictating to Asians what they may or may not find derogatory.
At best, I think the shirts are in poor taste. Sometimes I like poor taste, but that does not mean that everyone should have to share my poor taste, especially when it comes to racial stereotypes.
(The woman with the dragon is an exception as it depicts a cultural scene rather than a inaccurate parody. Maybe you want to call it sexist but that is another story.)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one who has been arguing that Asians shouldn’t be offended?
How exactly do you write a long post about how a normal person shouldn’t be offended by anything, then close it with that statement?
China Guy: Long time, no see. Glad we’re on the same on this issue.
The question here is not whether offense was intended. To quote Kipling:
Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth with a dagger.
Doghouse Reilly, as I already said, these caricatures which are humorous taken on their own have strong historical associations with terrible acts that makes them not funny at all. If you’re ignorant of that history (and from your comments you obviously are), maybe you can laugh about it. But you can’t demand that people who know the history or have lived it just “get over it.” Especially when it is still happening today.
There is a big difference between Asians making use of Asian stereotypes and non-Asians making use of them or profiting off them. One gesture is funny and subversive, the other is racist. The same words and symbols can have different, even contradictory meanings depending on who is using them. You can deny this fact and live in an anti-PC fantasy world, or you can face reality and accept that you are living in a diverse society and there are some things you shouldn’t joke about if you don’t want to come off as a jerk.
She sounds like a doormat to me.
I love how you turn reality on its head here. Minorities spend a great deal of their time shrugging off racism, not sweating the small stuff, developing an incredible sense of humor about racism whether they want to or not, and when they finally get fed up with it and decide to speak up you feel the need to take five minutes out of your carefree life and say they’re looking to be offended?
Why did you start a thread about it if you didn’t want the Straight Dope?
-fh
Nothing comparable to blacks, Indians, or Hispanics, then or now.
Asians have experienced nothing compared to slavery, or (albeit inadvertant) microbiological genocide, or the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, or genocide, or lynchings extending well into the twentieth century, or . . . you get the idea. Asians claiming that they’ve experienced oppression anything on the scale of blacks will be looked on with contempt by both whites and blacks alike.
Japanese internment? Ethnic Germans suffered much the same in World War I. (Remember “liberty cabbage” and the “liberty pup”?) Oriental Exclusion? Irish, Poles, Italians, and other European groups fared no worse.
American history has its regrettable aspects, of course, but the point is that, excepting (and with good reason) Indians and blacks and (maybe) Hispanics, we’ve all gotton over it for the most part and don’t feel compelled to pick at scabs that have already healed.
You’re comparing being herded into concentration camps (the term actually used at the time) with the temporary renaming of some ethnic foods?
And Europeans certainly had difficulties when they came to the US, but nothing compared to those of immigrants coming from Asia. Asians were outright banned from becoming naturalized citizens for decades.
Check out : http://www.nycenet.edu/csd1/museums/timelines/timeline.html
Doghouse Reilly: You do understand that your position is indefensible, don’t you? You are saying that minorities are only able to get offended in proportion to their suffering in this country.
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Not that it matters because your point is moot, I didn’t realize that Germans were placed in internment camps during WWI. Do you have a cite for this?
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Who determines the suffering cutoff, where minorites can complain? Why is it you? Maybe people are free to be offended when they are offended.
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Have you ever been in a debate in this forum about Blacks and racism? When that topic comes up, people like you are the first to point out how long ago the atrocities took place.