By now, most people have probably heard of the Miami Heat’s attempted Yao Ming promotion. When the Houston Rockets came to town, they gave away free fortune cookies. A lot of people were offended, and the EHat front office had to apologize.
Now, I understand why some people were offended, and I think the promotion was ill-advised. If I’d been in the HEat’s front office, I’d have told them “this is a bad idea. I don’t think it’s inherently racist, but it’s DEFINITELY going to be perceived that way.”
But in GENERAL terms, is it offensive to do an ethnic promotion? Look, EVERYBODY knows that giving out free watermelon in “honor” of a black player would be offensive. So, any PR guy who suggested such a thing would have to be a bigot or a moron (maybe both).
On the other hand, almost ANY time a player with an Italian name comes up to bat at Yankee Stadium, the organist starts playing the Tarantella, and nobody minds, least of all the Italians.
The fortune cookie deal, I think, falls somewhere between those two extremes. It’s not harmless, like playing a Tarantella for Yankee manager Joe Torre, but it’s NOT the same as giving out watermelon on Shaq O’Neal Night.
Opinions? How bad do you think this particular promotion was? Is it EVER okay to use racial/ethnic promotions?
My understanding is that the players themselves generally choose their theme music. So if an Italian player tells the organist that he likes the Tarantella, I can’t imagine that playing it is racist.
I do think the Heat’s promotion is racially tasteless. However, I think the word “racist” denotes hatred or bigotry toward members of a certain race, and I don’t see such malice evident.
I think people are entirely too sensitive about this. I’m asian and I don’t think this was offensive at all. It’s just a cutesy promotion they thought would emphasize Yao Ming and the asian population coming to see him play. I think the Public relations people need a lesson in what constitutes genuine chinese and americanized chinese. As most people know there’s no such thing as fortune cookies in asian culture. As far as I know fortune cookies have never been associated with any ethnic slurs or offense at least not in the way watermelon’s, picking cotton etc… is for black people.
It’s not like they were passing out rice hats and flip flops or something REALLY considered racially offensive.
Unless I really missed something fortune cookies are not a symbol of racist ideals. I can understand a burning cross being thought of as a racist symbol or a Confederate Flag. But a cookie?
We need some new words. Racism is too strong of a word for what happened here. In this case, a word more like prejudice would be better. But that more means favoring, or disfavoring, something in a specific instance.
Yup, the fortune cookie is an US invention, created by the Chinese restaurants. So no, I can’t see anything racist about it, even though I am ethnic Chinese.
Friend of mine was at a baseball game (KC or St. Louis, forget which) where they had a drawing for box seats. Winner got to leave cheap seats, sit on the first base line. They showed the winners on the jumbroton while playing the theme from the Jeffersons (“Movin’ on up!”) A black family won, was NOT amused. There was an apology.
The UCLA band plays the theme to the Jeffersons after UCLA scores and either goes ahead or increases its lead.
But the situation with the black family could have caused some hurt feelings if the people moving didn’t know that the music was played for everybody. If you heard it for the first time, I could understand taking offense.
The fortune cookie promotion is just weird since Yao Ming has likely never seen a fortune cookie anywhere except INSIDE the United States.
Did any NHL teams ever have a “Taco Night” in honor of Scott Gomez during his hot rookie year? He was, IIRC, the first Latino pro hockey player (and, ironically, the first from Alaska).
You don’t see that as a bad thing? I don’t think the intent is the issue, I think it is the image. Someone clearly lacked some foresight on that one.
30,000 fans listen to the announcement and try to search out who won. I can easily see how uncomfortable that long march to the “expensive seats” can be when the theme music for the whole dog-and-pony show is is “movin’ on up”. A song that as recently been sampled by hip-hop artists and has since become something of an anthem for black upward mobility. I think if you pictured the image in your mind it would be uglier than you think.
People overuse the word “racist”. I would say it was shallow. If Yao Ming were a Chinese-American, then it would be worse. But since Yao Ming is a Chinese citizen, perhaps something Chinese would be appropriate in a promotion - like a playing card in Chinese or something less crass than a fortune cookie.
The thing that is potentially offesive about the cookies is what the papers say. If they say ordinary things like "Prosperity is within your reach"no big deal. But if they said things like "Confucius say… "; then the line of taste is crossed.