Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

This happened early in December, but I didn't learn about it until fairly recently.

Apparently, Danny DeVito had recently appeared on the television show The View, and he appeared drunk, and this apparently caused quite a stir in various media outlets. (I don't know, 'cause I don't pay attention to media outlets.) So a few days later, Rosie O'Donnell remarked on the show, "The fact is, it's news all over the world. You know, you can imagine in China it's like, 'Ching-chong, ching-chong, Danny DeVito, ching-chong, ching-chong-chong, drunk, The View. Ching-chong.'"

Here's a badly-encoded video of Rosie (warning: contains some chings and chongs): http://youtube.com/watch?v=A0HtTReGt08

This drew a lot of criticism from some Chinese-Americans because it's "racist". But, you know, I can't figure out what's supposed to be racist about it. Her little joke wasn't funny, but it's not racist... it's... language-ist, if anything. If she's making fun of anything, it's the Chinese language, not the Chinese people. That almost the only people who speak Chinese are ethnically Chinese is an accident of history.

Now, if you were to walk up to a guy who looks Chinese and start saying "ching chong", that's undeniably racist, but that's not even close to what happened here. Her remarks might bring truly racist slurs to mind, and because of that she was perhaps thoughtless and a bit insensitive, but calling her a racist over it sounds pretty silly to me, since there's not the slightest evidence that she had racist intent.

Thoughts?

- Kef

Hm. Yeah, I heard about this earlier. I wouldn't say it's racist, because I doubt she had any intention to offend. Insensetive, yes, but not racist.

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I find it racist. In most racial attacks, a particular characteristic of the race is exploited or mocked. Most Chinese speak Chinese, this is mocking their language.

Also, her little joke implies everyone in China is the same in ways of opinion, interests, and language, which is, of course, stereotyping.

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Would you find it as offensive if it were instead German? And where was the outcry when Stewie on Family Guy characterized an African's speech as "click click bloody click"?

I think there's a definite double standard here. I know if a Chinese person badly imitated English, I'd find it funny, not offensive.

Yes.


1. Family guy is offensive so commonly that people fail to care.
2.There are a few "click" noises in African. There are no "ching chongs" in Chinese.

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So, it's okay for something to be offensive as long as it bears some resembelence to what it's mocking? I fail to see your reasoning here, Funk.

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Yes, that explains where "I Ching" and "Tommy Chong" come from. Chinese is indeed not a series of chings and chongs, but they are similar to real Chinese sounds, particularly Cantonese if I'm not mistaken.

I just fail to see what's so wrong about making fun of a language. It's just sounds. If people think it's amusing, we can't really help it. Fact is that all languages are stupid anyway. I love 'em, but they're stupid.

BTW, I forgot to answer this point:



I don't see any element of that at all. People make generalizations like that all the time. If somebody says "In New York everybody's talking about...", how often does a New Yorker take offense and say "Hey, I don't think that!"?

- Kef

No one should be offended by the truth. For example, if you came out of an examination, and someone tells you your score, you are not offended, even if it is low. If someone says "You are an idiot", you would be offended.

Anyways, i guess it is all about context. You can say the same thing in two different situations and have to different reactions.

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I think this is a big deal because Rosie takes offense with everything she doesn't agree with. She nitpicks and calls every action done by everyone "homophobic". Remember her little spat with Kelly Ripa?

I'm surprised she didn't call Donald Trump a homophobe because at least one of his long line of exes doesn't include a man.

Her constant "that's offensive and you know it!" type actions are the reason people are making anything of this.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Funk makes a good point, surprisingly.

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Kef, I have to agree with what you're saying. Was it racist? No. Was it stupid, and a bit insensitive? Yes. (But the same could be said about appearing drunk on The View.)

I can understand to an extent why some people would be peeved at her. But to call her an all out racist is a bit too much.

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I don't even see why people care so much over these things...

I'm from NJ and our accent gets made fun of, but do you see anyone caring? Let people have their lulz.

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BTW, one reason I dislike this situation so much is that last night I came up with a funny character idea that people could easily dismiss as a racist caricature if they don't look at it carefully. (I still disliked the situation before I came up with this character, of course.)

You see, I thought of a Japanese character named Rando. He looks like Lando from Star Wars and spouts random non-sensical Star Wars-related wisdom, which also sounds like badly written fortune cookies. He speaks English in a Japanese syntax, which just happens to make him sound like Yoda. He would be the "token Japanese character" in whatever I put him in (by that I mean being a "token character" is played up for humorous effect, not that he genuinely is one, of course). This humor is all interconnected in ways that I find very humorous... like the name "Rando" is funny in three ways. It could mean "random", it could be Japanese for "Lando", and it could even be a native Japanese name. But I worry that people will take one look at him and say "Oh, he's a Japanese character who speaks like a bad stereotype -- racist!" and not even take the time to think about why he's supposed to be funny.

I think I did hit upon a solution to my problem -- I could make him a black man (or a half-African, half-Japanese man) who grew up in Japan, so you have this black guy who looks almost exactly like Lando who nonetheless speaks like a somewhat stereotypical Japanese person, which adds an additional layer of humor right there. But I think my Rando character should be funny and relatively inoffensive without having to do that.

- Kef

Truth be told, Kef, the character IS a little bit racist, but it sounds like the humor there is in the "token" quality of him.

Racism, if you take it seriously, is a bad thing, but I see no harm in a little bit of funny stuff, provided you don't do it in a derogatory way.
I wouldn't worry. The way you've described this character, you're saying "this guy spouts nonsensical star wars based phrases", not "all people who have the same heritage of this guy spout nonsensical star wars phrases".

Besides, everyone's a little bit racist.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I know you're not saying that my character idea isn't worth pursuing, so I don't have an incentive to argue, but since this is a debate forum, I'll debate anyway

I still don't see what's "racist" about this, for the same reason that I don't see what's intrinsically racist about going "ching chong". The fact is, of course, that a lot of (not all) Japanese do have bad English language skills... read any technical manual from Japan written in the 1980s-1990s for details. I think the only thing that may be "pushing it" a bit as far as race is concerned is how what he says might occasionally sound like a fortune cookie.

I think maybe the definition of "race" can be tripping us up here... I tend to think of "race" as "ethnicity", the immutable traits you have when you're born. I suppose it can also refer to a nation of people, in which case there's a stronger argument (both against Rosie and my character here), but making fun of nations rather than ethnicities is usually considered fair game as far as I can tell... but in any case I guess we need to agree what "race" is before debating about "racism".

EDIT: Arguably, my black version of the character is more "racist" because the character's ethnicity then becomes important, whereas before it was just incidental... and yet I expect that version of the character would be less offensive because it subverts rather than strengthens a stereotype. Weird, huh?

- Kef

Great, you've awakened a sleeping giant.

Mandy: *sings all of Avenue Q, poorly*

So is she racist or not? Make up your mind.

*slaps Jello*

Anyway, yeah, it's a little racist, but not, like, super-racist. I mean, there are far worse examples of racism out there, why get worked up over something Rosie O'Donnell said?

And I find the Rando idea to be hilarious, by the way.

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