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As addressed by NAASCon and AAM, the other CU -- not Columbia but Colorado -- bred outrage three days ago when it published the highly controversial op-ed, "If it's war the Asians want... it's war they'll get". The piece's author, Max Karson, narrates an encounter with an Asian individual ("The Asian") and the realization that the individual showed "hate. Pure hate" towards Karson, a victim of being lumped together with "whitebread, brainless tree sloths".

Karson's resolution to his epiphany ("They hate us all") is 'simple':

It's time for war.
But we won't attack their bodies or minds. We will attack their souls.
The hunt will then begin.

(Read the complete version here)
So remember when I said that David and I love parody?

Well, we do, and this one isn't funny.

If you would like to send in opinions on this, please e-mail theblaaag@gmail.com.

Also read about Max Karson's troubled history here.

From an e-mail fwded by Saffiyah, our ex-BC Vice-Chair:

Dear MANAA & Other Asian American Allies,

I'm writing to ask for help in taking action against yet another example of racism and cultural ignorance.

My girlfriend and I were walking around the West Village of all places, and we came across Cowgirl (www.cowgirlnyc.com), a restaurant on 519 Hudson St. It is a restaurant with (awful online reviews and) the motto of serving authentic Texan food and having an authentic Texan attitude. In its display windows were elaborate decorations of Chinese New Year that correlated with its theme of serving Asian-influenced food for the celebration of Lunar New Year. I wouldn't be writing this email if I felt that the restaurant was honestly trying to pay tribute to the New Year, but what we found throughout the display windows were racist images that reminded us of all the degrading ways Asians have been misrepresented in the American media. There were words written in pidgeon English and in "chinky" letters. There were mannequins of Fu Manchu and Caucasians in yellow face. And like other decorations of bamboozlement, these were meant to be funny, innocent, and unintentional; but the result was demeaning, disrespectful, cheap and repugnant.

Now I've never been to the Texas myself, but most my friends from there are good people. The people of the Cowgirl restaurant might claim that they're only being true to their Texan attitudes to remain insensitive and ignorant, but knowing my Texan friends, I know that this is not an issue of what state you're from -- it's an issue of respect and human decency.


The images from Cowgirl can be seen in the links below:
http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii116/suluseries/Cowgirl%20Racism/
http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii116/suluseries/Cowgirl%20Racism/?albumview=slideshow


Hope to hear from you soon. I would like to know what we can do in educating the public about this.

In solidarity,
Taiyo Na
See images below (click above links for more):




Sign caption:
Confucius Say
East Meets West
Makes Love Go Round

Cowgirl is located on the corner of Hudson and 10th St. Now, I'm not telling our readers to go out there and riot; but I would think about writing a letter to the manager or steering clear from eating there until the restaurant figures out a less tacky and ignorant way to depict the "Exotic East". It's not hard to see that portrayals and stereotypes like these have been (and still are) damaging to the API community.

Well, it looks like Angry Asian Man beat us to it. If you haven't heard already, last weekend's ECAASU introductory speech by Cornell University President David J. Skorton was less than impressive:

During his speech, he referred to the Asian American students attending the conference as immigrants, and claimed to have "a love affair with Asia." Yeah, definitely not the best choice of words. Apparently, the President's comments did not sit well with the conference-goers, because I [Phil Yu] have been getting emails like this all day.
I distinctly remember the reaction after the speech: a lot of students were looking around incredulously, asking, "Wait. Did he just call us immigrants?" Later, a girl also stood up during Q&A with Jeff Chang, the second keynote speaker, and claimed that she was personally offended by the President's speech (as he sat in the front row in the auditorium, ouch). David was sending out private e-mails in an attempt to recover exact lines from the speech, but props to Phil Yu and all the proactive attendees for getting the word out first.

David:

Some details I've been able to scavenge...

The first speaker (a dean) also gave us a list of Asian countries that have produced the greatest number of international students for Cornell - China, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Singapore. One of the speakers also enchanted us with the story of the first Asian student at Cornell. (Obviously an international student.) He then went on to talk about the contributions of Asians to Cornell University, at which point most of us had either conked out or were viscerally pissed off at the guy.

A part of me wonders if they could have done their speeches better if they had just cracked open the program...

Marilla:

After reading an anonymous comment, I realized that our general sentiment towards ECAASU may be misunderstood (which is reasonable due to our lack of live-blogging during the conference and our harmful but habitual internet snarkyness). If this isn't clear - we had a cold-reckless-amusing-and-inspiring blast. Yes, the President's speech was unnerving (when the words finally sank in), and we questioned some of the conference's co-sponsorships; but ECAASU is one of the oldest APA conferences on the East Coast and is known to uphold an excellent tradition of spreading awareness. Our thoughts are merely for future boards (Rutgers in 2009) to keep up the good work, and (in line with David's comment) to confirm that university presidents read the conference program carefully before letting themselves get comfortable at the podium.

Check these out. One is funny, another well-intentioned... and the last is plain ridiculous. Leave your thoughts in the comments.







It's called Stuff White People Like.

Introduced to us by Nhu-Y, SWPL is formatted as an ongoing list of, well, stuff that white people like (mmm, race normativity). Each entry is a new item on the list, and each is chock-full of satirical logorrhea. SWYPL's writers spare their readers the agony of figuring out the point of this blog by leaving a refreshingly short and anthropological self-description:

This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable.
Now if parody isn't your thing, or if you are easily riled by anything racially suggestive / easily offensive (e.g. A Shot At Love), then avoid this site at all costs. It just so happens that David and I are South Park junkies, so we love parody and -- in recognizing the problematic practice of scientifically studying races -- love this shit. We hope against hope, however, that it really is parody that drives this blog.

Some favorites include:

#11 Asian Girls
#45 Asian Fusion Food
#62 Knowing what's best for poor people
#66 Divorce

Read, laugh, and enjoy.

Even though we were terrible with the whole live-blogging deal, here are some pretty pictures... Sorry, no pictures of Gary Okihiro (affectionately called G-yo) or from our workshops, but we were too lazy during workshops and you can probably see Professor Okihiro shopping at the frozen meat section of Fairway.
(Click on the captions for website links)


Audience (nearly 1,000 attendees) at the keynote speeches in Bailey Hall





iLL-Literacy (L-R: Adriel, Ruby)

Blue Scholars (L-R: Sabzi, Geo)


 

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