Subject: Sarah the Comic and Chinks

Bart:

Been reading your page for a while, and I generally am with you on most things,
but as I was reading the rant about Pink-Tu-Tu Bill Maher, I was left with a very uneasy feeling.

See, I don't believe Sarah the Comic was racist per se, for her Conan joke,
but being a Chinese-American myself I would say that it was definitely insensitive.
Now I don't know what race Sarah is, but I'm assuming she's white based on your description
of the guests on the show.  Imagine what it would be like if she substituted the word "nigger" for
the word "chink" in her joke on Conan.  "I hate niggers," so I'd get excused, but I didn't want
to be hateful, so I wrote "I like niggers."

It is in my view that such a statement would have drawn out immense boos and a lot of resentment
in Conan's audience.  So why use "chink" then?  Because Asians are a much easier target (unfortunately)
due to their small political and representative clout.  With that knowledge in mind, it is entirely a
huge double-standard that one can so easily pick on Asians, and it's considered "humour", but if you use
a different race, it becomes true racism.  I mean, consider the time John McCain was spewing out "gooks".

Had he used the word "nigger", it wouldn't even matter if he was tortured or not by black people,
he would have had huge flames from everyone the moment he said it.  No one would even defend his
use of that term -- it would have been unexcusable.  Yet he used "gook", and instead we had only a
minor set of flames coming from generally the Asian-American community, while a whole bunch of people
were defending his use of that word.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you were also trying to argue that "hey, Chris Rock/Tucker and
Richard Pryor use racist terms like 'nigger', but it's still ok!".  But the thing is, they are African-American.
Call it another double standard or whatso, but it is deemed more "understandable" should black folks use
the N-word here and there.

Like Dr. Dre said in an interview "If a black man says the word "nigga", it's cool".
Just like if Margaret Cho used the word "gook" (which she has), it's deemed more "understandable".
It's a strange world of racial etiquette, but that's how it is.

I'm not saying that you have to be uber-PC these days, especially coming from a show like
Politically INCORRECT (btw, it's a show which I do enjoy very much).  What I am saying is that I
understand why there would be a discussion on whether it was racist or not, or if it was insensitive or not.
And yes, even on Politically Incorrect you should be able to have discussions about these types of things.
Personally I thought the joke was alright -- not that funny but passable.

Just saying take a look at it from the Japanese guy's perspective.  You may say "lighten up", but that's just
like saying "lighten up" to a black person being called a "nigger" or a latino being called a "wetback" from
someone outside of their race.

My 2 cents.
-Phil
 

Phil, the whole thing is subjective.
You can't say "using chink or nigger" is wrong.

The most important criteria is the speaker's (or writer's) intent.
If Magic Johnson says, "I love Michael Jordan, that nigger can fly," that's not racist.
If Rush says, "I hate to eat in a restaurant with a bunch of noisy niggers," that's a typical Republican.

The whole point of her joke was:

1. You can get off jury duty if you're a racist pig.
2. She wasn't a racist pig, but she still wanted off.
3. She (the dumb gal character she was doing) thought saying "'I like chinks" was OK.

The joke is that she wasn't smart enough to know she was still out-of-bounds.
 

Sidebar:
There's an old joke from when I was a kid.
A girl is playing on a ladder and her mother tells her not to, because
"the boys will try to see your underwear."
So the little girl fools the boys by not wearing any underwear.

It's the same joke.
In both cases, the female tried to do the right thing, but missed.
If you look at the comic's intent, I say she gets a pass.
 

Sidebar:
At the start of PI, Bill Maher looked into the camera and said,
"Please, ABC censors, let us have this frank and honest adult conversation about race.
It's after midnight, so don't bleep these words - let's get this out into the open,"
and then he sat there and let Sarah hang by herself.  That was cowardly of him.

To answer your question about substituting "nigger" for "chink," I can't say, because I'm white.
I have no idea what an Asian or black person feels like in that situation.
I think you have a point, tho, when you say Asians don't have an effective lobby going.

But then again, can we do Polish jokes?
What about midget jokes? Or fat people jokes?
What about blind jokes or drunk jokes or Italian jokes?
Koresh forbid if I lose my right to tell Catholic jokes.

If you want to hear a comic with bad intent, listen to Rush.
Do you remember when he was doing his Jocelyn Elders jokes every day?
That was pure racism - absolutely pure hatred.

She called Eric Clapton, "Eric Clapner," and Rush loved it to death.
He played that clip almost as much as the Ron Brown video.
You know why?

Because the only thing more worthless than a nigger, is a nigger with a vagina.

That was the message he was sending to his scared white boy network.
That's why Rush gets $35 million a year.
That's why Fox News is now bigger than CNN.
That's why all those "Hillary is a cunt" books sell like wildfire.
They're scared, and they need someone to reinforce their racist/sexist/religious bigotry.

What Rush was doing with Jocelyn Elders was 50 times more hateful than the innocent "chink" joke.
Rush proves every hour that you don't have to use bad words to be incredibly ugly and hateful.

Sarah Silverton was doing the opposite.
Her intent was not to divide, her intent was to provoke laughter, to show the stupidity of racism.

Also, I'd never heard of the Japanese fella before, but Sarah said he'd practically "made a career"
(my words out of writing column after column in hundreds of newspapers all across the United States
slamming her for being a racist. I would like to ask that man his opinion of Rush.

I got the feeling from listening to him twist this into a World War II analogy that he's one of those
Medved, Bill Bennett, Laura Schlessinger types who rail against the "racist liberals," but forgive
and excuse pieces of shit like Rush and Hannity and O'reilly, the producers of hate.

Of course, Bill Maher had the power to intervene - to explain - and didn't.

He even allowed himself to be bullied. Anyone who ever watched PI knows it's a free-wheeling,
everything-goes gang-tackle of a show. But whenever someone tried to cross-talk with the Japanese
fellow (I wish I knew his name, it was very short like Oki or something) he would get all cold and insulted
and say, "May I finish my point?" and then he'd go on and on chopping up Silverman.

I think if he had been Billy Bob from Texas, Bill Maher would've said,
"This is my show, and I'll speak when I damn well choose to, Sir."

Once Oki established that it was his show, Maher shrank into his chair and let the girl take the beating.

Maybe Maher's getting into that corporate rut that's currently enslaving Dennis Miller.
Maybe he can make an extra thousand a year by selling his soul and his ethics.

Jesus, if he could remember the name of his own damn show, I'd feel better.

Last thing - McCain, of course he's wrong to say "gooks and chinks."
But if I was hung by my broken arms, I'd have a lifelong hatred for whatever group did that to me.
Sure, it'd be illogical, but that's more human nature than it is racism.

I just found the transcript: "Guy" is the Japanese fellow.

http://abc.go.com/primetime/politicallyincorrect/popup/pi_transcript_frame.htm

 Excerpt:
Guy: But anyway, so she comes on this show here, and she says -- she comes on like a wounded bird,
and she goes, "You know, this guy over here has cast my name with racism in thousands of periodicals
across the country, and it hurts. I want an apology from him." Well, think of the hurt that you felt and
multiply it by the millions of people you offended by using that word, and I think you get a little bit
of a sense of what we feel.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Sarah: You know what?

Guy: One other point, one other point. One other point.
You know, when you're playing with racial slurs, you're playing with fire.
And if you're gonna be playing with fire, expect to get burnt.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Sarah: That is so jackass.
 

That really was the lamest applause line I've ever heard.
What's with this crowd?

Another good exchange:

Sarah: That's true. Racism is so -- exists, you know, and it's not gonna go away.

[ Light laughter ]

Guy: It does?

Sarah: It's not gonna go away through censorship.
Especially censorship with comics.

Guy: So we should just keep bad jokes and offend people over and over again.

Sarah: You're a douche bag, man.

One final point to consider:
A professional comic is a master at insulting people.
I've never done live standup, but I know you have to have an array of insults to come back at hecklers.
(I've seen Richard Pryor and Sam Kinison handle hecklers - it's a riot!)

If Sarah wanted to insult Guy, she could've sliced him open right there on the stage.
She was holding back, but he was being the prick/aggressor.

When you read the transcript, you'll see I was right about "Guy" being a Medved/Bennett/Harpy whore.
Guy said: "There's nothing holding you back. There's no racism.
                  If you don't make it, it's your own fault."

What a whore!
There is no racism?
He'd go farrrrrrrrrrr in the GOP.
Gee, Guy, I guess that explains why there's ZERO elected blacks in congress.
"because there's no racism in the GOP, right, Guy?"
 

I think what he meant was, "If you sell out your people like I did, like Clarence Thomas
and Uncle OJ watts did, like Ward Connerly did, racist whitey will throw you HALF a bone."

"Guy" has apparently made himself a career out of Sarah Silverman.
That doesn't push the cause of tolerance forward one inch.