I used to practice law and I had several Asian clients. One of them came from Hong Kong. He was a hard worker and he loved America. He gave all of his three beautiful children “American” names. He was highly intelligent but struggled with our language. He told me that there were sounds in English that he could not reproduce no matter how hard he tried. Despite his problems with our language he thrived and prospered in his new country. Last year he passed away from cancer, he was 43 years old. I went to my first Buddhist funeral and said good bye to my good friend.
A few days ago while reading BMG I came across a blatantly racist post by a prominent BMG denizen, Lynne. Her posting depicted a Communist Chinese poster with a superimposed photo of John McCain. The poster contained Lynne’s “translation.” It said “Great monetary award for spreading good news of our policies onto the internets for masses to read.” The offensive post was not what prompted me to post my comments; it was the 8 high ratings given to the post by other prominent BMGers.
We have all encountered tortured translations on instruction manuals for Chinese-made products. They have become more and more common as Americans buy more and more Chinese goods. They can be funny to us because the grammar and word usage is so clumsy. To poke fun at the language, however, is racist. It is as racist as the drunken bigot in a Chinese restaurant who asks for “flied lice.” It is as racist as saying “no tickee, no laundry.”
Lynne lives in Lowell, a city that has enjoyed a huge influx of Asians in the last few decades. I don’t know if Lynne has become desensitized to anti-Asian prejudice or not, but her creation of the Pidgin English “translation” demonstrated to me that bigotry and racism is not the exclusive domain of the right. The fact that 8 other BMGers loudly applauded her racist post was particularly troublesome to me. Why no one was offended is amazing to me. The poster seemed funny but many racist things seem funny. That is why there are so many racist jokes in circulation today. Despite that, I would never expect someone like Lynne (someone whom I have come to respect) would stoop to use racist humor and I would never expect the accolades from 8 other BMG denizens on what is, to me, an obviously racist post.
you prefer to assume that we’re all just racists instead? what’s up with that? you’re being indignant without cause or evidence. i’m terribly sorry about your friend’s death, but please don’t use that grief to attack people who are likely allies in your quest to stamp out racism.
You are often strident about the language people use around here…
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p>…usually in the context of gender or sexuality. Yet you summarily dismiss his concerns–claiming he has provided no evidence, when in fact the evidence is in plain sight, if you care to look..
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p>If his friend, or any Asian American, read the quote written on the graphic, they would recognize it for what it was–mocking them for their inability to speak proper English, whether it is true or not. I’m not going to throw around words like “racist” but at the very least it was culturally insensitive and perpetuates a demeaning stereotype of Asian Americans (and many people around here would define this as racist).
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p>In another context–regarding gender or sexuality–you are highly sensitive to this issue, but you’re tone deaf to this.
besides what i’ve said above, you can’t possibly know what the graphic “said” to me, because you haven’t bothered to ask.
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p>this situation reminds me of something that happened to me when i was in jr. high. i was at the grocery store checkout stand with my boss, who must have been about 60 years old. in the rack nearby was a mag with a picture of carly simon on it. i said something admiring. my boss’s response: “do you really want to turn out like that?!” only then did i understand that when he looked at that picture, he saw an unabashedly sexy woman who to him was “sex pot” skeevey. what i saw was the owner of a voice i loved.
…”correct” the langauge people use around here to meet your perception of what is right or wrong? Frankly I find a huge double standard with regards to your above opinion and your policing in the past of the langauge used by other posters.
and i’ll consider a sincere reply. otherwise, i see no reason why i should be singled out and attacked by you here. of al the hateful, bile-spewing trolls we’ve that grace these pages, you pick on me? sounds personal.
very closely and the sublinks associated with it, so you can get up to speed.
i asked you in good faith for a link to something real, and you link back to this diary? go yank someone else’s chain now, k? bye bye.
I hade written my response (below) before I even read what you had to say and I was correct to predict you would turn up the “victim” charge even louder…calling my simple point an inquisition. For someone who loves to throw elbows around here when they think an injustice has occurred, you certainly are unable to accept criticism when your conduct is called into question.
without any merit IS an inquisition. If it talks like a duck, walks like a duck…. Furthermore, where did she claim to be a victim? That’s offensive.
…you apparently want to keep youself in the state od denial, so let me recap. Regular Joe says that a post insensitive to Asian Americans was made here and that many other BMG posters–including you–thought it was very funny and rated the comment a 6.
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p>You dismissed RG and I simply pointed out that you often–as recently as 3 days ago— are critical of the words and actions of others. (Maybe Erinie will want to expand on your language policing around here?)
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p>When I pointed out your apparent two sets of rules, one for you and one for others, you profess to be clueless as to what I’m talking about. Go right ahead to plead a dumbfounded ignorance, but don’t play the victim–it is a role that you can not play in a convincing manner.
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p>To dispell your attempt to play the victim of a “personal attack”, I remind you and others that YOU started this process by responding to the post by dismissing it for lacking evidence. I simply responded to your non-answer(s) and continue to. Maybe you should address the issue at hand instead of hiding behind evasive scarcastic language.
I did not call Lynne a racist. There is a difference. I do not know what is in Lynne’s soul but I do know that she mocked the way Chinese people translate their language into English.
Oh please, come off it. Honestly, shame on you for ever putting Lynne’s “soul” into question.
Chinese culture and accomplishments have made great contributions to the world. Chinese politics, on the other hand, deserves all the derision we can pile on. I believe Lynne’s point was that in her view McCain is engaging in propoganda and then seeking to let us believe the masses are behind him, much the way China and other dictatorships operate. China seeks to be a great world player and is certainly capable of being one, but even during the Olympics, which was supposed to be a great boon, it’s not doing itself any favors with censorship, etc.
the poster was objecting to using Chinese pidgin English,rather than the content. If you think about it, it’s kind of like “axe the Governor.” I don’t think he’s being unreasonable.
… but I think a comment on the thread would have sufficed to make the point.
from someone who gets it a lot. I was just thinking about this the other day and was going to post it here but everyone always attacks the messenger instead of addressing my issues/questions.
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p>When it comes to humor, we are a little twisted. A few of the posts above talk about racial jokes and “insensitive humor”. Well guess what, go to any popular “comedy shop” or watch any of the popular comics on cable and you are in for some nasty, mean, guttural, explicit, racial, ethnic and anything else that offends you kind of humor. And the crowd can’t get enough of it. You name the stereotype and they are pounding it with jokes and people are choking from laughing so hard.
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p>So… what does this mean? Can we tell those jokes at the dinner table when we get home, can we tell them at the office copy machine or at meetings, could I include one in our weekly jokes? No, of course not. So how come THAT is the humor we want (and the we includes blacks, whites, hispanics, asians and every other race)… but THAT is the humor we will not stand for? Again, this issue has no party affiliation and I believe crosses all social/ethnic/class boundaries within the country.
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p>It may give some insight as to why some felt the joke here was just a joke, while others felt it in poor taste.
If I’m at a comedy club, I understand that anything goes and laugh with it. But a political discussion, particularly among activists who profess to be sensitive to these issues, I would expect different behavior.
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p>And let everyone note the time and date…JohnD defending Laurel, Lynne and all.
AS I said, this strange behavior of condemning a certain thing but then loving it (racial humor) has often confused me. I was taking the opportunity of the post to bring it up.
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p>I would be very curious about how people feel concerning this? I mean are racial jokes funny and acceptable? If so, fine. If not, can you please tell me why there are so many people telling racial and racist jokes on TV to sold out audiences?
Hit the nail right on the head. I had the opportunity to see Cambridge home boy, Lenny Clarke live about five years ago. In his show, he ripped a very prominent elected, gay official. It was hysterically funny….but I wouldn’t have found it all that funny if I had heard that…at say, city hall or the state house. It’s because in political arenas, Dems do strive for inclusiveness. And it has to be acknowledged that BMG is not just a private “club” but a political, public arena in and of itself.
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p>The reality at BMG is that this board has ripped remarks by various people in the past, on the political stage, for being racist or at the very least, tin-eared insensitive. We can’t have one standard for some people, and another standard for our own. It would smack of h-word.
… did anyone take the poster as satire? Does satire still qualify as comedy?
Racial satire. Please share it with your Asian friends and see how they like it.
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p>As I have said, racial humor is funny, just go to any comedy club and that is about all you will hear. This is not a comedy club and I do not see much racial humor on these pages.
… as satire of communist propaganda. That is the subject of the post (which was mine, not hers btw), so I took it that way in context.
Since when was BMG 100% serious, 100% of the time? We’re as snarky as any political humor website. Lynne was OBVIOUSLY going for just as much satirical humor as what you’d find on the Daily Show. In fact, her post was a great deal tamer than a lot of what I’ve seen on the Daily Show.
of speaking sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I did not want to reply to her post but the more I thought about it the more I felt obligated to respond. Why? It is not right to do what Lynne Dice Clay did, it is that simple. If she did it on purpose then shame on her, if it was unintentional then someone had to tell her that her post was racist. Sometimes people make mistakes and sometimes they just say racist things on purpose. If someone utters the N word in your company you have two choices, say nothing or say something. I said something and will continue to do so.
Above you said you aren’t calling Lynne a racist, but now you libel her with the name of Andrew Dice Clay. Sorry Joe, but you have no higher moral authority. You’ve just proven it.
Lynne is clearly not anything like the offensive Andrew Dice Clay, on the other hand, her poster was something Andrew Dice Clay would dig.
Regular Joe is on the watch….
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p>Lynne Dice Clay? Hypocritical much? So you feel that it’s okay to attack someone, oh sorry wait, use sarcasm while at the same time complaining about a sarcastic posting?
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p>The post was about McCain and astro turf, then a reply comparing it to propaganda. Somehow in your twisted little brain you became offended.
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p>What is truly troubling is the frame of your post, using a person’s life, one who died of cancer, as a backdrop to this idiocy is simply incredible.
Laurel’s point stands. Sheesh, talk about hypocrisy.
talking to someone, asking them what exactly they meant, instead of blowing it up into a major post? You obviously don’t care one iota if it was a simple misunderstanding – “if it was unintentional” – because instead of asking what Lynne meant, you called her a racist and have casted doubt on her “soul” countless times in this thread.
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p>Your diary is nothing but a trollish character assassination and far more offensive than anything Lynne’s ever written on this board.
at least if it was anything along these lines. MAYBE it wouldn’t have been outright offensive if RegularJoe just asked Lynne for a simple explanation, instead of gleefully going on an drama-filled, lamo attack.
oh thats ok though?
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p>You people are out of your minds
… dictator like policies of propaganda… sure. If the shoe fits…
from a hole in the wall, but based on what she has posted here, I would bet my right arm there’s not a “racist” bone in her body. Not a one.
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p>I have not first-hand knowledge of the post the diarist references, but I am certain that Lynne meant no disrespect and absolutely no harm in her comments. All of us, at one time or another, have made a culturally insensitive comment in our lifetime.
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p>Perhaps what is needed here is a much-needed lesson in vocabulary. Racism is an institutional concept, bigotry a personal concept, and insensitivity somewhere far removed from the visceral level of bigotry but something, much like an aftertaste, that persists in the cultural milieu that really doesn’t belie prejudice or reflect a person’s values.
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p>IOW, as we say in literature, context is everything. And Lynne’s contributions on this site speak for themselves. An unthoughtful moment does not a bigot make. Lynne is not a “racist,” and neither are the people who recommended her comment.
I think it depends on whether you find broken English to be inherently “racist.” Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I think it’s just a fact of life, and that it somtimes sounds “funny” to us is just human nature, not necessarily a sign of racial animus. And in the case of what Lynne posted, the image also commenting on a cultural and political distance and dissonance.
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p>I hear you, RegularJoe — often that language difference is used to humiliate people. On the other hand, there’s a reality here … what do you make of the Olympic website of Chinese state television?
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p>I don’t know. I’m willing to be convinced I’m just being a clueless white guy here. I’m not there yet.
With slightly different bad english, would it still be racist?
car drive you!
I don’t think so. I think that there is a deep seated prejudice in much of America against Asians and Asian Americans.
did you hibernate through the cold war or something? Of course there’s a “deep seated prejudice” against Russians by many in this country. That pretty much goes with EVERY ethnicity and minority – and not just by Americans.
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p>That said, that doesn’t mean Lynne’s post was ‘racist’ or that her “soul” should be questioned. Honestly, Lynne’s post wasn’t even satirical in the way you ‘found’ it. If it were making fun of the Chinese-English translations found in direction manuals, etc. it would have been much more obvious in its grammatical errors. It was clearly satire aimed at comparing McCain with the propaganda machine that’s controlled China for near on a hundred years now. You would have known that, too, if you only had… you know… asked Lynne what she meant, before you attempted to assassinate her character. Way to go!
We don’t have a tradition of anti-Russian prejudice, but there is a history of some anti-Chinese discrimination.
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p>The context thing.
There are few immigrant groups who have come to America who have faced more prejudice. It is a sad history.
have faced stiff prejudice. Clearly, you need to read more history… and read more current events. Or did you miss the fact that the Federal Government just a year or two ago raided a New Bedford business in one of the biggest ‘stings’ ever, taking in every minority working there, citizen or not, keeping them from their kids for days without giving them a phone call (until public pressure finally made them give in)… all because their skin is a different color and they weren’t born here.
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p>Feel free, though, to read about what the first settlers did to Native Americans and their sons and daughters continued to do for generations. Then take a look at how we treated Africans, who we created new definitions for how terrible slavery could be. Even people who looked like the majority in this country 100-200 years ago were treated horribly – Irish need not apply. Italians are just a bunch of a bunch of crooks and gangsters. Etc. etc. etc.
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p>That’s not to say Asians haven’t felt it bad, or even worse. Who knows who’s felt it the worst? This country has a horrid history; it doesn’t make sense to try to rank these kinds of things, only bitterly rebuke all of them and make sure we create policies that no longer propagate them (as Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats are doing re: latinos).
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p>I think it would have be a brilliant move on your behalf to talk about racism and raise awareness, but doing it through character assassinations, by taking posts out of context and refusing to communicate with the posters to figure out what they meant, is beyond deplorable and really ruins any credibility you could have had at discussing racism in America.
…thinking all Chinese are as ignorant and ham-fisted as the current government of Beijing. I don’t see this as mocking all 1.3 billion Chinese, but rather unsteady and laughable efforts to promote a failed ideology. Whether it’s the creepy art, or the language that misses the mark, but a regular reading of Xinhua News shows that China has a better grasp of the English language than it does of persuasive subtlety.
most Chinese who try are as ham-fisted as Lynne’s translation suggests. At least, that was my experience during my three months in China last year.
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p>That said, the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Chinese don’t know anywhere near enough English [or, Engrish] to even come close to a translation.
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p>Personally, I think you’re on to something though. First of all, it’s a dig on those who’s native language is Chinese and who make poor translations to English. That’s not racist, in the sense that those who are Indian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Filipino, Pacific Islander, etc. are Asian but don’t mistranslate in the same style. It is making a cultural observation that doesn’t shine Chinese in a positive light if proper English is the measuring stick. If making an effort to communicate ideas in languages that are vastly different than the native language is the measuring stick, then I’d argue that the Chinese are doing an excellent job, and that the mistranslations are nothing of which to be ashamed. I know I loved the mistranslations when I lived in China, because the alternatives were (a) no translation, which was no good for me, or (b) me learning to read Chinese, which was also no good for me.
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p>Secondly, it’s a dig at the overly controlling government, not at the people in general. This makes it a political cartoon — and those get far more latitude to be culturally insensitive since they’re casting light on a more important point.
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p>Was drawing Muhammad political cartoons culturally insensitive? Yip. Was drawing Muhammad political cartoons important to our society? Yip.
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p>Miss Lynne I give you extreme humble solute for your pleasure.
Given how different Chinese and English are, I imagine people who can manage a faithful translation that is grammatically clean are few and far in between. This is why the dictate is usually to translate into one’s home language.
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p>I am sure that I provided many a francophone with a chuckle while I was living in Montreal, doesn’t mean I think francophones are necessarily racist…I remember when a friend of mine ordered a wh-re at Burger King because of a slight mistake in her French. Am I racist because I laughed?
Do you find Peter Seller’s portrayal of Inspector Clouseau deeply offensive?
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p>How about this clip from the movie Casablanca?
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p>I refuse to feel guilty for finding humor in the obstacles humans inevitably encounter when plunging into an unfamiliar language. The answer is not to deplore laughter at language mistakes. Rather, why not take a bold plunge into Chinese (or some other language) so that your efforts might provide reciprocal hilarity for a native speaker?
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p>”We pray for General MacArthur’s erection!”
it is offensive. A comedy film is a comedy film, a political commentary is not. Lynne was being funny and she did it by mocking the way many Chinese translate their language to English. Don’t you see the difference?
I guess I’m too stupid to understand why blogs should have distinct standards for what constitutes acceptable humor.
a Walt Disney Uncle Rhemus poster with a picture of Obama and some Mark Twainian dialect? You think that would pass muster? Why don’t you try it? It will give you something to do today. Make the poster, put it up on BMG and watch the fireworks ensue.
My ignorance is regarding why movies and blogs must have different standards.
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p>Look, in my job, I often provide coaching to younger scientists from a variety of Asian and European countries as they put together and polish presentations and papers. Often we share a laugh together over their nonstandard English sentence constructions or word choices. And it is typically a very useful laugh, for when they genuinely appreciate the humor (and you can see it in their eyes), you know they’ve internalized the English lesson.
that it is a very difficult transition to make when you translate Chinese to English. I am monolingual. One day when my wife and I were in France I went to a courthouse in Paris and sat there for about an hour just to see how they did things over there. I had taken French throughout Junior High and High School and scored high enough on the AP French test to be exempted from my language requirement at UMass. Let me tell you that I caught one word out of twenty and had no idea what anyone was saying. I would never want to be a stranger in a strange land.
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p>I would have fun with my friend too when we would try to communicate intelligently. Laughing with someone is different than laughing at someone. Lynne can be strident about speech and I think my post raised an appropriate point. She was poking fun at McCain by using racial humor and I do not see racial humor being used on this blog.
… she was making fun of McCain by using satire of propaganda… not racial humor. You found a racist element in the manner in which it was done, but the ‘humor’ in the poster isn’t the language, it’s the communism. The juxtaposition of a GOP nominee finding common ground with communist policy is the satirical element.
did she include the “translation?”
did you get to define what this blog is, or isn’t? Heck, not even David, Bob and Charley can really do it at this point. They opened Pandora’s box.
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p>You obviously need to read more of the posts here before you condemn someone for the style of blog or comment they write here. There’s been lots of satirical posts; this site isn’t just plain, boring political commentary… it’s also snark, it’s also political humor, it’s also many other things.
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p>Lynne was being funny and she did it by mocking JOHN MCCAIN and his attempts at propoganda and controlling the message like the Chinese political leaders. Don’t you see the difference?
When languages are translated too directly (word for word rather than for the overall sense), comedy often ensues. Especially when translated by supposed professionals for official communications. This was the specific genre of Lynne’s parody, and it’s only a distant cousin of mocking pidgin English by real people.
According to his bio, “Nury Vittachi (“Mr Jam”) is one of the few authors in Hong Kong to be internationally published in multiple languages. He first became well-known in East Asia writing under the Chinese name “Lai See” in the South China Morning Post. His columns in the Far Eastern Economic Review and regular slots on the BBC, CNN and CNBC have made him a familiar face in Asia. He writes stories for young readers under the name “Sam Jam The Story Man”.” Full details can be found on his homepage.
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p>Click here for the article. Here is a short selection:
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p>
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p>Do you think Vittachi is a racist?
I said that the post that mocks the way Chinese people translate their language to English was racist. It was poking fun at Chinese people. It was insensitive and coarse.
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p>Regarding the article, it seems to be to be an article about the exact difficulties I am talking about. You underscored my point here. Had Lynne been talking about the difficulties people face communicating in a foreign language it would have been different. Instead she was just trying to be funny by making fun of the way Chinese people communicate in English.
So finding foreign accents or idiosyncratic syntax funny or amusing is racist* behavior?
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p>*You really mean bigoted, not racist, but I’m not going to press the vocab less again. Institutions are racist; individuals are bigoted.
I said the post was racist. I did not say Lynne was anything. I don’t know her. I did read the POST and found it to be racist.
don’t spontaneously generate, we can only assume the “racist” qualities you detect in the post originated from the actual human who wrote it.
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p>Your distinction is preposterous. Humans are the source of bigoted behaviors, and their bigotry is evident to us only through their actions, e.g., writing, speech, or behavior. So either the human who produces the words or actions is bigoted or not.
and has not one racist bone in her body is incapable of writing a racist joke? Even by accident? What she wrote was racist or bigotted or whatever you want to call it. I do not know Lynne, I do not know one thing about her. I never called her racist I merely pointed out that the post was racist. There is a difference. I may be just a typical white person but I believe that sometimes good people say or do insensitive things. If you would read my comment I said what was amazing to me was that 8 BMGers gave the post rave reviews and that no one objected.
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p>Accidental bigotry? Accidental racism?
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p>Clearly you do not understand the meaning of the words you are using. Bigotry and racism, by nature, are not accidental qualities. Either an institution, by its policies, is racist in its historical behavior or it isn’t. Racism is established by a record of behavior. If a policy is developed or implemented that gives the appearance of bigotry, then an evaluation of the institution’s behavior on the whole is in order to determine whether or not the policy is incident or pattern. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the institution’s historical policies are not racist, then the offending policy is an example of an occurrence of cultural insensitivity, not longstanding racism.
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p>The notion works essentially the same way for individuals. Bigotry is established by a history of longstanding behavior. Given Lynne’s history of comments here, one would be hard pressed to find an example of bigotry in her writing. If you would like to argue that her comments were culturally insensitive, you are free to do that, but the burden of proving Lynne a bigot is upon you.
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p>
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p>Then you are entirely unqualified to determine whether or not Lynne is a bigot. And because you admit that you have no historical knowledge of her behavior, you are consequently unable to deem her comments bigoted in nature. You may make a case–and it appears you would like to–that her comments are culturally insensitive, but you have no basis upon which to deem her statements bigoted.
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p>
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p>This is nonsense. You are misusing the term racist, so you should stop doing that. Continuing to insist that a “post” is “racist” is simply ridiculous, and any legitimate point you may be trying to make is erased by your imprecise language. If you insist on holding Lynne to a certain standard of expression, you should hold yourself to a similar standard. Do you see the hypocrisy of your criticizing her language with willfully imprecise language of your own?
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p>
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p>Self-deprecating qualifiers like “I may be just a typical white person” are meaningless. What is a “typical white person” anyway? Shall we go down the path of this insensitive statement?
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p>You are uncomfortable with the notion that your application of the term and its more correct counterpart, “bigotry,” extends beyond the words on the screen to the person who wrote them. That’s a good thing. You cannot have it both ways.
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p>You might consider this: if you are offended by Lynne’s comments, you might be well within reason to characterize them as culturally insensitive. In doing so, you are able to withhold judgment of her personally, which is something you insist you want to do, while focusing attention on the words themselves. Instead what we have here is your extremely defensive and nonsensical protestations about racist posts by nonracist people. Any serious point you might have made is lost in the silliness of your unwillingness to acknowledge your own confusion about the meaning of words. How ironic.
referred to people as typical white person. Remember? Or were you told to forget that. Sometimes good people say or do insensitive things.
Repeating myself from July 31. Beginning of quotation.
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p>I was reflecting a bit on the the phrases “typical white person” and “typical black person”. I can’t imagine using either phrase but for different reasons.
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p>”Typical black person” seems to be a coded way of making a bigoted comment about a black person. Before the 1950s, racism got expressed explicitly, boldly, and vigorously. After the 1960s, racism happily became incorrect. Racists and the politicians appealing to them learned the art of wink and nod. Given this historical background, you can be sure that whatever “typical black person” means, it’s not nice.
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p>I’m a little at a loss to figure out what “typical white person” means. As I recall Obama was suggesting someone with a typical level of prejudice against black people. He was talking about a relative and commenting on her evolution regarding race. Ripping the phrase from its context probably makes it sound worse — particularly if we repeat it to ourselves insanely often.
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p>It sounds worse. But how worse?
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p>It’s hard to nail the meaning. There isn’t a group of people making coded appeals to anti-white racism. Well, there might be, but they’re out on the fringes. That means we must guess.
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p>Is a “typical white person” stereotypically affluent?
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p>Or does a “typical white person” live out a life of Doritos and bad television on the sofa?
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p>I’m not sure what image this phrase is supposed to evoke. I certainly doubt that Barack Obama was suggesting a family member was rich or over-fond of reality TV.
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p>End of quotation.
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p>On further reflection, I think Obama was eliding in a way not uncommon when one is speaking. “Typical white person” was actually short for “White person with a typical amount of prejudice … .” The latter requires pretzelly parsing to be seen as racist.
sometimes say insensitive things. That does not mean we have to muzzle ourselves when a racially insensitive thing is uttered by someone who is not racist. Lynne seems like a nice person, but I found her poster to be offensive.
I’m inclined to agree: I think things that are said or written can have a racist effect, even if unintentional or unintended.
… is one important element being missed here. How much of the ‘racism’ is inherent in the text vs. how much is ‘read into’ it. As has been noted elsewhere, the text presented isn’t actually pigeon. It doesn’t display the characteristic mispronunciations or inflections of pigeon, but rather the characteristic grammar of an overly-literal translation. You’ll find, of course, overly literal translations of almost any language can ‘sound funny’. Indeed, taking a moment to ‘overly-literally’ translate German and this point becomes obvious. That said, there isn’t really a racial component to the characteristics of the text, merely a linguistic one. So that being said, the literal text doesn’t really have a racist element in it but rather, we tend to read one into it because poking racist fun at Asians by accentuating the characteristic misuse of a typical Asian who is very very new to English seems like an obvious way to do it. Indeed, taking the text in isolation of the context of the post or image, you’d have a hard time figuring it what language was being made fun of, if indeed that was happening at all. If anything the most obvious characteristic of the text is it’s communist character.
to remember? That Obama used that phrase? And who would have “told” me to forget it? What a strange idea.
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p>I hadn’t forgotten that he had said it and the phrase is, candidly, as problematic now as it was then. As has been pointed out, its meaning is obscure, suggesting different things to different people.
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p>No kidding. Thanks for deconstructing the need for this mess of a diary.
I think you are probably a good egg too.
Sometimes good people say something that they wish they could take back. Sometimes when we try to be funny we end up offending someone we did not intend to offend. We sometimes hurt ones whom we would never want to hurt. I once used the term Moslem on this blog and was vigorously corrected, I did not know I was being offensive but I learned that I was. I think it was sabutai who corrected my ignorance and I am thankful for it.
http://www.americanmoslemfdtn….
and one that I don't really care much about. But a quick and highly unreliable google search found this among many other unreliable websites
http://www.network54.com/Forum/194034/thread/1056658275/last-1057595688/The+Offensive+%22%3BO%22%3B+in+Moslem
Woah, there, nelly. You’re walking a very fine line there. You haven’t outright called her a racist, you’ve just said that she acts like one. You don’t know Lynne at all, yet you call her soul into question countless times in this thread. It sounds an awful lot like you ARE calling her a racist, but trying to get away with it.
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p>Next time, if you don’t know a person at all, or if you don’t know what the intentions of a post was, try to communicate with the poster, instead of writing an entire diary that calls said person out as a racist.
whoa Nelly? You callin me a horse???
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p>Seriously, Ryan, I wrote a whole post because I felt strongly about the post AND the high ratings it got from so many BMGers. That disturbed me and I wrote a 3 paragraph diary about it. I thought that this was what the blog was all about.
Woah nelly.
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p>Courtesy of Urban Dictionary:
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p>
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p>If you had done that after you asked Lynne what she really meant, giving her an opportunity to defend herself, then I wouldn’t be complaining right now. Instead, you assumed your own interpretation of what she meant and ran with it. Then, after numerous people corrected you or called your arguments into question, you proceeded to ignore them and maintain your assumptions and debunked arguments – ignoring any kind of board etiquette or, as you put it, “what the blog [is] all about.”
You just don’t get it do you
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p>It is hypocritical to make racist comments after berating the right for making them
First you state:
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p>If the tortured translations by some chinese manufacturers happens and, as you say, is becoming more common, how does parodying that fact equal racism? It doesn’t. Neither Lynne, nor anyone else on this blog, has stated that all Chinese are incapable of learning english nor, for that matter, has she, or anyone else, stated that all Americans are incapable of learning chinese. Statements like that would be bigoted. But what you are describing certainly is not.
If you are just describing the translations it is not. But she was trying to be funny by making fun of it. Corporations do not translate, PEOPLE do. Lynne wasw poking fun at Chinese PEOPLE. Stop doing back flips and face the facts.
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p>Not that!
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p>God forbid we should ever live in a society so politically correct that poking fun at someone — for any reason — should be viewed as racist behavior.
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p>Joe, do you call people out if they say “Ahhhhnold” when mentioning the governor of Caleefornia?
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p>I’m not racist against black people, but I’ll poke fun at the ones who talk urban dictionary more than Merriam-Webster. I think what your problem is, is that you think Lynne is a standard-english supremacist, because her behavior in of itself is not indicative of bigotry towards merely Asians, but people around the world who screw up english. Every accent, mistranslation or whatever has been satired, made fun of and laughed at by us. Chinese to english just happens to be some of the funniest.
I know racial humor is funny. Humor has its place on this blog but I don’t think that racial humor belongs. Maybe I am wrong, if so, let the jokes fly.
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p>But I am who I am. I don’t say something is “retarded” because two close family friends have special needs children. One of them once told me how much hurt she feels when she hears the word. I don’t say the N word, sorry.
Lynne was not being a racist. She was parodying the bad translations that you even admitted take place and are quite common. There is nothing racists in that other than the spin you have decided to put on it. Here is the definition of racism. It is a serious term that should not be used in the cavalier way you have used it. In no stretch of the imagination does it apply to Lynne’s post. If it did, one could easily apply it to some of your statements, such as,
and he gave his children “American” names. That is what he chose to do. He thought of himself as an American but some people on this blog would just think of him as a funny Chinese guy who has trouble with English. That is the impression I get from all of the gymnastics I have witnessed in the last 24 hours. Call it what you want, to me the post was racist.
There is a bias inherent in your statement.
Were they african american? Dontelle? Jerome?
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p>Were they affluent white american names? Madison?
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p>Were they southern white american names? Billy Bob? Jimmie?
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p>Were they Italian american names? Vinnie? Tony?
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p>Were they irish american names? Patrick? Sean?
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p>If we were all as culturally sensitive as you, I might be offended that you just called it “American”.
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p>Point: You can’t walk around being offended by everything, because everyone can find SOMETHING to be offended over by anything someone does.
it was not so much the message as it was the messenger. If one is militant about speech then they should be held to a strict standard and I think that Lynne fits the bill.
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p>My friend used the term “American names” and that is why I put it in quotes. As I said before, he considered himself an American but some on this blog would just think of him as a funny Chinese guy with clumsy English.
Her text and the kind of translations you are constantly referring to aren’t even related. Lynne was poking fun at communism – how many times do you have to be told that. Yet, you continue to say that you ‘don’t know Lynne’ and ‘question her soul.’ Others, including her husband, have corrected you.. and you still repeat the same, baseless attacks. Honestly, these posts deserve zeroes at this point, for continuing your character assassination while willfully ignoring the many corrections people have given you by now. If this post were still fresh, I WOULD be marking them zeroes.
When I first saw that graphic posted I felt uneasy about it but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that was. I certainly don’t think it’s racist at all. But I think the graphic was…cheap. It was going for a laugh that didn’t need to be had about an issue that it wasn’t really connected to at all.
I do know Lynne from a hole in the wall. I can really tell the difference. Each of us carries some bigotry from our upbringing and experience. Yet she’s really low on that scale.
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p>Lynne can be loud and cocksure (hmm, those sound like me too). Racist? Not in my experience.
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p>As for languages, I am teaching myself bits of Mandarin piecemeal, largely from CD lessons. I am not musical and that being a tonal language, I find pronunciation very difficult. That can lead to real problems with native speakers, even more than in English.
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p>The classic example Mandarin teachers use is ma. Pronounced any of the five possible ways, it can indicate a question or mean horse, hemp, scold or mother. You ought to be careful what you are calling your mom.
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p>Yet, Chinese speakers I know almost always understand Mandarin even if their tongue is something else. They can be like the Swiss in that way — very forgiving of misspeaking and very willing to understand your meaning from the context. Moreover, my chums are quick to laugh at their own English shortcomings, like it’s an adventure.
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p>I’m betting you’d be hard-pressed to find native Chinese who find offense in Lynne’s political humor.
We have been laughing with people and at people forever. When you think of it, there never has been a joke told that didn’t have a “victim” or someone who is taking offense to it. I’m sure if we view the “jokes of the week” with this lens we would fine quite a few jokes which offend someone, somewhere… it’s a joke.
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p>”Political correctness” seems to have put a microscope on all the joke telling and what transpired here was a great example of it.
C’mon. You people are frauds.
I guess you are the self appointed arbitrators of free speech then. And I guess each decision is based upon the politics of the speaker.
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p>Frauds
and isn’t that the real point of this discussion?
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p>Who is more righteous when it comes to spotting racism
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p>Is it the left with their overblown political correctness – good example is this post at BMG – and then smugly backpedaling with excuses and defensive measures
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p>Or is it the right with their casualness – Fox news labeling Michelle Obama a “Baby mama”
It must be so tough to actually believe you are morally and ethically superior then everyone else.
regularjoe just threw a roach bomb and n ow I see you all scrambling for cover. I mean more propaganda.
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p>stop judging everyone else and then people like me will stop judging you. Self absorbed frauds.
How is the weather up on your lofty perch?
Interested how neither Ernie, Frank or even Regular Joe bothered to rate the post in question. RJ I can understand, since he decided to write a whole diary on the subject. But Ernie & Frank – smells of the joy of piling on to me.
Lynne writes such obtuse selfrightous crap that I don’t usually read the junk she writes. Tgus she did not get a zero rating from me on her crap post.
you have to spell both correctly.
I can see everything from here.
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p>So obviously I know what I am talking about.
Start to post under your own name you big ‘fraidy cat, and you’ll start to have the right to call people frauds.
What if I told you your coat was on fire?
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p>That’s the best you gut Bob?
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p>Because I don’t go out of my way to let people know who I am?
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p>Hmmmm.
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p>The far left perhpas socilaist democrat is a small small percentage of the American population. The same is true for the the far evangelicaland non evangelical right. Both have some fascist tendencies too.
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p>But my opinion is worthless here because I don’t identify myself? I base my opinionon the same facts everyone else is using.
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p>I also admit my mistatkes once in awhile.
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p>I hope I have some credibility with some BMGers even if they don’t agree.
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p>You do understand the difference Bob, don’t you? Credibility, anonymity, and opinion v. fact?
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p>Come Home Bob! You are becoming too much New York.
I am not sure how much I agree with Regular Joe here, but I admire his courage.
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p>And yes, mine was one of the eight sixes.
Right? 50 comments later and we’re still going round and round on this. Just words. And people who have been so quick to throw the racist/sexist rap at others…are arguing semantics and tap-dancing around a legitimate post, if past practice and tradition are to be considered. It’s as though certain “enlightened” folk can be insensitively funny with “no harm, no foul” committed but not others. Or maybe it’s just that certain groups are ripe for “parody” (Asians, women, Italians) – but not others. I watched people doing bloody gyrations in order to defend the various rants by a certain black liberation preacher…yet, no such understanding or compassion for what Regular Joe has to say? Is there a benchmark on suffering in order to be respected?
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p>Just words…my ass. We either mean it or we don’t.
I didn’t think so and I can’t imagine people here giving him a pass either. So why the pass when Asian stereotypes are presented? Are there two sets of rules around here?
EaBo opined that bho’s lavishly appointed plane looked like something out of the tv show Pimp My Ride. He did NOT compare it to a pimp mobile, and it’s dishonest to say that he did.
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p>There was clearly nothing racist in EaBo’s diary. Get over it.
need to get some thicker skin (on both sides of this little tiff) and move on to something else because everything of substance that could be said about this topic (which was minuscule to begin with) has already been said and now its just getting personal. I love a good fight now and then,but seriously people…get over it.
Al D’Amato was crucified when he used pigeon English while discussing Judge Ito. A career ending joke. Not much leeway given to Al. He was immediately branded a racist, probably still trying to live it down.
D’Amato was making fun of an American-born judge who didn’t speak broken English, pidgin English, or pigeon English, for that matter.
As far as Lynne’s image goes, I don’t have a problem with it. Then again, I’m a big fan of stuff like Blazing Saddles, South Park, and Chappelle’s Show.
I do think that there is a bias problem here on BMG. (No, not that Bias.) It’s not that people are posting racist things- rather, I think sometimes a few people around here are a bit too quick to pull the “bias-alarm”.
Lynne was making fun of an American-born politician who didn’t speak broken English, pidgin English, or pigeon English, for that matter.
I totally missed the thread and don’t have anything unique to say, but I wanted to chime in.
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p>I don’t think Lynne was racist and I disagree with the poster, Regular Joe. On the other hand, I see no reason to be dismissive and insensitive of his concerns; he’s given readers no reason to think he is being disingenuous, reactionary or faux outraged on this topic. We can respect and consider thoughtfully his point of view while still disagreeing with him and exploring the racial territory presented by Lynne’s picture.
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p>Being dismissive is the easy way not to deal with complex issues – we all do it. I’m guilty of it here. I do my best (and sometimes fail) to reserve my dismissiveness for topics and comments that have been repeatedly addressed or debunked elsewhere.
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p>There is a certain faction of commenters here that are dismissive towards any breach of the topic of racial bigotry and sexism. It seems just because something doesn’t immediately strike them as bigoted or offensive, it becomes laughable and absurd that anyone else find it offensive – this is an immediate marker of a closed mine and makes constructive dialog impossible. It also makes it difficult for those commenters to have any authority to point out racism and sexism through their own observations because it makes them seem as if they use these accusations only as convenient rhetorical devices of last resort; they don’t really care about the bigotry as much as they care about being on the winning side of the argument.
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p>Some commenters and some talking points have earned dismissive responses, but not every topic we disagree with need be met with a dismissive attitude.
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p>All that being said, if the poster is going to make a strong claim like calling out something posted by a prolific commenter as racist, a pretty solid case needs to be made and the poster needs to offer far more support and context then proof by assertion. This territory is so subjective that most claims of bigotry are neither empirically provable or disprovable; one can’t assume that merely pointing out that something has bigoted undertones that everyone will automatically see the alleged bigotry. A clearer and more detailed picture must be painted.
Yeah and you are the first one to scream bigot whenever someone stands up to the gay mafia.
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p>Cmon tblade
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p>You are not fooling anyone
Cute.
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p>So unless I agree with everyone that makes a charge of bigotry I must be a hypocrite? ‘Cause that makes sense.
It seemed like such a thoughtful post. When should one be open? When dismissive? How do we know something is insensitive? How careful should we be with all this? How Regular Joe’s concerns could be valuable even to those who think them misguided.
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p>It seemed so intelligent, kind, nuanced.
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p>But you, Libby Rural, have set me straight. Thank you! Thank you for letting me in on tblade’s hypocrisy.
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p>I won’t be taken in by him ever again. Tblade, I won’t listen to your gay mafia or your screaming ever again.
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p>Libby Rural, are there any other instructions I should note down if you can spare a moment?
You must be a bigot, then! BIGOT! BIGOT! KBUSH IS A BIGOT!
regardless of sensitivity, nuance or kindness
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p>the words are abused and the foolishness of this post is a prime example
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p>nothing worse than liberal pseudo intellectuals waxing philosophically about misguided concerns and insensitive thoughts and how they formulate snarks that in themselves show the childlike nature of the writers
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p>
Thank you for your sympathy in the face of tblade’s awful screaming and calling me a bigot.
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p>I’ll tell him to stop formulating the pseudo intellectual snarks, too.
“I knows it now!”
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p>Racism is alive and well on BMG
I will drop the satire.
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p>Your comment was titled:
Thereafter followed a hasty jumble of words some of which you don’t seem to understand. To accuse people of being pseudo-intellectual (do note the hyphen, please) and then to use “snarks” in the plural where “snark” is a mass noun and not a count noun, is just ridiculously self-refuting. It is hard to believe you know an intellectual from a doorknob never mind from a pseudo-intellectual.
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p>If you actually said something that made sense and restricted yourself to words you actually understood, I wouldn’t have had so much fun with your grammar.
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p>Or to quote your first comment, “You are not fooling anyone.”
Can you repeat that?
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p>You made fun of ebonics in that last comment.
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p>”Now you knows it” is a racist comment
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p>Making fun of peoples speech isn’t very funny you know.
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p>But your explanation of it is great comedy!!!!
I wasn’t making fun of ebonics. I was making fun of you — and you “knows” it. In fact, a brief review of African-American vernacular which does indeed have its own grammar suggests you don’t know what you’re talking about even relative to ebonics. “You knows it,” as you wrote two comments up, is not correct African-American vernacular and it’s not correct standard English:
Your bigotry, not mine, is showing.
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p>Might I again urge you to restrict your comments to topics you actually understand?
Of COURSE he has! He keeps repeating the meme that he doesn’t know Lynne, or that he doesn’t know what Lynne’s intentions really were. People keep coming on to say that Lynne is far from a racist, that her post was misunderstood by “RegularJoe” and was meant as a critique on communism, not language. Furthermore, it wasn’t even similar in text to a the chinese to english translations that he was talking about.
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p>Yet he continued to harp on the same tight rope, questioning Lynne’s “soul” and debating whether or not she’s actually racist, and continually saying that her post was racist and questioning whether it was intentional, when clearly his meaning of the post was NOT. He was filling in the gaps of what he thought was offensive, when it wasn’t even meant to be taken that way. And he continues.
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p>That, to me, means he is intentionally disingenuous and faux outraged. This diary is pure character assassination.
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p>This point would have merit if there were plenty of other people who thought this was offensive, especially Chinese posters. The only people who have come to RegularJoe’s aid are Pater Famalias and Ernie Boch – and their ‘outrage’ is completely of the faux-variety.
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p>
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p>And that’s the important part: you only need to sow the seeds of doubt for a successful character assassination: you needn’t prove your point at all, just throw out assertions. It’s the worst kind of post. If I were an editor on this site, I’d have deleted it on the spot.
…but all that was after the original post, and some of it after I posted my thoughts here.
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p>I don’t think the direction Regular Joe has taken was easily predictable from just his original posting – at least I wouldn’t have predicted it. Maybe others are more familiar with his commenting and style? All I’m saying is when engaging someone new or relatively unknown, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt and reply in earnest. If the dialogue devolves from there, I can only control what I put into it.
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p>That said, I don’t disagree too much with what you say here.
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this should be promoted to the front page
the brits really managed to screw up that one. (oh, oh, that must mean I’m racist against British people or something!)
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p>