I’m giving a storytelling workshop and performing an excerpt of my “Amok” monologue, “All Pucked Up: A short history of the American Filipino,” at the Filipino American National Historical Society conference in New York City on June 24.
Read about it here, on my blog post on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund site.
Also, I reflect on Vincent Chin, 34 years later.
Read the column on Remembering Vincent Chin.
The Washington Post won’t apologize for that “C-man” headline about Yao Ming it used the other day.
Instead of showing some sensitivity, the Post preferred to show off the slur in its full glory.
Because, of course, there’s nothing like getting in a second helping of hate rhetoric when you can under the guise of reporting.
Ultimately, editors did change the word. They just didn’t really apologize.
But say if the story were about a top black player. Would an editor have used a black ethnic slur now commonly referred to as the “N” word? Or would they have truncated it or avoided the word choice completely to accommodate DC’s black readers?
So one must ask, why don’t Wash Post’s editors respect its Asian American readers more than they do?
Putting the word out there in all its glory legitimizes the slur in a way. It says, “It’s OK, we saw it in the Post. ”
Incidentally, even Steve Kerr, the Golden State Warriors coach, was involved in a slur incident involving Yao.
Kerr was a TV commentator at the time, and has since apologized.
But that’s how little respect Asian Americans had in 2003.
And even now, apparently.
And as much as I am a Golden State Warrior fan, and hope they break the record, I must confess I don’t forget the incident whenever I see Kerr, or even Shaq for that matter, on TV.
That’s how deep transgressions go.
Apology or no apology, media slurs cut deep
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Check the latest columns on SCOTUS, Unions, Brussels, Donald Trump and more on the AALDEF blog.
The Donald trails in Wisconsin. When he doesn’t talk about polls, what does he talk about? He is about the act of running. Policy? He’d rather outsource that. By confusing capitalism with democracy, he isn’t taking the time to bother with the issues. If you heard his thoughts on abortion, nuclear weapons, and other things this week, then you know that the Donald sounded like he was channeling Gary Busey on “Celebrity Apprentice.”
BRUSSELS: Here’s a picture of the Filipino American woman who was one of the victims. She was with her husband and four children at the airport. They survived. She did not.
SEE my reporting on the NBCNews.com Asian America site.
