Stephen Colbert Makes Joke, Twitter Outrage Ensues
- Thread starter KaiserElectric
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useless
Social Justice Rogue
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2007/01/19/the_classless_nfl_culture2
http://fair.org/article/limbaugh-a-color-man-who-has-a-problem-with-color/
http://mediamatters.org/video/2011/01/19/limbaugh-mocks-chinese-presidents-untranslated/175282
http://mediamatters.org/video/2009/09/25/limbaugh-on-holocaust-of-indians-they-all-have/155040
http://mediamatters.org/video/2011/10/17/limbaugh-race-riots-are-part-of-the-obama-admin/183501
More here: http://newsone.com/16051/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/
and here: http://www.alternet.org/20-most-racist-things-rush-limbaugh-has-ever-said
Oruc
Reactionary
, thanks for proving my point
useless
Social Justice Rogue
No where near the level of calling for Rush's show to be taken down.
Mise
isle of lucy
I can see why people were offended by the joke: as Gori said, the satire depended on what he was saying being offensive. I think people have a right to be offended by it, and to voice their views on twitter.
However, the response by those demanding Colbert be taken off the air is completely out of proportion. It's clearly satirical, and it's hardly the most offensive thing anyone has ever said about Asians. Bluntly, the offensiveness in this case is of both the kind and the degree to be tolerated in a liberal democracy. Certainly nobody should lose their jobs over something as mundane and harmless as this -- and nor should Colbert be silenced for this kind of joke. I think the people "campaigning" on twitter (i.e. posting under a hashtag, which hardly counts as a campaign in my books) are over-reacting. I'm sure they feel offended by it, but the demand to take Colbert off the air is completely out of proportion to the offence caused.
tl;dr: the offensiveness of the joke is of both the kind and the degree to be tolerated in a liberal democracy.
However, the response by those demanding Colbert be taken off the air is completely out of proportion. It's clearly satirical, and it's hardly the most offensive thing anyone has ever said about Asians. Bluntly, the offensiveness in this case is of both the kind and the degree to be tolerated in a liberal democracy. Certainly nobody should lose their jobs over something as mundane and harmless as this -- and nor should Colbert be silenced for this kind of joke. I think the people "campaigning" on twitter (i.e. posting under a hashtag, which hardly counts as a campaign in my books) are over-reacting. I'm sure they feel offended by it, but the demand to take Colbert off the air is completely out of proportion to the offence caused.
tl;dr: the offensiveness of the joke is of both the kind and the degree to be tolerated in a liberal democracy.
Oruc
Reactionary
Except you said "no one would have blinked" or no would react, wrong for obvious reasons. As far calling to take it down? what about the whole Sandra fluke episode there was a big stink about that, but no one called for his radio show to taken down? I doubt it
Why do you think Rush is given more of a free pass? Do you think he's more powerful? Is it because its radio? The bone in the nose thing was from the 70s but looks like the Chinese one was 2011. I think maybe it's radio, Michael Savage was saying things on his radio show for years but his TV one was canceled pretty quick over a comment he made. People get in trouble over tweets all the time, the twitter police are very active.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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^Yes, i think we can agree on this one:
Thats like 20 formulas, not one long one.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
Indeed. It is just a shame they don't have the sense to be offended towards the appropriate parties, i.e. the ones which Colbert was obviously lampooning.
What is really hilarious is that Colbert even knew he was going to get unwarranted criticism for this. Yet he did it anyway. That is why he makes the big bucks.
And? The point was to find the correlation between jokes about different races
Also: i think that 5 seconds of google search was all that was warranted to answer his post
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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I think, to an extent, you are going to have to get used to this. This is the place where when even after sharing an experience where somebody was threatened with violence because of their skin color, the response was pretty much exactly, "that sucks, but it still isn't possible to be racist against white people in America." If you push on this issue, you'll get a set of sensible macro issues that ignore the personal level. Those macro issues, as they pertain mostly to economics, are provably true in scale, and they're what you might be overlooking. While a minority, on the issues that people trot out as the important bits of structural racism, Asian Americans are "whiter than white." Thus, aside from a bare minimum of "we shouldn't be racist," and "the 1940s sucked," Asians are largely fair game.
Gori the Grey
The Poster
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Formaldehyde, there's a dimension of this that I don't feel you've registered.
Why should Asians tolerate being mocked in the service Colbert's challenge to Snyder's bigotry toward Native Americans?
Who is your "they"? Asians? or just Asians-as-minorities-can't-tell-em-apart-anyway?
If you frame the issue up as you did in your earlier post--he's acting bigoted to satirize bigotry--then it's what you say: people being clueless to how satire works.
But if you examine the precise structure of this specific instance of satire, it's more complex than that.
Until he doesn't. Just ask Don Imus or Paula Deen. Imus had won himself a lot of latitude, but then one misstep "nappy headed hos" cost him his show. Colbert is playing very close to the line here, and might have crossed it. Now, I think he'll slip out of the outrage, in part for the reason Farm Boy gives, the Asian outrage bear-trap doesn't clamp shut as mercilessly as the African American one does. (Though his knowing that would be grounds for arguing that the offense was even more reprehensible.)
Anyway, his writers have four days to come up with an evasion. I've worked up some possibilities for how they might. I might share them later. Can't wait for Monday's show.
+1776
I am happy that "Asians" in the USA are not as low-thinking/self-accusing as "White" people in the USA, and therefore do not wish to be a pawn in playing 'racial' groups against each other.
MilesGregarius
Half-baked Renegade
Agreed, agreed, agreed.
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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That doesn't make any sense. Most white people of modest means here don't want to play that game either from what I can tell. But the rich white ones are numerous and powerful enough to drag the poor sons of guns along in their bigarse nasty wake.
I agree with you, i also am of the view that it is the so-called 'elites' (of political/economic power) who play this sort of game with the different groups of the population. The usual Divide et Impera.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
I just stated the opposite. Now didn't I? They should be outraged that such Chinese stereotypes continue to exist, just as blacks should be outraged how they are frequently stereotyped as being lazy, intellectually inferior, and physically superior.
Apparently, it is you as well. The "they" here are those who are criticizing Colbert for using a Chinese stereotype to illustrate bigotry.
And now you are insinuating that I might be bigoted as well for merely disagreeing with you?
Is it? Earlier in the segment, Colbert called Belgians "waffle-eating mayo dippers" for signing a toddler to a professional soccer contract. Where is the outrage from millions of Belgians? Why aren't they demanding that he be fired for poking fun at their 15 minutes of internet fame in this particular regard?
This is really no different than what Sasha Baron Cohen does on a regular basis. But instead of his victims being bigoted Americans, it is Chinese, Belgians, or anybody else that happens to make the news and catches the eye of the writers of the Colbert Report. At least to me, Colbert is far more entertaining while not being offensive in the least. Cohen oversteps that boundary on a regular basis. Not only does he insult bigots, he insults those from the countries where his characters are from. And he does so in such a rude and obnoxious manner that he risks a physical confrontation on a regular basis.
The obvious difference is that Imus doesn't have a comedy show where he quite intentionally makes such bigoted remarks on a very frequent basis. He and his family don't own restaurants where black workers are treated quite differently than others, while dreaming of having a traditional Southern wedding using black slaves as servants.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
"A better idea" would be for you to address an actual of mine instead of one which you continue to concoct from thin air, while continuing to perpetuate a nonsensical opinion of racial issues in the US compared to elsewhere.
Uh, you are deluding yourself if you actually think that the opinion of racial issues in the US compared to elsewhere being one which showcases the current US in pitiful state, is "nonsensical".
Unlike you i have lived in other countries as well, and even for years in one of those. But keep on believing your own voice and don't worry cause in the end even more kneejerk reactionism will surely lead to the end of your current 'racial war' issues
For what it's worth i always wish the US gets better, and even at least reverts to the saner 1990s era. But the political games your leaders play with your own people do signify a very different outcome, sadly for the US as well as other places.
And, yes, my own view is that all races or such groups are to be treated in the same way in regards to comedy/other comments for or against them. It seems to be not only the logical position, but also (crucially) the only naturally sustainable one. A black person has the same right to feel offended by a joke as a white or other "race" person has
