Results tagged “racism”

Some woman in Southern California was so upset by Miley Cyrus' “chink-eye” pose that she decided to file a class action suit... for $4 billion. Because that's the number of Asian Pacific Islanders who live in L.A. County (a little more than 1 million) times the minimum damages for a civil rights violation ($4000 USD - about 27,340 yuan).

If we listened close enough, we could probably hear the words going through her head right at that moment: "I have an Asian friend, so it's okay." And to be quite honest, it probably is.

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That's the headline of a New York Times story about the controversy surrounding a now much-talked-about photo of the men's Olympic basketball team from Spain (See: "Spain's Olympic Basketball Team: Racist? Or just stupid?" for details). Oddly, the story has nothing to do with any possible punishments the Spaniards would face (honestly, we can't think of any — the bad PR and embarrassment should be punishment enough), but the story does offer a little bit of insight as to why the Chinese don't appear to be too bothered by any of this. We are also treated to some rather awkward quotes from the Spanish players trying to explain away their actions. José Calderon even broke out the “Some of my best friends are of Chinese origin" line!

From The Guardian:

Yesterday, we learned that our friend (and ex-Shanghaiist contributor) Brad Ferguson had been fired from his role as manager of Windows Underground. We asked him some questions about the recent developments and he agreed to let us publish them "as long as it doesn't make me look like an asshole. I still don't think I did anything wrong, but maybe it looks different to other people."

Well it was in 1967, anyway. Courtesy of Popsucker, here's a 41-year-old ad from the Rice Council of America that's about as un-PC as you can get.

Tom Miller of the SCMP has been the center of many heated online discussions of late as a result of his article last Friday on bar owners in Sanlitun being asked to deny service to black patrons. What looked like an attempt to add credibility to his anonymous claims, he followed up with an article on Saturday claiming another anonymous source, this time a police officer, who denied that bars were instructed to deny service to patrons of African descent. His article though, still maintained that:

...another bar owner had been verbally warned by Public Security Bureau officers not to serve customers of Mongolian and African descent, while other bars had been ordered to sign chopped pledges to keep to curfews, not allow the illegal sale of drugs, and refuse certain customers.

A guest at Tomorrow Square on People's Square has alerted us to this document entitled "Safety measures for the tenants of Tomorrow Square for the Olympic period" posted in the building. The document starts off quite innocently like this:

Recently, while the security situation has become of great concern both internationally and domestically, anti-China movements have become increasingly bold, with Tibetan and Uyghur separatist groups openly declaring war, proclaiming that they will use violent measures to achieve their purposes. The United Kingdom and the United States have already issued safety warnings to citizens travelling to China. With the 3.14 Tibet Riots, the 3.7 Southern Airlines terrorist act, the 5.5 bus explosion on line 842 in Shanghai, the 7.1 Zhabei police station attack and the appearance of numerous reactionary slogans everywhere, Tomorrow Square needs to tighten up its safety measures since it is a landmark building on People's Square located next to the Municipal Government building. This is to ensure the safety of the building and all its tenants and to prevent any unforeseen circumstances. It is with this in mind that we have established the following "Safety measures for the tenants of Tomorrow Square for the Olympic period" which will be enforced during the Olympic period (July 16th 2008 to October 31st 2008). These measures will be updated in accordance to any extraordinary event occurence or new safety warnings issued by government authorities.

"Uniformed Public Security Bureau officers came into the bar recently and told me not to serve black people or Mongolians," said the co-owner of a western-style bar, who asked not to be named.

An online petition launched by the Legal Immigrant Association demanding for an official apology from CNN and for CNN to take immediately action against Cafferty for his racist remarks has garnered 23798 signatures at press time.

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to...

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost.

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa...

GigShanghai: Noisy Sundays, females unite, and free BEP tickets!

If you wear Adidas Y1 HUF (Fong) shoes, there are a growing number of people who would say, "Yes." CSR Asia's Stephen Frost has been on the story for a while now: