Ralphie May backtracks and apologizes

Continuing our look at Ralphie May's Rant Against Indians and No Excuse for Ralphie May's Rant. After blaming everyone but himself, May began backtracking and apologizing:

EXCLUSIVE: Ralphie May Talks About Indian Rant: “I Never Meant to Hurt Anyone”

Comedian responds to backlash over Native American rant

Ralphie May Releases YouTube Video Apologizing to Native Americans

UPDATE: Ralphie May agrees to meet with Fargo activists

Activist Walter Ruiz added this note on Facebook:UPDATE ON THE RALPHIE MAY ISSUE...i just got this email from Ralphie Mays publicist! i really hope they keep their word...Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. As I said on the phone, comedian Ralphie May will be announcing tomorrow that he is postponing his shows in Fargo, Sioux Falls, and Minneapolis this week.

In a statement from Ralphie, he says “I am postponing my shows in Fargo, Sioux Falls, and Burnsville out of respect for the Native American community and safety for all parties. A video that surfaced on YouTube hurt and offended many people and I am truly sorry. I thought that I was a well-read, educated man. I know nothing. I’m a product of mass media and the US public school system. I have learned so much this week and I want to learn more. My eyes are open and I hope to be a conduit for things that we are not taught.”

Details are still being worked out with Ralphie’s travel, but please let me know if you would be able to speak with him by phone if an in-person meeting is not possible. Ralphie wants to do whatever he can to make this right. His beliefs and opinions are not portrayed in that video and as his publicist and friend for 20 years, I can promise you that Ralphie is not a racist person and he truly does have a heart of gold.

Regards,
Stacey PokludaCriticism continues

After May's rant and his attempts to apologize, he was still facing trouble:

Calls to boycott Ralphie May in Sioux Falls

City Hall Supports SMG Decision To Allow Ralphie May Concert At Orpheum

Comedian Ralphie May forced to postpone or cancel more shows

Three Ralphie May Shows Postponed After Death Threats Surface

Comedian Ralphie May tries to turn Indian joke controversy around

Finally, a "defense" that noted the key problem:

Whitney: In defense of Ralphie MayIt’s pretty obvious that May missed the mark with his decade-old “Dances with Wolves” routine. It wasn’t funny or insightful. It was a mean-spirited assault on a culture that has been discarded and disregarded too often by mainstream society. By all accounts, it is no longer part of his act.

No excuse for Ralphie May's rant

A Facebook discussion of Wreck-It Ralphie's diatribe against Indians. It occurred before we knew exactly what May had said:

I'm waiting to hear the context that makes this acceptable.

Sounds like he adds a coda at the end of his rants. Maybe something like, "But really, folks, hating people is bad. Don't be like the people who say these things." That's not nearly enough "context" to make the previous rants okay.

You can't have a stereotype-to-explanation ratio of 5-1 or 10-1. If anything, it should be the other way around. You can repeat a stereotype if you spend enough time explaining why it's wrong.That is basically what he is saying on twitter, he is saying that the entire joke is him imitating racist people who were mad about goodfellas losing to dances. I have seen his act before, and i can actually accept this because blatant racism isn't usually part of his act. However, he still needs to own those other comments that are just as ignorant.Okay. Sounds a lot like hipster racism to me. Like, "Someone else is racist, and I'm just repeating what they say. Ironically, that is, to mock them. And I had to go on ranting for three minutes to show how racist they are."

Why it's still wrong

Who cares who won the Oscar 25 years ago? It's not relevant to anyone today. It's ancient history.

May chose to build a routine around racist beliefs. He provides a fig leaf of an excuse, then spews a bunch of racist comments. And his cover is, "That's what someone said 25 years ago."

As you said, his Twitter comments show how he really feels. His real beliefs aren't far from his "ironic" beliefs--if there's any difference at all. He sort of understands that something bad happened to Indians, but that was long ago and now they're to blame for their problems.

And after his so-called apology:

As I said before, a single punchline is no excuse for what comes before that. He didn't even say he was imitating others who were upset at Dances with Wolves. Rather, he said he was upset about it.

So again, how does this 25-year-old "grievance" justify a racist rant? A: It doesn't.

Some questions for Ralphie

When Delores Schilling sought questions to ask May on her Native Trailblazers radio show, I e-mailed her the following:

1) May says he's been doing his Dances with Wolves joke since 1992. This so-called joke sounds like a pretext to do a racist rant about Indians.

If the subject of the 1992 (actually 1991) Oscars isn't outdated and irrelevant already, when does it become so? In 50 years? A hundred? Why shouldn't listeners assume what I just said: that May is inventing an excuse to vent his spleen against Indians?

2) Has May heard of hipster racism? It's defined as doing or saying something racist, then claiming it was ironic, satirical, or a joke. How is this any different from what May does?

"Indians are drunk losers," he seems to be saying, then "Ha ha, just kidding." Well, why should we take the "just kidding" part more seriously than the "drunk losers" part? Racists have a long history of dressing up their beliefs as fiction or humor. Why shouldn't we assume May is telling us what he really believes in the guise of comedy?

3) If May's so-called jokes depend on his reaching the punchline, isn't that a comedic failure? The jokes are insulting, insulting, insulting until the punchline, which magically renders them not insulting? What if listeners feel the punchline doesn't work? Or they miss the punchline because they leave in anger?

Isn't May's "thinking" here rather shallow and stupid? Isn't it like saying, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it"? Does he seriously claim he has to sling horrible vulgarities to show how others sling horrible vulgarities? Is he such a pitiful comedian that he can't think of another way to make his point?

4) May's tweets indicate he's still blaming Indians for the poverty and alcoholism they suffer. Which is just about what he said in his racist rant. Why should we believe there's a difference between his "jokes" and his beliefs when they're so similar?

Rob Schmidt

Ralphie May's rant against Indians

A round-up of articles about Ralphie May's anti-Indian rant:

Comedian Ralphie May Creates Twitter Firestorm After Rant on IndiansThe extracted audio clip of May’s comedy routine is from a CD entitled "Stealing the Sun Back." from the hip hop group Savage Family. In the video/audio clip, posted on YouTube, May goes into a rant about Indians.

“F--k a bunch of Indians. I am sick of hearing about it. Are we supposed to boo hoo over goddamn Indians that sh-t that was 120 years ago? F--kin’ get over it. Nobody 150 years ago was making you drink now. Dry up’ you buncha alcoholics and go get a real f--kin’ job.”And:May further explained on Twitter that the comedic rant was extracted out of context and that the rant was based on the fact he was angry that Dances with Wolves beat Goodfellas for the best picture Oscar in 1992.

Sanford Center taking heat for booking comedian after video surfaces

Bemidji cancels gig by shock comic Ralphie May
YouTube rant against Indians is cited as the cause.

Ralphie May's Bemidji concert officially canceled despite apologetic video from comedian

So-called humor in Ridiculous 6

As with almost every instance of racist entertainment, some suggested that critics should "lighten up" because The Ridiculous Six is "just humor." Here's what's wrong with that attitude:

Adam Sandler may never be funny again: Another unending parade of half-baked, offensive stereotypes disguised as comedy

A donkey-romancing Mexican is just a taste of the stupidity in the comedian's controversial new western spoof

By Matthew RozsaWhile reviewing the comedy “Jack and Jill,” critic Jay Bauman came up with a list of stale tropes that predictably appear in all of Adam Sandler’s movies. Nestled between entries like “general whorish product placement” and “scenes of forced sentimentality to trick the audience into thinking the movie has a heart,” there was one that applied perfectly to the inherently problematic nature of his comedy–namely, “jokes at the expense of physical abnormality or ethnicity,” or as Bauman puts it, “jokes at the expense of people who are different.”

In other words, Sandler movies contain lots of jokes that punch down.

Even before it premiered on Netflix today, “The Ridiculous Six” managed to incur controversy for punching down against Native Americans, who feature prominently in the film’s story. As I discussed last April, several Native American actors walked off the movie’s set to protest what they considered insensitive jokes about Apaches (more on those in a moment). Later a cellphone video leaked in which producer Barry Bernardi told the actors they “shouldn’t be in the movie” if they’re “overly sensitive” about those types of jokes. Shortly after that, another Native American actor from the picture spoke out in Sandler’s defense, observing that there were 150 other Native American extras who happily participated in the production and claiming the leaked video omitted Bernardi’s promise to include a disclaimer noting that the movie is historically inaccurate. He even noted that during a private meeting “the last thing that [Sandler] said before he got up was that the thing that made him feel the worst is that four people got their feelings hurt.”

Watching “The Ridiculous Six,” it’s easy to see how the filmmakers–including director Frank Coraci and co-writers Tim Herlihy and Sandler himself–could believe their movie was harmless. The Apache characters are depicted in unambiguously sympathetic terms, and while there are plenty of racial jokes, the movie seems determined to be an equal opportunity offender, even by occasionally putting white people in its cross hairs. Indeed, numerous white characters are depicted as vicious bigots (and as such worthy of being robbed or in other ways receiving karmic punishment), and one early joke shows an American Indian doing his white people impression by shouting, “Hey, guys, let’s play with our chest hair and eat potato chips.”

Nevertheless, when it comes to its underlying racial message, “The Ridiculous Six” still grates, and there are obvious moments when it appears to be punching down almost without realizing it. To understand why, it is necessary to briefly analyze the kinds of jokes that appear in the movie. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

The difference between telling a decent joke about historically marginalized groups and simply punching down is simple: While both expect the audience to laugh at sensitive subjects, the latter hold no meaningful social insight and go no further than laughing at someone else’s expense for being different.The Ridiculous 6 Movie Review

By Brian Tallerico[T]hen there’s the broad racism and misogyny of the piece. After the controversial walk-offs, Netflix claimed that this was “satire.” It’s not. There’s nothing satirical about Sandler’s bad Native American accent (which totally comes and goes, by the way) or Schneider’s Hispanic caricature. Saying that this is satire is like the drunk guy at the bar telling you how many black friends he has after telling a racist joke. Don’t fall for it.Comment:  As this image suggests:



you don't need a joke to convey a stereotype. Regardless of her name, Julia Jones's character is the epitome of a "Pocahottie" or Indian princess. Adam Sandler's character is the epitome of the stoic and supernatural Indian. Their buckskin clothing is wrong; most Indians switched to Western clothing during the 19th century.

These things aren't jokes. They're false or misleading stereotypes. Beyond the alleged humor, they convey an erroneous picture of Native people. They're wrong for that reason, not because it's offensive to make fun of minorities.

For more on Adam Sandler, see Video Response to Ridiculous 6 and Scathing Reviews for Ridiculous 6.

Beaverton satirizes MMIW crisis

I tweeted a few times about model/actress Ashley Callingbull winning the Mrs. Universe title. I guess it's a milestone for a Native to win a "major" beauty pageant, although Mrs. Universe isn't one of the "big four." But long-time readers know what I think of beauty pageants, which is not much.

However, the Beaverton's satirical article on the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women (#MMIW) is worth mentioning:

The Beaverton pulls controversial article on Ashley Callingbull

Indigenous community outraged on Twitter about satire on missing, murdered women

By Kim WheelerA satirical news website that used a Cree woman's victory at an international beauty contest to draw attention to national coverage of missing and murdered indigenous women has withdrawn the article and apologized to its readers.

On Sunday, Ashley Callingbull, whose married name is Burnham, from Enoch Cree Nation in Alberta was named Mrs. Universe, the first First Nation woman to win the title.

The Beaverton's article, headlined "Mrs. First Cree Woman To Gain National Coverage If She Disappears," said make-believe judges "cited her good looks, upbeat attitude, and glitzy uncontroversial profession in awarding her the top prize of one day's coverage on most major Canadian news outlets should she suddenly vanish without a trace.

"Burnham is showing all those aboriginal girls out there that as long as you look like a supermodel and get on TV, you too can get the same news coverage as a white girl should you ever be abducted," the article continued.

In its apology, The Beaverton said it wrote the satirical story to "call out the Media for their failure to properly cover missing and murdered Aboriginal women …"

However, many indigenous people didn't find it funny and took to Twitter to voice their outrage:

"The fact that a publication would take the time to publish these words shows that they have no morals, no empathy," said Althea Guibouche, who is part of a team walking across Western Canada for all missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, who organizes an annual gathering in Winnipeg to remember disappeared women, says she wasn't as angry.

"I think in a twisted way it speaks the truth," she said.Comment:  I think people responded to this satire like they would to any satire on a life-and-death issue. For example, rape, murder, or suicide. Some focus on the point--that the media focuses only on celebrities--which is valid. And some focus on the language, which mocks or belittles the threat of violence against women.

For more on violence against women, see Storefront Window Shows Bound Mi'kmaq Women.

Cigar Store Indian in Seinfeld

A famous episode of Seinfeld featured a Native subplot. The video below shows the Native scenes:

Seinfeld — Native American (Full Scene)Jerry has some trouble dating a Native American. From Seinfeld (Season 5, Episode 10).Seinfeld: "The Masseuse"/"The Cigar Store Indian"

By David SimsJerry's thing with the Native American girl he likes is the only thing that's just too silly for the episode, not for how he stumbles over every word possibly connected to Indians (like making a reservation at a restaurant) but just for the idea that she's even consider going anywhere with him considering what an inept fucking idiot he is in this episode. Kramer's enthusiasm for the cigar store Indian, though, makes it worthwhile. "It's KITSCHY!"

Grade: A-Was Seinfeld a Racist Show?

By Ravi ShankarNext, let’s move on to the episode entitled “The Cigar Store Indian” which primarily focused in one way or the other with racism. Jerry is very interested in one of Elaine’s friends, Winona, but offends her by purchasing a cigar store Indian as a gift for Elaine. Later in the episode, Jerry attempts to ask a mailman where the nearest Chinese restaurant is. The mailman turns out to be Asian, and responds, “Ohh! You ask Chinese man where nearest Chinese restaurant is! Oh, American man, where nearest hot dog, hamburger stand?” Obviously, this is hilarious, embarrassing for Jerry, yet stereotyped in general all across the board. Later on, the term “Indian giver” is used. In the end, nothing works out for Jerry, and he ends up being a victim of looking at races from a stereotypical standpoint. Though this seems pretty tame and you can give a little harty-har to, look at the shocking facts that continue.10 'Seinfeld' Episodes That Might Be Considered Racist and Sexist Today

The four main characters sometimes had a reactionary attitude toward woman and minorities.

By Sola AgustssonWhile the show features Jewish characters (and was even criticized by NBC’s Brandon Tartikoff for being “too Jewish”), critics lamented the show’s lack of diversity even in the 1990s. “The show has never been terribly concerned with political correctness. Its depictions of minorities, from Babu the Pakistani who was eventually deported because of Jerry’s carelessness to the Greek diner owner with an apparent yen for amply endowed waitresses, can be patronizing. And its attitudes toward women can become downright hostile, as the final episode illustrated with its portrait of a gleefully nasty female network executive,” said New York Times writer John J. O’Connor.And:This episode stresses white middle-class discomfort over dealing with race. After offending a Native American woman by dragging a cigar store Indian statue and making hooting noises, Jerry somehow finagles a date with her in order to make up for his racist gestures. He continues to make prejudiced remarks in front of her, and inadvertently calls her an “Indian giver.” This episode is a good commentary on white male cluelessness, though the Native American woman is portrayed as being overly sensitive.Comment:  I wasn't a regular Seinfeld watcher. This episode reminds me why. It's mostly obvious and unfunny to me--not worth watching. I'd give it more like a C- than an A-.

Superficially, this episode's Native portrayal is fine. Winona is a modern Native woman--no different from Elaine or her friends. When Jerry unveils the cigar-store Indian, she leaves rather than saying anything. She gives Jerry a couple of chances to prove himself. After the cigar-store Indian and three verbal blunders, she finally gets mad. So I wouldn't even call her "overly sensitive" as Agustsson did.

Jerry blunders and we laugh at him for it. But it's more like laughing at an adorable "bad" boy who made an "innocent" mistake. He almost crosses the "PC" line and says something "scandalous"--but not quite. It's like we're laughing at social conventions for forcing him to be careful. And not at him for his demonstrated insensitivity and ignorance.

And even in this nominally "good" episode, you can discern Jerry's patronizing attitude toward minorities and women. He doesn't attempt to learn anything about Winona or her background. His only interest seems to be in her appearance. You can bet he'd never leave his comfort zone for her. Never visit her home reservation or even read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee for her. Too much negative stuff for a shallow guy like Jerry.

Adam Sandler defends Ridiculous 6

Adam Sandler: ‘Ridiculous Six’ Racism Controversy Was ‘Just a Misunderstanding’

By Alex StedmanAdam Sandler is finally addressing the controversy that surrounded his Netflix project “The Ridiculous Six” after about a dozen Native Americans walked off the set of the movie in April.

The actors complained of racist jokes against Native Americans, but, finally speaking on the issue at the premiere of his upcoming movie “Pixels,” Sandler said he wasn’t trying to offend anyone.

“It was just a misunderstanding and once the movie is out will be cleared up,” Sandler told the Associated Press.

The comedian also called “Ridiculous Six” a “pro-Indian” movie.

“I talked to some of the actors on the set who were there and let them know that the intention of the movie is 100% to just make a funny movie,” he told ScreenCrush. “It’s really about American Indians being good to my character and about their family and just being good people. There’s no mocking of American Indians at all in the movie. It’s a pro-Indian movie. So hopefully when people see it—whoever was offended on set and walked out, I hope they realize that, and that’s it. It was kinda taken out of context.”A partial rebuttal of Sandler's claims:

Adam Sandler’s insulting “Ridiculous 6″ defense: Being “pro-Indian” looks nothing like this

"It's really about American Indians being good to my character" doesn't exactly redeem this ill-advised project

By Paula Young LeeCould Sandler’s P.R. problem get any worse? Of course it could. Yesterday, Sandler dug himself into a hole by affirming that “The Ridiculous 6” was a “pro-Indian” film. He explained: “It’s really about American Indians being good to my character and about their family and just being good people.”

Alas, poor unhappy Gilmore, we hardly knew ye understood so little about the medium that made you so very rich. To explain, let me begin by making three observations. First, “Me smoke peace pipe, Kemosabe”-style jokes don’t only reduce First Peoples to stereotypes, they also mindlessly reinforce every negative stereotype Hollywood has manufactured about them.

Second, the “White Savior” trope goes like this: Clueless white person stomps all over Noble Savages who fight against Regular Savages, and then receives Enlightenment for which he is eternally grateful (but will never share credits, profits or royalties), for he has already rewarded the Noble Savages with the greatest of all gifts: the opportunity to help him.

Third, when the White Savior film is “historical,” it can even be sanctified with an Oscar nomination for best picture—an Oscar that “Dances With Wolves,” 1990, actually won.My thoughts

There's no mocking, says Sandler...in the unlikely event he removed every joke reported in the press. I wouldn't bet a dime on that.

The Indians raise Sandler's character...which proves they're good? Not if the jokes mocking them are still in the movie. All sorts of characters can be good and kind yet still treated as idiots and savages. In fact, the idea of Indians as big-hearted but comical buffoons is an old tradition in movies.

Repeating jokes that might've appeared in old comedies isn't mocking them. You mock movie conventions by having Indians laugh at other people, not by having other people laughing at them.

I bet the debate will come down to this:"Adam Sandler feels that when audiences finally see his upcoming Netflix comedy, 'The Ridiculous Six,' they will realize he wasn't trying to offend anyone."No, you stupid ass. The issue isn't whether you were trying to offend someone. It's whether you did offend someone despite your ignorant and ill-considered intent.

Only a few movies in Hollywood history were trying to offend Indians. But the fact is that several thousand of them did offend Indians with their racist and stereotypical depictions. How do you not understand this distinction, Sandler?

More trashing of Sandler:

Why Adam Sandler should retire immediately

Why No One Likes Adam Sandler Anymore

For more on Adam Sandler, see Adam Sandler's History of Racism and Sandler's Racist Ridiculous 6 "Jokes."

Sandler's racist Ridiculous 6 "jokes"

These Are the Jokes That Caused Actors To Walk Off Adam Sandler's Set

By Jordan SargentThe scenes that caused the Native actors to leave the set appear to happen within the first 15 minutes or so of the film. Extra Loren Anthony, who spoke to Indian Country Today, described a scene involving a character named Beaver’s Breath as being particularly irritating to the extras:Here is the part in which a Native woman squats and pisses while smoking a peace pipe. The extras noted a character named “No Bra” as being a disrespectful parody of Native American names—there is no “No Bra” in the version of the script we have, though it appears as if that character’s original name, “Sits-On-Face,” was even worse.

Read a Page From the Adam Sandler Script That Caused Native Actors to Quit

By Vincent SchillingNative actors who walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s movie The Ridiculous Six managed to snap a quick photograph of one of the pages of the script that shows offensive language and insults to native women. In the scene, characters "Beaver Breath," "Smoking Fox" and "Never Wears Bra" discuss the novelty of toilet paper, and it is revealed that their own approach to hygiene involves keeping their private parts clean with dead animals.

Additionally, the characters speak in broken stereotypical English.

The script reads as follows:

EXT. CREEK OUTSIDE APACHE VILLAGE – LATER

The Creek area is busy. Braves spear-fish while children play in the water.

Smoking Fox is on the banks of the creek, doing laundry with her best friends: a 30-ish chubby woman, BEAVER BREATH, and a younger woman, NEVER WEARS BRA (both Apache).

BEAVER BREATH

I have a big idea for your wedding: we decorate trees with toilet paper!

SMOKING FOX

What is this “toilet paper”?

BEAVER BREATH

Paper used to clean your chi-wat after taking a chungo.

NEVER-WEARS-BRA

That what dead squirrel for!

Another posting explains why Sandler's racist jokes don't qualify as satire:

The 'Ridiculous Six' Script Reveals "Offensive" Jokes That Caused Native American Actors To Walk Out

By Mark NewtonJust so we're all singing from the same hymn sheet, here is the definition of a 'satire':

The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

So, do the jokes presented above fall under satire? Well, one of the perhaps unwritten rules of satire is that it should ideally satirize the status quo or the mainstream, and satire has frequently been used by comedians to lampoon politicians and the powerful on all sides of the spectrum. Comedy becomes tricky when it appears to be directed at a minority which has historically been oppressed, often because they have little recourses to respond on the same level.

Of course, issues of race are also fair game for satire, especially how race is discussed within the mainstream media. But the important issue here is that the audience must understand any seemingly offensive views expressed by a character are not genuinely held by the actor saying them or the writer who wrote them--but are merely used to satirize views we know are held by some/or exist. Think, for example, Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.

The main problem with The Ridiculous Six script is that the ignorant people appear not to be the white characters, but the Native Americans--since they have the silly names and behave in an uncouth fashion. In this sense, the 'stupidity and vices' exposed belong to the Native Americans and not the white characters, suggesting this doesn't really fall under the traditional definition of satire. Of course, maybe Sandler is simply satirizing himself as a white, affluent comedy writer who does not understand the sensitivities of the Native Americans?Comment:  Let's address the question of whether Ridiculous Six is a legitimate satire. For starters, who's the butt of the jokes: the Indians or someone else? If it's someone else, where is that in the script? Because it isn't evident in the excerpts.

Another way to put this is: How are these "jokes" any different from the ones in a racist movie? Again, if some "context" makes them different, where is it? Because it isn't evident in the excerpts.

True, we lack the entire script. But we have the judgments of the people who were there. They confirm what's evident in the excerpts--that the "jokes" are flat-out racist. Until Sandler and Netflix demonstrate otherwise, that judgment stands.

For more on Adam Sandler, see Natives Quit Adam Sandler Movie.

Daily Cavalier mocks black student's arrest

A University of Virginia newspaper "satirized" a black student's arrest with an April Fools' Day story about a Native student's arrest:

People are outraged at UVA newspaper's April Fools' issue satirizing a black student's bloody arrest

By Peter JacobsUniversity of Virginia students are calling on the school's student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, to apologize for a seemingly insensitive April Fools' Day article.

The Cavalier Daily's April Fools' Day front page is dominated by a story with the headline "ABC agents tackle Native American student outside Bodo's Bagels," which appears to satirize the controversial arrest of UVa student Martese Johnson last month.

The story's tagline reads "Students decry 'Trail of Schmears' as marginalization of minorities reaches new low," a reference to the "Trail of Tears" that followed the US government's Indian Removal Act of 1830.

The student newspaper has since apologized for the article.UVA's Latest Nightmare: Bad Racist 'Satire,' An Even Worse Apology

By Jia TolentinoHere’s a closer look at the first one, which “satirizes” the racism that led to Martese Johnson’s police brutalization and night in chains. Note the names of the imaginary Native American students in the piece (“Dances With Wolves,” “Strong Buffalo,” “Rabbit in the Grass,” “Insect Humming”)—which mainly offend me because the jokes are so painfully fucking weak.

I too am deeply concerned by the fact that what’s actually satirized here is not police brutality but the idea of a sincere institutional response, on the part of administration or students. This is racism so stupid it doesn’t know it’s racist—by far, the most troubling kind.
The most interesting part of this incident is this letter from The Declaration, another campus publication:

An Open Letter to The Cavalier DailySatire is a radical comedic tradition wherein the abuses of the overculture are deconstructed and critiqued. This comprehensive deconstruction is what makes stuff like The Colbert Show (sweet angel, rest in peace) and The Onion work where other attempts at satire fall flat—they make clear the issues that plague society-at-large.

This means that good satire at UVa should speak to the not-so-hidden truths that undercut student life: Greek culture’s gaping wound at UVa’s nucleus; the entitlement complex shared by a majority-white student body; the fetishistic hero-worship of Our Mr. Jefferson; the awkward, elephantine disparity between rich students and poor students; the racism, pervasive and terrifying, woven tightly into this school’s very fabric.

It seems so simple, really, a slice of Culture 101 you’d expect UVa students to have studied long before they entered the university: the “bad guys” look stupid because they are; readers and viewers laugh, duh, but they also question why those “bad guys” are in power in the first place!

As the student publication with the “richest history” and the most influence on grounds, the Cav Daily shouldn’t need this lesson, but when its annual “satirical issue” frames damaging racial stereotypes as funny and trivializes blatantly the marginalized groups satire is supposed to work for, not against, it makes two things clear: 1) UVa works for the overculture, “The Man,” the lived-in, overarching structure that tells you it’s okay to reframe acts of erasure and violence as comedy and call it a day, and 2) UVa is home to a cadre of students who are dumb as hell and didn’t do their homework for Intro to Comedy and Society: or, How to Be a Decent Human Being.Comment:  This excellent commentary applies to every attempt to "satirize" racism by using stereotypes--chiefs, teepees, braves, buckskins, tomahawks, etc.--uncritically. That is, by simply emulating a racist work but claiming you're doing it "ironically," to mock the stereotypes.

Again, in satire, "the abuses of the overculture are deconstructed and critiqued." Simply displaying examples of abusive racism or stereotyping isn't deconstructing or critiquing them. A "satire" isn't a satire unless you actively attack the target of your ire.

For more on the subject, see Stereotyping Explained to South Park Apologists and The Dudesons, Polish Jokes, and Minstrel Shows.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt just a comedy?

I haven't watched The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt yet. But a posting about it in Facebook's Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry group led to this debate:I think y'all have too much time on your hands to worry about racism in comedy. Seriously? You're taking comedy seriously? LOL!

...just curious how you felt when 1491s did full on Black face to illustrate the point about Red face...Why would we take representations in comedy less seriously than elsewhere? It's media and it's pervasive. This is how most people learn about Indians: from what they see in movies and on TV.

This whole mascotry cause is devoted primarily to representations in sports. Is that a serious field? More serious than comedic TV?

I'd argue that they're both unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But they're both important to the issue of Native representations because of their influence.

Is a product package important? How about a fashion show? A college frat party? A Halloween costume? Give us some important examples of racism--as opposed to these "unimportant" examples.

P.S. I appreciate what the 1491s did because they were trying to make a point. Unlike comedies such as this one.

Trying to make a point?...how do you know this comedy is not trying to make a point?

Idk. What is appropriate comedy about Indians?

What is your solution?I'm sure they were trying to make a point. Just as hipsters are trying to make a point about how "tribal" they are by wearing Plains headdresses. And how mascot lovers are trying to show how much they "honor and respect" Indians with their clown costumes.

As always, the issue isn't what they intended in their little minds. It's what results on the screen or at an event.What if there are Indian comedy writers for this show? Would it be ok?

How is the comedy hurtful? I have known people who have been in this country for decades, since the 1970's and who still do not speak a bit of English. I have known fair skinned Indians who have passed themselves off as White...actually I know a lot of people like that, especially the richer ones! I have seen Black, Asian, Latin, Native American men go coo coo for White ladies, and it certainly makes me smirk when I see that.What's my solution? Better comedy.

Native writers would do better in general. But this show may have had a Native writer or two.

They don't get a pass just because they're Native. Same as the Natives who declare they love the "Redskins." It's the results that matter, not the intent.

My blog has 79 postings on "humor" going back 10 years. I'm not going to repeat them all in a tiny Facebook box. Read what I and others have written on the subject for years. Assume we've thought about the issues in depth.

Meanwhile, what's your solution for Jane Krakowski getting another acting role that should've gone to a Native? Are you okay with being invisible? People like me are offering critiques and solutions while you're accepting the status quo.

Comedy is tricky?Comedy is a tricky thing...different people find different things funny.

Which Native actor who looks White should have gotten the role? Suggestions please...

...and if you want to change the story line, what makes you think that your story line would be funny?

Better comedy, btw, is not a solution.

Rob...I am afraid you are stuck in the good ol George Bush mentality of us vs them...geez, lighten up, fella! Been hanging around Russell Means too much perhaps? LOL!So far I've seen five criticisms of Jane Krakowski playing a Native. No one has said this storyline was funny.

Have you seen light-skinned Natives with dark-skinned parents? In particular, light-skinned Natives with eastern European features? Because that's the issue here--not merely light-skinned Natives.

What's the harm? You mean besides Krakowski taking a role from a Native actor? The harm is depicting, for perhaps the 10,000th time, that being Native is something a white person can do by putting on a costume and some jewelry. Krakowski is engaging in redface by pretending to be Native.

I'm a writer and I've proved I can write funny characters without engaging in redface. Which is a point you haven't addressed. Having white actor play a Native is the same thing we've complained about for decades. Did you miss these complaints? Because there are thousands if not millions of them in existence.

Another thing you're missing is that it takes no effort for a white actress to pass as white, so there's no comedy or drama there. If the actress were Irene Bedard or Kimberly Guerrero, as one critic suggested, she'd have to struggle to look white. The contrast between what she was trying to achieve and what she actually achieved might be funny.

I'm still waiting for your answer on which instances of racism we should criticize if not TV shows? Mascots? Product packages? Fashion shows? College frat parties? Halloween costumes? Go ahead and address each of these so we'll know what we should and shouldn't protest.

The only "us vs. them" here is Natives who want better representations vs. Hollywood which refuses to represent them better. I'll gladly take the Native side in that battle. You can stick with the "it's just comedy" Hollywood status quo that keeps Natives invisible in the media.

Conclusion

After the debate, a few final thoughts.

Obviously, as critics have said, Kimmy Schmidt was trying to explore the issue of Natives who want to and can pass for white. It's a legitimate topic--for some show, at least. But it raises questions.

One, what is it doing in this show? Critics have noted how Krakowski's character could be any ethnicity. She could be Greek, like creator Tina Fey, trying to fit into the non-Greek world. She could be Ukrainian, Brazilian, or Australian.

Remember how Crocodile Dundee had trouble fitting in in New York City? One doesn't need to engage in redface, brownface, or blackface to play a fish out of water. Even if someone has the same skin color as the majority, her language, culture, or religion can set her apart.

It seems the writers added this subplot because one or two of them are Native. That's not a great reason. The subplot doesn't flow naturally from the premise. As critics noted, it feels tacked on.

Two, it's true an actress such as Irene Bedard might look "too Native" to pass comfortably as white. Using someone like her might make the subplot difficult to pull off. Kimberly Guerrero doesn't look traditionally Native, I'd say, but some actresses do.

Okay, but there are thousands of Latina and multiracial actresses who have Native blood. As we've seen on countless shows, they can pass for many ethnicities. Many of them have experienced exactly the plight of Krakowski's character. In one context, they seem Hispanic, or whatever their predominant ethnicity is. In another, they seem white.

That's the kind of actress who should've gotten this role. Not the lily-white Krakowski. Krakowski was cast because she's white and she's Tina Fey's colleague. Not because she has any affinity for a "white Indian" role.

For more on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, see Jane Krakowski in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

#CancelColbert stymied "Redskins" protest?

Snyder Wins: How 'CancelColbert' Drowned Out the Native VoiceTwitter activist Suey Park, who became known for her hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick and helped Native Tweeters publicize tags including #NotYourTonto and #NotYourMascot, reacted to the Tweet swiftly, calling for Colbert's firing with the #CancelColbert hashtag, which became a ubiquitous news story. Meanwhile, Stephen Colbert could only watch it unfold: he'd already taped his Thursday episode and his show does not air on Fridays, so he would not be able to address the controversy on his show until Monday.

This he did, last night, in a long segment, punctuated by sips of a Bud Light Lime, that began with the context of the joke--Dan Snyder and the Redskins, remember--and ran through many of the details above. (You can watch the whole thing at Comedy Central's website.) He also called for the attacks on Park, which had become quite vicious, to stop. In his closing words, he said that he would be donating the money raised by his offensive faux charity to the offensive real-life charity that inspired the joke that caused the kerfluffle: The Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation.

"...which Twitter seems to be fine with," he said, "because I haven't seen shit about that."

And that's the bottom line for the Native activists on Twitter who saw a real opportunity to open some eyes when Snyder announced his bizarrely named charity: The momentum building for their campaign--#Not4Sale--was stymied by #CancelColbert. In an interview with The New Yorker that only briefly mentioned Dan Snyder and his foundation, Suey Park admitted she likes Colbert Report and didn't actually want to see it canceled. Yet a single Tweet connected to a satirist--whose well-known shtick is to parody arrogant conservatives--made more waves than a campaign against a racist team name that has been with us for decades.

As Jackie Keeler of Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry tweeted from her @jfkeeler feed: "Issue is not critique of skit but disproportional outrage vis a vis Actual racist foundation--Snyder wins."

#CancelColbert Collateral Damage to EONM (Eradicating Offensive NativeMascotry)

By Jennie StockleThe reason this plays in what happened in the aftermath of #CancelColbert is that it was those same people, and I believe Suey Park herself either believing them or encouraging them, that would come back at us with a catastrophic effect to Native Americans.

During #CancelColbert several EONM members/supporters noticed several of us tweeting under the hashtag. So they jumped in thinking this was about Native Mascotry. I myself thought that Colbert had actually done something to support Dan Snyder. I hadn't seen the skit. I stopped early on believing that I needed to get back to addressing the very real problems with Snyder's organization. Also, after I watched the skit and became aware that many, many Native Americans were feeling betrayed. After those events, EONM released two brief tweets stating that we would be supportive, but keeping our focus on #Not4Sale.

"Why is she sidelining what happened to us? Did she know about #Not4Sale? Is she dumb? I thought she was a friend, but this isn't supportive? Does she work for Snyder now? This is childish, if twitter users want to address satirical organization over a real racist organization what has the world come to." are just some of the things I heard and got direct messaged about. This was followed by so many stunned that Suey Park was on Native Trailblazers instead of not one of all the Native Americans angered by "OAF"! Jaw-dropping was a pretty common theme. Was that how far Native Rights activists had been eclipsed, that they weren't even on a Native show?

A tweet Jackie Keeler had made was featured in a Wall Street Journal article by Jeff Yang. It was not making light of Suey Park's actions. Her tweet was only expressing the disparity and proportionality of the response to #CancelColbert vs "OAF" and other Native American rights hashtags. Suey Park attacked the criticism a fair and balanced take on what happened. She called for Jeff Yang to be fired.#CancelColbert accomplished nothing: Why social change movements must be inclusive

A draining debate has left the fight for awareness and understanding in a worse place. So where do we go from here?

By Anoosh JorjorianPeople of good conscience can disagree about how we get there and what are the right tools. I don’t know a sure path from my past to a future free of anti-Asian prejudice. But at this moment, I can say that the weekend of #CancelColbert did not bring us closer to that future.

By Monday morning, I was left wondering, what have we accomplished? How much coal have we burned by keeping our modems alight and charging the batteries on our laptops and smartphones? At this cost, how many minds have we changed, and how many alliances have we forged to make a better future?

Here’s what I “saw” over social media: A lot of people expend a lot of energy, emotion and time because of a single comedy sketch (one that, for the record, did not offend me personally). I saw long-standing members of Asian American communities who have been working for decades toward that future get blisteringly insulted and attacked. I saw Native Americans wondering how Colbert’s valid point about Dan Snyder doubling down on the 80-year-old football team’s name in service of some cheap P.R. got buried in an avalanche of outraged pro- and anti-AAPI tweets. I saw, predictable as a turning tide, an outpouring of white anger, defensiveness and ridicule. I saw racial epithets explode and hurl around like corn kernels in an air popper.

And I have a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth. Colbert’s satirical Ching-Chong Ding-Dong joke references familiar ground, the kind of belittling and insults that Asian Americans are accustomed to hearing from white folks. But an internecine fight of this scale cuts deep, and the wound to Asian American communities will take far longer to heal than it took Park to initiate it. (The first efforts toward healing have centered around the #BuildDontBurn hashtag.)

Jeff Yang wrote a smart, thoughtful article on the limits of Hashtag Activism. For this, Suey Park tweeted that he was less of a friend to her than Fox commentator Michelle Malkin, notorious conservative and defender of the Japanese internment. Park has certainly borne the brunt of the storm generated by her campaign, however. The crest of the Twitter backlash featured the now-routine gendered discipline: death and rape threats.I'm Not Your Disappearing Indian

By Jacqueline Keeler[L]ast Thursday, it happened again, this time it was the folks on social media trending #CancelColbert and completely forgetting about Dan Snyder and the real foundation to promote the racial slur Redsk*ns. Once again, ostensibly about us, but of the issue garnered no real attention until it fell in someone else’s hands and then they, once again, forgot about us.

No, it wasn’t Stephen Colbert who forgot about us, nor was is "Stephen Colbert," a character played by comedian Stephen Colbert, to satirize the extreme insensitivity of Republican conservatism. His show, The Colbert Report did a whole skit skewering Dan Snyder, billionaire owner of the Washington Redsk*ns, and Snyder's new Original Americans Foundation (OAF), exposing it--through satire--as a blatant attempt to use charity to provide cover for his NFL team’s racist name. It was the hashtaggers, PoC (People of Color) and progressives, our own allies on Twitter who trended the hashtag #CancelColbert in response to the fictional foundation’s name featured in the skit. And yet, Dan Snyder’s real foundation promoting an ethnic slur against us, a foundation that actually exists, failed to garner even a tiny fraction of outrage by the same group. In fact, in her Time Magazine article that followed the enormous success of #CancelColbert, hashtag originator Suey Park failed to mention Snyder’s foundation at all. She certainly did not mention the Native hashtag protesting it #Not4Sale, despite it being covered by Mike Wise at the Washington Post and Al Jazeera America’s The Stream just days before. Only one reporter, Jeff Yang of the Wall Street Journal included any mention of Native responses to it.

Could you imagine national coverage of #CancelColbert or the previous trending hashtag promoted by the Asian American community #‎NotYourAsianSidekick without interviewing any Asian Americans? Or without any mention of the creators of the hashtag like Suey Park?

Obviously, #CancelColbert did not lead to the canceling of The Colbert Report, and in a New Yorker interview Ms. Park claimed she never intended for the show to be cancelled; furthermore, she had never even viewed the actual skit, and had reacted to a tweet (since deleted) without understanding the original joke to which it referred. What’s most frustrating to me is that a deleted tweet garnered more outrage than the actual existence of a foundation to promote a slur against Native Americans. A foundation announced just days after the U.S. Patent Office, reasoning that the word is a racist epithet, refused to grant a trademark to "Washington Redsk*ns Potatoes"! A potato has more rights than Native people do! (And yes, there is a Native hashtag for it--#NotYourPotato--and no, our allies on Twitter have not trended it.)

How #NotYourMascot Passed Me By, and How I was Wrong For Letting It

By ReappropriateAs an Asian American, and as a person who is dedicated to anti-racist activism, I am always at danger of focusing too much onto my own work; it is my duty to remember that I share a mutual goal with other people of colour in wanting to see an end to racism and racial discrimination in our world. And while our specific foci, angles and tactics might differ (as well it should), it is essential that we push back against our own tendencies to become too specialized, too factionalized and too isolated from one another. Instead we must reach out to one another, work together, form alliances and recognize our common goals. We must allow our individual efforts to integrate with one another rather than to interfere with one another; only by doing so can we hope to achieve a critical mass of anti-racist work that can challenge institutionalized racism and white supremacy.

That it took me this long to say something about #NotYourMascot is my fault, and for that I apologize.

#NotYourMascot is a common sense fight, one that by itself deserved primacy over the last two weeks; one that did not deserve to be distracted from. #NotYourMascot is a fight for anyone who wants to see the world less racist, a world where we don’t treat people of colour like mascots, where we respect Native people in particular and all people of colour, in general.

In short, #NotYourMascot is not just “a Native issue” and doesn’t deserve to be treated like one; #NotYourMascot is an issue that deserves full and vocal support from all of us—particularly every person of colour, as well as anyone else who has dedicated ourselves to challenging racism as it manifests around us.The Real Reason Why Stephen Colbert’s Brand of Racism Should Be Making You Angry #CancelRedskinsThe Stephen Colbert character, in his usual style, has taken the offenses done by others and made them that much more offensive. The show dismantled the offense moniker of Daniel Snyder’s foundation, and rebuilt it with a more visible ethnic group as its target. The result—outrage. At the end of the skit, Stephen Colbert, as a kind of nod to the offensive nature of the skit, makes a request of his audience. “I owe all this sensitivity to Redskin’s owner, Daniel Snyder. So Asians, send your thank you letters to him, not me.”

If you are angry, welcome to the club. Be angry at Stephen Colbert and his show, a show that mirrors and perpetuates the prevalence of racism, classism, and oppression in order to get a laugh. But be more angry at the reality that the Colbert Report mocks. Be angry at Daniel Snyder, the owner of that offensively named Washington team. Be angry that corporate interests (and there are many) continue to make money on histories of genocide and oppression.I think the final sentiment is one we can all agree on.

My take on #CancelColbert

A lot of people didn't come off well in this conflict. Colbert, for his ill-considered "ching-chong" joke. Suey Park and other activists, for hijacking the debate without addressing the offensive "Redskins." The media, for focusing too much on #CancelColbert and not enough on the underlying cause. Anyone, including liberals, who threatened Park for daring to challenge Colbert and the white status quo.

Nevertheless, I'm not as bothered by the #CancelColbert flap as some Native activists are. Some reasons:

1) From my vantage point as a media observer, I didn't get the sense that the #Not4Sale protest was taking off the way previous Twitter protests had.

2) Even if the #Not4Sale protest did take off, it didn't seem that effective to me. #Not4Sale was too generic; it could've been about almost any cause. Without an explanation, most people wouldn't get the connection between brown-skinned people with dollars on their mouths and the Redskins foundation (OAF).

3) It's not clear to me that the Native activists lost out on anything. Without an event like the Super Bowl or the Oscars to tweet about, the protest was always going to be relatively small. We're talking about a small "Redskins" protest on its own vs. a big #CancelColbert protest with a small "Redskins" protest included. Either way, the "Redskins" portion is small.

In other words...yes, the #CancelColbert coverage may have decreased the coverage the Redskins protest got. But it may have increased the coverage too. There's no way to know.

4) Reappropriate addressed the issue of "intersectionality" above. It's the idea that prejudice against one group affects and should concern everyone. It's something we all need to remember. Yes, Suey Park's #CancelColbert protest derailed Colbert's critique of the Redskins--but her argument about the liberal tolerance of racism has merit.

More to the point, it's relevant to mascot protests. Names and mascots such as "Redskins" don't persist because a small number of conservative racists keep them alive. They persist because many Americans, including liberals, have a broad tolerance for prejudice against minorities, women, and gays. We see this constantly in debates about welfare, immigration, law enforcement, income inequality, and so forth and so on.

Even the tolerance of minor things such as "jokes"--aka microaggressions--is widespread. And that's a problem. Colbert or hipsters or anyone can put on a headdress and say they're being "ironic," and people will give them a pass.

The #CancelColbert protest tried to expose this problem. It tried to show that minorities aren't going to roll over for conservative or liberal white privilege anymore. Until people get that people like Dan Snyder and Stephen Colbert shouldn't be the arbiters of what's offensive, I doubt anything will change.

5) As some people noted, a Twitter campaign is a tactic, not a goal. It helps to raise awareness of an issue, but it rarely causes change by itself. That's especially true when dealing with a major corporation like Disney (#NotYourTonto) or the Washington Redskins.

The best outcome of #Not4Sale would've been an increased awareness of Snyder's PR ploy in creating the Redskins foundation. But the foundation is only a small part of the Redskins brand. In the unlikely event that activists shamed Snyder into ending the foundation, it would've had no effect on the brand overall. Snyder still would've been committed to keeping the name and logo forever.

I'm sure "Redskins" will go away someday, but not because people have criticized the foundation. So nothing was "lost" except a minor opportunity to mock Snyder's tactics. With or without Colbert's input and the #Not4Sale hashtag, the protests will continue until the name is gone.

For more on the subject, see Debating #CancelColbert and Suey Park's Activism.

Debating #CancelColbert

#CancelColbert turns ugly: Why does it make white people so angry to talk about race?

People can disagree about #CancelColbert. But why's the response always so vile when people try to talk about race?

By Katie McDonoughFeel whatever you’d like about #CancelColbert (Brittney Cooper’s take is well worth your time), but those in the camp defending a television host’s (failed) attempt to satirize racism may want to ask themselves why they aren’t equally outraged by the racism and misogyny being hurled at the woman behind the conversation.

Suey Park is a writer and activist, but follow most of the conversation around #CancelColbert and you will read that she is a “hashtag activist” — a coded bit of language meant to communicate that she is not a person who should be taken seriously. (Follow what’s going on in Park’s Twitter mentions and you will see that a frightening number of people believe much worse.)

HuffPost Live invited Park to do a segment Friday morning, but rather than discuss what makes for good satire or mention the racist and misogynistic responses Park received (and tweeted about) while trending the hashtag, host Josh Zepps asked her if she understood comedy and called her opinions “stupid.” After a tense exchange with Zepps, Park said that she was done—that she wasn’t going to entertain inquiries about her intelligence or motives when the question of racism was not being taken seriously. Zepps seemed all too happy to oblige; he said a chipper goodbye and promptly cut her feed, prompting W. Kamau Bell to tweet that Zepps “reigns down the full weight of his #WhitePrivilege” during the segment.

Dave Weigel, who was critical of the hashtag from the start, weighed in at Slate to insinuate Park is somehow bullying Comedy Central—a television behemoth owned by a media behemoth—and question her activist bona fides:The network had made a powerful hashtag enemy, as Park reminded it. This was her work. She started hashtags like Comedy Central started six-episode sketch shows. The Guardian had placed her in a list of the “top 30 young people in digital media,” No. 12, right below “Kid President.” Her Facebook fan page and Twitter account provided information on how to book her, because she “speaks on race/gender and social media” and is a “board member of Activist Milennials.”He also seemed comfortable parroting a common right-wing cop-out, suggesting that when you bring the word “racist” into a conversation, it’s no longer a conversation—it’s a knife fight:As [hashtag activists] explained in 140-character bursts, when a white comedian like Colbert joked about racism by playing a racist, he was still telling his audience to laugh at a racist joke. Anyone who disputed this was trying to “whitesplain” satire—an argument that can never be debunked. You can laugh at being told to “check your privilege,” but hearing that plants an idea that you can’t shake. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, even though this particular hashtag was born midair above a shark.) And if it brings fame and clout to activists who have not really done anything to win your attention previously, that’s a sweet fringe benefit.Weigel is free to disagree with Park, but to question her legitimacy because she has different credentials than he does is plainly offensive. And it’s uncomfortable, put mildly, to see an established white male journalist suggest that an activist and writer of color hasn’t “done anything” to “win your attention.”Why we fight about Colbert and Lena Dunham: Twitter politics are all we have left

Yes, social media's culture wars can get overheated and silly—because "real" politics is totally broken

By Andrew O'HehirFirst of all, I don’t get to tell people not to be offended by a joke or a tweet or some potentially revealing public gaffe, just because I think I understood it better than they did. Personally, I think Stephen Colbert’s biggest sin in the dubious “Sensitivity to Orientals” gag that sparked so much Internet navel-gazing on Friday is that it’s overworked and not very funny. It was a satirical jab directed at both Rush Limbaugh and Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder that was highly dependent on context; stripped of that context by the de-nuancing machine of Twitter, it came uncomfortably close to the kind of yahoo-flavored racist ugliness it was mocking. And, Stephen, that joke was never worth the risk in the first place. What we have here is a failure of comedy cost-benefit analysis.

But in this case, as in dozens of others of public discourse gone off the rails, I don’t have the right to instruct Asian-Americans or other commentators about whether or not they have been injured or insulted or attacked, or whether Colbert has something to apologize for. Let’s back up a year, to the 2013 Oscars: From the comfort of my sofa, I thought Seth MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” musical number was pretty funny, and that its satirical intention, a takedown of Hollywood sexism and the “male gaze,” was clear enough. But the signal-to-noise ratio of MacFarlane’s shtick turned out to be way off, and millions of viewers received it in the opposite spirit, as a smug white dude making juvenile and offensive jokes about women’s bodies. So in that sense I was wrong. I’m still entitled to my private analysis, of course, but as a social event it wasn’t “funny” at all.

That might sound like I’m adopting a pose of excessive postmodern caution, or being the bearded dude in Birkenstocks who goes to the feminist bookstore to pick up chicks. But it’s more like an important lesson about life in a multivocal and diverse public culture, a lesson that, yes, white guys with media megaphones would do well to take seriously. Each of us needs to remember that our own subjectivity is not a universal condition, and that it was shaped by social and cultural forces we can’t necessarily see. Without any perception of your own possible or actual privilege and bias, you risk becoming the notorious Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, utterly convinced that you are an enlightened and reasonable person and deeply, hilariously wrong.My white liberal frenemies: When Twitter exchanges reveal untrustworthy allies

Once again, the Colbert flap reminds us that it's not just white conservatives who traffic in supremacy online

By Brittney CooperNothing made this point about the complicated nature of interaction with white liberals more apparent than last week’s Huffington Post Live interview with host Josh Zepps and Suey Park, the Twitter activist who trended #CancelColbert.

In the interview Park explains that the calls to cancel Stephen Colbert’s show were largely tactical. I suspected that, which is one reason I had no trouble supporting the campaign. But Suey also explained that one of the reasons the Colbert joke did not work is because it was a joke about race from a white liberal largely intended to pique the consciousness of other white liberals.

Unfortunately, Josh Zepps demonstrated just how dangerous unthoughtful liberalism can be in his interview with Park; he sneered at her and mocked her for the entire five minutes and even called her opinion stupid. Zepps felt threatened by Park’s analysis, he got emotional, and he verbally attacked her.

I think Suey’s call-out of white liberal complicity in this matter is exactly right. Though I am a big fan of Colbert’s show and though I know many people of color who are—one of my best homegirls from college is the person who turned me on to the show years ago—based on the passionate way in which Colbert’s defenders ran roughshod over many people of color to defend him, I wonder if I have been watching a show that ultimately does not have me in mind as it conceives its audience, even though I’m supposed to believe that satire has my best interest at heart.

I get the sense from at least a few of the Colbert apologists that I’m supposed to be happy with Colbert for the deftness with which he addresses most race issues. I’m supposed to be happy, and I’m supposed to shut up.

He’s one of the good guys.

Look. I suspect Stephen Colbert is one of the good guys. I just don’t know what that has to do with whether he messed up in this instance. Liberal political commitments do not make one’s race politics above reproach, because such arguments traffic in the fallacy that racism only happens if it is intentional.On #CancelColbert and the Limits of 'Liberal Pass' Humor

By Arturo R. García[This] problem has plagued both The Colbert Report and its sister show, The Daily Show, for years: the notion that they constitute Liberal Passes for many of their fans and/or defenders. That, because the two shows mostly pick on conservative politicians or “The Media,” their viewers are progressive by default. No doubt some of these people are also quite happy to tell you these days that they Love Science because they watch Cosmos; after all, it even has a Black person in it!

As Mia McKenzie at Black Girl Dangerous puts it:

Where are these theoretical people who were racist until they watched “Colbert,” or “SNL,” or “Chelsea Lately,” or any other show that uses white racial satire, and had their racist minds changed? Do we really believe these people exist? Do we really believe there were hella people watching Colbert’s skit about Dan Snyder’s awful foundation who had their minds changed about it as soon as Asian slurs were thrown into the mix?

Thus, if Park is to be criticized for being supported in public by Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin, what does it say about Colbert that these are the types of sentiments expressed in his defense? ... [D]o these sound like people who are rushing to center Native American activism?To reiterate García's points, who exactly would not get the mountains of criticism of the Redskins name, but would get it when Colbert compared the Redskins Foundation to the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation? Someone who's deaf and blind to Native criticism but completely sensitive to Asian criticism?

If this tiny group of people even exists, what are the odds that Colbert's "joke" would reach them? What are the much greater odds that the Asian "satire" would offend people who don't like racism in any form?

And if all of Colbert's fans "get it," why are they so vociferously attacking Suey Park and defending Colbert? Wouldn't a proper response be more like, "I disagree with your interpretation of Colbert's joke, but I agree that racism against Natives and Asians is an ongoing problem that we're not doing enough to combat."

The self-satisfied white privilege of Colbert's fans is glaring: "We get the joke, so we don't have to do anything else to fight racism. We get it so much that we can attack racial advocates who are doing the hard work of challenging the status quo while we pat ourselves on the back for our awareness."

Stewart, like Colbert

A related postings tells us more about "liberal racism":

Jon Stewart cursed me out: I dared question a “Daily Show” warm-up comic’s racist jokes

I asked why a "Daily Show" warm-up targeted African-Americans and a woman in a wheelchair. The host wasn't happy

By Alison KinneyJon Stewart came onstage to take a couple questions from the audience.

I believed in him. I believed in the subversive political humor of his show; I believed that he was delivering messages in a way the mainstream news media should take notice of. I believed that somebody had to speak for the scapegoats, and that a live-audience question to the boss would change things more effectively than a letter to the network. I believed that, if Stewart knew that his warm-up comic had been making invasive, racist gibes about a black couple’s sex life, he couldn’t possibly countenance it.

So I raised my hand and asked, “Why does your warm-up comedian use ethnic humor?”

In retrospect, I should have phrased it more accurately: Why does your show use a comedian whose politics and belief system are so clearly at odds with the show’s? Why is this kind of prejudice being associated with “The Daily Show”? But I was nervous; I didn’t rehearse my question beforehand; I felt I had no time to lose. My tone wasn’t combative, only curious. I didn’t see Stewart as a big media producer on a schedule: I saw him as a person who cared, who asked the same kind of questions I believed in asking.

Stewart’s face creased with annoyance. He said, shortly, loudly, glaring at me, “BECAUSE. IT’S. FUCKING. FUNNY.” The audience erupted into wild applause.I'd guess Colbert and Stewart have an attitude similar to Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy and Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park. Namely, that they feel it's okay to use stereotypes to make fun of stereotypes. That the "satire" label turns whatever they do from straight-out racism to a spoof of straight-out racism in their own minds.

And I'd guess that comes from being privileged white men surrounded by like-minded people. The kind of people who wear Indian headdresses and cheer Indian mascots because "they don't have a racist bone in their bodies." In other words, because being hip gives them a pass to do the same things conservatives do, but claim it's "ironic."

For more on the subject, see Debating Colbert's "Ching-Chong" Joke and Colbert's Joke vs. Mascot Satires.

Suey Park's activism

The person and the motivation behind the #CancelColbert hashtag:

The Campaign to "Cancel" Colbert

By Jay Caspian KangAt its best, #NotYourAsianSidekick provides a channel for thousands of Asian-American women and their allies to discuss the tokenism that so often accompanies broad conversations about diversity in this country. Dissatisfied with the idea of a “seat at the table,” Park uses social media to facilitate a self-contained conversation among Asian-Americans that does not require any explanation or translation of our shared cultural norms. The ultimate significance of a string of tweets can always be questioned, but that a hashtag conversation on Twitter could have such resonance speaks to just how desperate Asian-Americans have been to talk about identity without deferring to the familiar binaries that shape most discussions of race in this country.

#CancelColbert could be seen as a similar attempt to carve out space for Asian-Americans to discuss something that has nothing to do with parody, Daniel Snyder, or the good intentions of “The Colbert Report.” There’s a long tradition in American comedy of dumping tasteless jokes at the feet of Asians and Asian-Americans that follows the perception that we will silently weather the ridicule. If I were to predict which minority group the writers of a show like “The Colbert Report” would choose for an edgy, epithet-laden parody, I’d grimace and prepare myself for some joke about rice, karate, or broken English. The resulting discomfort has nothing to do with the intentions of the joke or the political views of the people laughing at it. Even when you want to be in on the joke—and you understand, intellectually, that you are not the one being ridiculed—it’s hard not to wonder why these jokes always come at the expense of those least likely to protest.

In our conversation, Park admitted that despite the hashtag’s command, she did not want “The Colbert Report” to be cancelled. “I like the show,” she said. Instead, she said, she saw the hashtag as a way to critique white liberals who use forms of racial humor to mock more blatant forms of racism. “Well-intentioned racial humor doesn’t actually do anything to end racism or the Redskins mascot,” Park told me. “That sort of racial humor just makes people who hide under the title of progressivism more comfortable.”

It’s important to note here that Suey Park identifies herself as an activist, and does not make any claim to objectivity or fairness. #CancelColbert might have rankled and annoyed people who got Colbert’s joke, but Park says that the point of the “movement” was to argue that white liberals who routinely condemn what she called “worse racism” will often turn a blind eye to, or even defend, more tacit forms of prejudice, especially when they come from someone who shares their basic political beliefs. “The response shows the totality of white privilege,” Park said. “They say, ‘Suey is trying to take away a show we enjoy, so we’re going to start a petition to take away her First Amendment rights and make rape threats.’ All this happens because they were worried that a show they enjoyed might be taken away.”#CancelColbert activist Suey Park: “This is not reform, this is revolution”

The 23-year-old comedian, writer and activist tells Salon what she wanted from #CancelColbert

By Prachi GuptaOK. But you used this specific joke as a platform to have that conversation. Why was that?

It’s a tool. [Our conversation was interrupted here. Park excused herself and called back a few minutes later.]

Do you want to continue your thought?

Yes, because I think this is important. A lot of white America and so-called liberal people of color, along with conservatives, ask, “Do I understand context?” And that’s part of wanting to completely humanize the oppressor. To see the white man as always reasonable, always pure, always deliberate, always complex and always innocent. And to see the woman of color as literal. Both my intent behind the hashtag and in my [unintelligible] distance, is always about forcing an apology on me for not understanding their context when, in reality, they misunderstood us when they made us a punch line again. So it’s always this logic of how can we understand whiteness better, and that’s never been my politics. I’ve always been about occupying the margins and strengthening the margins and what that means is that, for a long time, whiteness has also occupied the margins. Like, people of color get in circles with no white people in the room and we see that whiteness still operates. So I think it’s kind of a shock for America that whiteness has dominant society already, it also seeps into the margins. What happens the one time when the margins seep into the whiteness and we encroach on their space? It’s like the sky is falling.

Do you think race has a place in comedy? Is it OK to joke about race, and if so, under what circumstances?

I mean, I don’t think people realize what I write about. I write a lot of comedy myself, I write scripts, I write jokes about race all the time, but I think they’re supposed to make a social commentary. A cheap joke is hitting a trope of a minority in order to get a point across. I think a better joke is to point to the depths and the roots of white supremacy, not simply joking about the Ku Klux Klan, not simply joking about Dan Snyder. But actually, like, when are we actually going to have these conversations about how white supremacy has caused Orientalism, slavery and genocide? When will we actually touch on those big things? And I don’t think that we’ve seen that yet in comedy, and I do think it’s possible, but no one is ready to flip the switch to make the white person the subject of the archetype.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Debating Colbert's "Ching-Chong" Joke and Colbert's Joke vs. Mascot Satires.

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Debating Colbert's "ching-chong" joke

In the controversy over Colbert "ching-chong" joke, some people took the #CancelColbert campaign (too) seriously:

No, we shouldn’t #CancelColbert

The outrage over a tweet shows how much umbrage we can take

By Mary Elizabeth Williams“The Colbert Show’s” entire shtick is based on the parody of the right-wing blowhard, and as such it’s consistently taken clever jabs at the issues of race in our country. And it’s understood that if you want to have a successful, middle-aged white man take on these topics, there’s something to be said for dressing him up as a character. Yet as a colleague wisely noted this morning, there is a limit to how much these Caucasian male-dominated venues like “The Colbert Report” and the Onion can get away with on the subject of race. And most of us with any sensitivity whatsoever understand that one person’s biting satire is another’s insult. The only thing that distinguishes a joke is whether it works or not, and in this case, what got a laugh on TV fell flat on Twitter. It’s reasonable to point these things out, and to point them out in the context of how the media represents these issues in general.

But as a full-time, professional offended feminist, I’ve got to say that we all undercut the serious points we may be trying to make about changing the conversation when the response to something that we deem inappropriate is a full-on demand for somebody’s head. Aside from the fact that it’s ludicrous to think for a moment that a network is going to cancel an award-winning, successful show because of a poorly executed tweet, it’s just plain arrogant to even call for it. It gets attention, and maybe that’s the ultimate point, but it also says that if we see something we don’t like, we are justified in trying to eradicate it entirely. That’s an extreme and intellectually unsophisticated response. Earlier this month, a similar case of misplaced self-righteousness blew up when a University of California at Santa Barbara professor took and allegedly destroyed an abortion protester’s sign, telling her, “I may be a thief but you’re a terrorist,” and claiming that she’d been “triggered.”Twitter killed Stephen Colbert’s joke

An uproar to cancel "Colbert Report" over possibly insensitive joke says more about the Internet than the satirist

By Neil DrummingCritics of the tweet say it violates a cardinal rule of satire, which is that it fails to target power and/or authority, but instead goes after the oppressed. That may be true of the words excerpted without proper context. But if you watch the entire routine that aired on Comedy Central on Wednesday night, it seems fairly obvious that Colbert and his writers are going after a deserving target, that is, Snyder et al.

So, when you think about it, it’s really Twitter that ruined Colbert’s totally legitimate dig. (I don’t suppose anyone’s down to get behind #CancelTwitter at this point, though.) Someone at @ColbertReport probably should have realized that not all of the long-winded host’s humor can be disseminated as bite-size chunks. Honestly, the best part of the joke—a tag about triangle hats—didn’t even make the feed. Maybe someone at the office should be held accountable for not knowing how Twitter works—but that doesn’t sound like a firing offense. I mean, really, “The Colbert Show” has given us so much pleasure over the years.

But the fact that a joke died on the Internet yesterday is not the problem here. The most unfortunate result is that now all over cyberspace--and regular space—folks are asking themselves whether or not “The Colbert Report” should be taken off the air instead of asking, “Wait, why are they still called the Redskins?”

Racism in "satire" = racism

Others thought the "joke" went awry. Whether they agreed with #CancelColbert or not, they were with okay with criticizing Colbert's insensitivity.

In support of #CancelColbert: Why Stephen Colbert needs to make this right

I’m a Colbert fan and know he was trying to expose the absurdity of slurs against Natives. But here’s why it failed

By Brittney Cooper[W]hite people do not have a history of being devalued as white people on the basis of the slurs. Yes, Irish Americans, Italian Americans and Polish Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were frequently the object of ethnic epithets and discrimination. But as those groups “became white,” whiteness itself became what Cheryl Harris calls a form of property, a protection against racial devaluing. So when Colbert, a white male, uses these slurs, even in the mode of critique, he steps into incredibly muddy water, and surely cannot expect to come out unsoiled.

In other words, I’m saying that though the bit was intended to critique racism, it failed. Yes, Colbert was spot on in his analysis of the ridiculousness of Dan Snyder’s “Original Americans” Foundation. But to paraphrase one of my Twitter-locutors, Chris Robinson, you can’t make Asian people collateral damage on your way to proving a point about racism toward Native people.

And what we should understand is that as satire goes, there is the thinnest of lines between critiquing racism and reinforcing or reinscribing those very stereotypes. Remember the 2008 cover of the New Yorker, called “The Politics of Fear,” that attempted to satirize the range of racist mischaracterizations of the Obamas. It communicated the absurdity of those stereotypes, but did not communicate an alternative narrative, that would effectively combat the stereotypes at hand.And:If Colbert had used the N-word instead to prove his point about Natives, we would have been outraged. And we would have seen #CancelColbert as the only appropriate response. Yet, many of the folks I dialogued with felt that calls to cancel the show were too much, and suggested that an apology was more appropriate.

One, we never get to tell the harmed group what the proper response to racial injury should be for them. Two, rather than critiquing the strategy, why not simply send a tweet or email demanding an apology? Solidarity is rarely simple, but choosing not to minimize someone else’s struggle is quite easy.

We have to learn ways to be in solidarity with one another. Increasingly, racism does not follow a simple white-on-black schema. And while I’m well aware of the pervasiveness of anti-black racism among all groups including Asians and Latinos, I also know Orientalism (Edward Said’s term) when I see it. And it is unacceptable. Black folks should be against all forms of othering, ethnic insensitivity and racism. Period.Don’t #CancelColbert, just hire more writers of color

An out-of-context joke went viral on Twitter and sparked a national debate about the limits of satire

By Prachi GuptaBut in the segment, Colbert built the punch line upon a cringe-worthy depiction of a “Chinaman” that went on for long enough to wonder if the humor in the segment was derived from Colbert’s mockery of Dan Snyder, or his actual impression and its finely crafted puns at the expense of Asians. As Brittney Cooper, generally a fan of Colbert, wrote for Salon, “By using language that seemingly sounds like how Asian Americans talk, Colbert’s bit communicated absurdity but also seemed to suggest that all Asians really do speak this way.”And:With more non-white people, more women, more LGBTQ people, more people who are just not straight white dudes, the humor expands to become more inclusive and original. More people will be able to say, “Hey, maybe this is not the best way to present X,” or “This sort of bothers me and might alienate other people, too.” We routinely see edgier stuff coming from diversity in television, and as audiences, we’re less confused about whether what we’re watching is punching down on a minority, or punching up on a minority’s behalf.

Why the "joke" failed

Why Colbert’s Joke Failed #NotYourSafeComedyRace

By InitAs an Asian American, I know that what Colbert the persona is saying is racist. Therefore, it’s easy for me to draw the conclusion that because what Colbert is saying is racist, what Dan Snyder is doing is also racist. And were Colbert’s whole audience composed principally of Asian Americans, this would have worked, because everybody is in on the joke.

However, where The Colbert Report‘s satire fails is that a significant portion of The Colbert Report‘s audience does not intuitively or instinctively believe in their guts that saying “Ching Chong Ding Dong” or using the term “Orientals” is necessarily racist. Not everybody who laughs at “Ching Chong Ding Dong” is laughing because Colbert the character is so stupidly racist, but they are laughing at Asians. I believe this to be the case because this kind of anti-Asian dialog is still common in our society and is not immediately countered by most of society for being racist. It only becomes a problem, like for Rosie O’Donnell and her ching-chonging on The View, when Asians and anti-racists mobilize and call the offender out on it.

In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” he calls for the sale of Irish children as food for the wealthy in order to resolve poverty. It is unconscionable and undeniably wrong, No one could call for such a thing in society without immediate reaction and knowing that it is wrong.

In order to properly satirize Snyder, then Colbert would have to say something that is undeniably racist to the whole of his audience. However, as we know, offense against Asians isn’t undeniably racist to the public because the outrage against the use of the word “Ching Chong Ding Dong” nor the casting of Asians as “sensitive” does not come from the whole of the public, but primarily from Asian Americans and their allies in the anti-racist movement.Comment:  This applies to many so-called "satires" of racism. For instance, every time South Park or Family Guy shows an Indian in leathers and feathers. These instances reinforce the dominant stereotypes, not critique them. Many Americans think they're true, not false, so they don't get the so-called joke.

Same with the New Yorker cover (above). A substantial minority of Americans thinks Obama is a foreigner and a Muslim. How is it a "satire" to reproduce their false beliefs without commentary?

Same with Colbert's "ching-chong" joke. No one knows what percentage of Americans "gets" that Asians talk in a normal voice, not in a sing-song cadence. If the "joke" failed to register with some people, it failed, period.

Then there's a whole subconscious level of perception going on. Where do people get the idea that Indians are savages or blacks are criminals? From movies and TV shows--including "satires" such as The Colbert Report.

That's true even though people "know," superficially, that stereotypes are false. Deep down, seeing or hearing is believing. People absorb stereotypical messages even when they think they know better. Especially when the messages repeated over and over.

For more on the subject, see:

Stereotyping explained to South Park apologists
Tomahawk Tassels stereotypes Native women
"Jokes" without punchlines are racist
The Dudesons, Polish jokes, and minstrel shows
Okay to stereotype in "satires"?