#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.

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"?

Colbert's joke vs. mascot satires

My take on the Colbert "ching-chong" controversy, recounted here:

Offensive tweet launches #CancelColbert trend, but Stephen Colbert says he’s not responsible

Interesting case study of how (not) to do satire.

The tweet certainly seems offensive on the face of it. But the same quote appeared "in context" as part of Colbert's report on the Redskins.

So the context is necessary for the "joke" to work. And so is the meta-context: that Colbert is only playing a right-wing racist.

If your satire requires everyone to understand the context and the meta-context, it's arguably a failure. Satire should be self-evident without the layers of context. If the quote seems racist on its own, perhaps it's racist "in context" as well.

People have been saying women, blacks, gays et al. are [insert negative adjective here] forever, then claiming it's a "joke" or a "satire." I suspect that's what they said when someone criticized blackface performances or Amos 'n' Andy. "We don't really think these people are buffoons. We were just having fun."

Colbert's defense is basically the same. And I don't buy it in either case. Again, if the satire is indistinguishable from the racist reality, there's no satire. There's only the racist reality.

For a similar controversy, see:

'The Onion' Draws Criticism for a Tweet About Quvenzhané Wallis

Colbert = Onion = Rickles

This posting led to a discussion with some Facebook friends:I see what you're saying, Rob, but I think Colbert is noteworthy enough to sort of provide his own context at this point. I think it was a huge mistake for him to tweet the joke where it didn't have the benefit of the audio visual background. I think most people would still react with "Oh, Colbert."

It was definitely in poor taste, but I wouldn't call it racist or compare it to the "jokes" that real racists say. I'm not exactly saying he's racist. But I think he comes from a white-privileged position that makes him somewhat tone-deaf. He thinks making a racist Asian joke to satirize racism against Natives is harmless because, well, he's white and neither form of racism affects him. He's not well-qualified to judge how a minority person might react.

The people who would say "Oh, Colbert" would also say "Oh, the Onion" (in the example above). They'd also say "Oh, Don Rickles" or "Oh, Rush Limbaugh"...he mocks everyone. So again, who's famous enough as a comedian or a critic to get away with these comments?

How do you draw the dividing line between, say, Colbert and Limbaugh, who could both utter the same line and both say they were joking? And if the audience has to make these meta-contextual decisions about who's joking and who's not, how is that not an immediate failure? If you have to decode a satire, that means it hasn't worked.

I'm guessing close to 100% of the population understood what Colbert was doing--including the conservatives who criticized him. But understanding his intent doesn't necessarily negate the effects.

He's putting it out there that Asians speak in a "ching-chong" way, even as a joke. I'd suggest this influences people the same as every other stereotype: blacks are criminals, Indians are savages, Arabs are terrorists, etc. Even if people say they get the joke on an intellectual level, it may affect their beliefs.

Let's put it this way. Can you prove stereotypes like "ching-chong" do not affect people's perceptions on a subconscious or irrational level? If not, then it's best to avoid them. Even as "jokes" intended to make a point about something else.

Are mascot satires different?I have seen a bunch of cartoons and posters that compare naming teams "Redskins" to naming teams "Sp-des", "Ki-es", etc. I am not saying what Colbert did was that funny, but how is it different from these other examples?

Depending on the circumstances, there are several potential differences:

1) Political cartoons are often labeled as political cartoons. Images of fake mascots such as the "Chicago Kikes" or "Atlanta Spades" are often captioned with a phrase such as, "How would you like these mascots?" One way or another, they're often labeled as parodies or the like.

2) Words such as "spades" and "kikes" are slurs rather than stereotypes. Obviously they're negative, but they don't describe someone's appearance or behavior. The "ching-chong" voice, like an Indian in a headdress or an Arab with a bomb, does.

3) A cartoon or image makes only a momentary impression. It's not a bit that goes on for a minute and then gets retweeted, compounding the problem.

Overall, it probably goes back to the context question. In the context of a critical analysis of mascots, for instance, a "Chicago Kikes" banner might be an acceptable way to make a point.

But you probably wouldn't go to an NFL game, wave the same banner for an hour, and later explain you were satirizing the Redskins. Some people would get the "satire" and some probably wouldn't.

Even if they understood the intent, Jews might say, "We got the point in the first three seconds. The other 59:57 of banner waving just offended us. The banner didn't change over the hour, but the effect shifted from satirizing a slur to perpetuating it."

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"?

Below:  Stereotypes or satire of stereotypes? What's the difference, if any?

Colbert criticized for "ching-chong" joke

People Want 'The Colbert Report' Canceled Over Asian Joke

By Catherine ThompsonTwitter users aimed to get the hashtag #CancelColbert trending on Thursday night after the official Twitter account for "The Colbert Report" posted a joke about Asian stereotypes out of context.

The now-deleted tweet read "I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever."

That was a quote taken directly from a segment on Wednesday's show that lampooned Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who announced he created the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation to aid Native American tribes while ignoring calls to change the football team's much-maligned name.

For context, here's how the "Ching-Chong Ding-Dong" reference came up in Wednesday's segment:Folks, this move by Dan Snyder inspires me, because my show has frequently come under attack for having a so-called offensive mascot. My beloved character Ching-Chong Ding-Dong…the point is, offensive or not—not—Ching-Chong is part of the unique heritage of the Colbert Nation that cannot change. But I’m willing to show the Asian community that I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitive to Orientals or Whatever.

Stephen Colbert Accused of Racism With #CancelColbert Campaign

By Alex StedmanThe joke was taken from a bit on Wednesday night’s “The Colbert Report,” parodying Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder and his launch of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation in light of controversy over the team name. Taken out of context, however, many Twitter users saw the joke as racist, and launched a #CancelColbert campaign that quickly became a trending topic.And:“The Colbert Report” Twitter clarified that the account is not run by Colbert himself.

For the record @ColbertReport is not controlled by Stephen Colbert or his show. He is @StephenAtHome Sorry for the confusion #CancelColbert—
The Colbert Report (@ColbertReport) March 28, 2014

This is a Comedy Central account, with no oversight from Stephen/show. Here is quoted line in context on.cc.com/1dyeQri #cancelcolbert—
The Colbert Report (@ColbertReport) March 28, 2014TV’s Colbert Report in slur stir over tweet

By Soraya Nadia McDonaldSnyder was pilloried by the online Native American community Monday night after releasing a four-page letter saying that he would be creating the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. Many were outraged by what they felt was an ersatz show of support from the man who refuses to change the team’s name, which many consider a slur.

But things didn’t go much better for Colbert, who became the target of a #CancelColbert Twitter hashtag started by those who found the tweet offensive. Suey Park, the hashtag activist responsible for #NotYourAsianSidekick, said she would continue calling for Colbert’s job until he issued an apology.

Some felt #CancelColbert was derailing and distracting from the original issue, Snyder, the team name he won’t change, and #NotYourMascot.This Washington Post article, above, was noteworthy for using one of my tweets:

"The super-rich racist white guy has decided for us that 'redskin' is a perfectly acceptable slur that NAs love." http://t.co/pNPGFZNVEt

— BlueCornComics (@bluecorncomics) March 27, 2014

True, I was merely quoting the article I tweeted. And the quote is something many people have said in various ways. But I guess it was the perfect choice of quote as far as the Post was concerned.

Indians on TV talk shows

In Adam Beach on Jimmy Kimmel Live, I wondered when a Native last appeared on late-night TV. Someone suggested the answer was never. I said I thought Jay Silverheels had been on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and I knew Charlie Hill had been on David Letterman several times. So the answer wasn't quite never. It just seemed that way.

Activist Suzan Harjo provided a list of talk-show appearances:Charlie Hill was on Carson. Robbie Robertson on Letterman. Sherman Alexie on Ferguson and Colbert. If you count daytime talk, Will Sampson was on Dinah Shore and Rick West and I were on Oprah, separately, and I was on two of her shows. Vine Deloria, Jr., Frank Fools Crow, Matthew King, Larry Red Shirt were on Cavett (so was LaDonna Harris, on a separate show).I remembered Robertson on Letterman and Alexie on Colbert, but it was good to hear about the others. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the number of times Natives should've appeared, but it's not nothing.

More on Oprah

Coincidentally, someone else asserted that Oprah Winfrey had never done a show on Native Americans. I said she visited the Navajo Nation (in 2006), where she got in trouble. For staging a non-Navajo powwow, I think.

And there was this: Quileute Chairwoman Visits Oprah. Add these to Harjo's examples and Oprah has done at least five shows on Natives.

Still, the Oprah Winfrey Show did 4,561 episodes in its 25-year history. Given their percentage of the population, Natives should've appeared in 50 or more episodes. Five or 10 suggest Natives were grossly underrepresented.

For more on the subject, see TV Shows Featuring Indians.

Colbert satirizes UN declaration scare

Stephen Colbert exposes Obama's latest takeover plan on the Comedy Channel's Colbert Report, 1/4/11:


Comment:  I thought this bit was cute but also stereotypical at the end. It was a good subject to satirize, but in Colbert's final speech, it wasn't clear who or what he was satirizing.

A comment on Facebook:He is playing the part of a Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly. That is the point of his character. He is the modern-day Archie Bunker.Yes, we understand that. The question is whether Colbert is satirizing white men or Indians at the end. I'd say he crossed the line from one to the other.

True, it's similar to an Archie Bunker rant. But Mike Stivic or someone usually contradicted Archie's racist remarks and made him look stupid. Nothing like that happened to punctuate Colbert's remarks, which makes them a problem.

Colbert's bit really annoyed someone else:Shame on Comedy Central for choosing to take that story in the direction they did. I know that they are in the business of being funny and making light of serious topics--but the shame of it is that what could and should have been an opportunity to finally get the topic of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights in front of the general public and mass of uninformed Americans was turned into a farce---and worse, a farce that went right into the usual stereotyping and racism. Me heapum pissed off.Yeah, how are audiences supposed to take Colbert's Tonto talk? Is he talking like an ignorant Indian? Or like an ignorant white man's impression of an ignorant Indian?

Since he's supposedly directing his comments at Indians, the correct answer is the former, or both. That is, he's talking in a style intended to communicate successfully with Indians. If he's portraying himself as ignorant, he's also portraying Indians as ignorant. That's stereotypical.

If Sherman Alexie or someone came on and mocked Colbert's "ignorance" the way the Jeffersons used to mock Archie, that would be different. But nothing like that happened. Nothing told viewers that Indians are really educated and speak perfect English like everyone else.

In short, the bit was a nice try, but it failed in the end. Better luck next time, Comedy Central.

For more on the UN Declaration, see Modoc Nation Rips UN Declaration and Countdown Covers UN Declaration Scare. For more on how humor and satire work, see The Dudesons, Polish Jokes, and Minstrel Shows and Okay to Stereotype in "Satires"?

At the Restore Sanity rally

Some info gleaned from news reports and photos of today's Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Restore Sanity and/or Fear rally.

"Restore Sanity" signs

Atheists for masturbation. Obama is not the devil, I am. If it's any consolation, I'm going to hell.

Our government doesn't suck. Eat, pray, vote. More sanity...less Hannity! Fox News--real comedy.

Hitler is Hitler. Fear gives me a Boehner. There's so much teabagging going on, I almost wish I had a scrotum.

Anger is not a policy. Compromise! (if that's okay with you). Raise my taxes (please).

Things are pretty OK. Don't panic. Use your inside voice. No head stomping.

Seen at the rally

The Devil. Witches. Three Mexican amigos. Gay Muslims. Ozzy Osborne and the former Cat Stevens. A pretend (?) Indian.



With his light skin, beard, and what looks like multiple layers of robes or skirts below the waist, I'd guess this Indian is fake rather than real. But at least he used some sort of authentic headpiece and unusual costume. In other words, he's not blatantly stereotypical.

Reactions to the rally

Jon Stewart’s Brilliant Attack on the MediaThe coverage of the rally I’ve seen so far tends toward the dismissive, as does its play on the home pages of The New York Times and Washington Post. “Nonpartisan bits, musical entertainment and gentle ribbing of the purported enemies of incivility,” is the Post’s view of it. Cute. Unimportant. A trifle. Pay no heed to its criticism of us; it’s just a joke, after all. Ex-Postie Howie Kurtz was surprised at the size of the event. He underestimated. I didn’t. He called it “shtick” and “weak” at that. His was an entertainment review. That’s how The Times saw it, as “part circus, part satire, part holiday parade.” You know how those kids love a parade with clowns, yet.

Well, judged as entertainment, Kurtz isn’t entirely wrong. Except it wasn’t entertainment. The event used entertainment to be something else, to make a different point. At least The Times’ wunderkind, Brian Stelter, got a blogging chance to call it was it was: media criticism. But sadly, the media don’t even realize they were being criticized, not really.And from Stewart himself:

Stewart Closes Rally With Biting Critique of Media

Read the speech that made the Rally to Restore Sanity much more than a live variety show

By James BurnettUnfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country's 24-hour politico pundit panic conflict-onator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems and illuminate problems heretofore unseen, or it can use its magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous-flaming-ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rich Sanchez is an insult--not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put forth the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more.Comment:  This would be the same media that has attacked and stereotyped Indians for a few centuries. I bet the same kind of fearmongering went on then too:

Beware the Indians = beware the Muslims

Savage attack = terrorist attack

They're out to destroy us = they're out to destroy us

They're barbaric and evil = they're barbaric and evil

I left out other fearmongering campaigns such as beware the immigrants or beware the Commies. But they're all basically the same thing. We're good, they're bad. God is on our side. The ends justify the means. Be a victor or be a victim. Etc.

For more on the Glenn Beck rally that inspired this rally, see Native Pastor at Beck Rally and Conservative Rallies = White Self-Pity. For more on the underlying issues, see Terrorists Oppose Foreign Occupation and Muslims Killed Thousands, Christians Didn't?!