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| 18 apr 2002 take a look at those shirts. funny how yesterday i said i was craving a shopping experience at my beloved abercrombie, and this controversy blows up the next day. imagine my reaction if i had walked into that store ignorant of their new line of "asian" t-shirts. so. i don't know the demographics of my readers, so if you're asian, does this offend you? if you're not asian, can you see how this would piss a whole bunch of asians off? my first reaction when i caught wind of this on amabelle's blog wasn't so much taking offense. it was more feeling sad that the people at a&f must have been really stupid. or blind. maybe they thought it was so funny to them that they didn't bother to think about whether it was offensive or not. in the san francisco chronicle article, a PR guy for a&f said that they thought asian americans would love the t-shirt. at first, i thought he must have been smoking crack. but then again... i can see why he would think so. i mean, there is a whole fucking SLEW of "white trash"-branded items out there. shit, i even had a "white trash" hat complete with a picture of a trailer home. and i bet there are people who buy that and have no problems with it. they might even think it's funny. so by that thinking, yeah, sure. one of amabelle's readers commented that maybe there wouldn't be such harsh backlash if the t-shirts were made by an asian company. i thought that was a really interesting question, and i think he's right. and then amabelle said that the issue here is who the company is marketing to. she claims that the fact that a&f markets to mainstream (does that mean white?) people. does it matter who the target audience is? why does it matter? maybe it's because we may or not feel threatened or mocked by the person who wears it. like, if an asian guy wears it, then we just shrug it off because hell, he's "one of us." but if a non-asian guy wears it, then it feels like he's making fun of us, and that offends our sense of security. the side tangent in all of this is i'm not comfortable with the fact that if an asian company made the shirt, it'd be more acceptable. what is so cool about self-deprecation? yes, i agree there is a fine line between poking fun at oneself (which is rather innocuous) and being self-deprecating. i don't understand the latter. it makes me CRINGE when i see margaret cho on stage poking fun of slanty-eyed asians and putting on a fake fobby accent. in the end, i think that offensive stuff is always offensive no matter where it comes from. on a side note, adam asked me if i will buy a&f stuff from now on. i said i probably would. at worst, i think a&f really fucked up. at best, i think they just made a really bad error in judgment. their PR statement so far makes them seem really deluded, and of course, with all their internal scrambling around, we'll most likely never know how the hell the shirts got greenlighted. ok. i just got back from basketball. and this entry so far is nowhere as coherent as it was to me last night, when i wrote it down mentally in my head. but anyways, i was talking to will about it while we were shooting around, and i had two conflicting thoughts. first, i wanted to believe that an item should be judged as offensive independently of who made it. but second, i did believe that who makes it is relevant because that party is making a statement. *shrug* i'm tired of thinking about this. i feel like i have a million things to say, and at the same time i have nothing to say about it. so i'm going to move on. ----- while i'm on the topic of controversy, i poked around some KKK websites the other day. apparently there are allegedly over 200 "klans" in america. so i checked one of them out, the knights of the ku klux klan. i read their FAQ, and in it, they declare that they don't actually hate other races. they simply claim that they believe america was supposed to be a country built by white christians for white christians. and they want to use political (not violent) power to strive for their vision. hm. after skimming their FAQ, i thought they sounded mildly intelligent and *almost* reasonable. note that i said *almost*. i mean, they didn't sound like ignorant hate mongers spouting out about how they despised people that weren't white christians. they actually sounded kind of normal, and i could *almost* see where they were coming from. ah, isn't that the beauty of propaganda? i mean, i bet you could take the most repugnant thought and shape it into something that people would actually consider. it's dangerous stuff. here i am, a chinese american dude, who claims that i can see a faint glimmer of reason in what the ku klux klan has to say! now imagine how a white christian would react, especially if he already harbors some kind of resentment to foreigners. no wonder white supremacy groups are growing in numbers today. there are lot of klan webpages out there. some others are a lot more blatant in what they believe. i was watching VH1 the other day, and there was a show about hatecore, which is like white supremacy heavy metal. there was one really disturbing scene where two girls who couldn't have been more than 10 years old got up at a klan gathering and sang songs about a "white land" and shit like that. geez. ----- race is just a way too sensitive topic. it makes me wonder how we're supposed to coexist. i dream of the world being like a united colors of benetton ad. but sad to say, i don't think it will ever happen. hypocrisy is in us all. for me, i'll point out the fact that earlier, i used the word "fobby." whoops. i'm IM'ing stef, and i just told her that my solution to racial differences is to have sex with everybody. and generations down the line, we'll all be mixed breeds, and there will be no pure race left, and everyone will be the same: a mutt. how's that sound? the added bonus is that that i bet there will be some really beautiful hapa-type people at that point. fuck them all! literally! anyways, i went home last night, and jay asked me if i wanted some of his smashing bbq ribs. i leaned over until i was about a centimeter from the ribs, and took a big whiff. jay got really stern with me, and said in a calm voice, "don't do that. you're spreading your germs." at first, i was really taken aback. i don't remember the last time i was rebuked like that. it was like i was a kid again, and my parents were slapping me on the wrists. but then, i got over it, and i was glad that jay told me. because sometimes i'm just clueless on manners, and that's such a horrible thing. oh, and i have to remember to stop swearing so loudly at the bowling alley. mike once said something about having a ton of change. you know, pocket change. he collects his coins in a jar and once a year he'll cash it in. i've been really good about spending my coins. i only keep them in two places: my car and my pockets. and since i got through drive-thru's so much, i have ample opportunity to use my change. i'm proud of the fact that as of today, i have a total of FOUR coins in my possession. news is that _ally mcbeal_ has been cancelled by fox. i am really sad. i had no idea their ratings were so bad. apparently _the bachelor_ has been creaming _ally_ on monday nights. speaking of that show, sometimes i really don't see how this one guy can have all these affections for multiple women. i mean, he'll go out with one girl this night, and he'll hold hands and hug and kiss and probably have sex. and then the next day, he'll turn around and do the same with another girl. amazing! but come to think of it, maybe it's possible to love multiple women. i mean, there's polygamy, right? last night's _dawson's_ was terrible. except, of course, for audrey's fantastic body freckles. i cannot believe that joey is going for charlie. but anyways, after the show, i *had* to vent to someone, so i called up carol. we wound up talking for quite a while. she's fun to talk to. at first, she was like, "you're such a loser. you're calling me up to talk about _dawson's_?" later, she proceeded to imply that i was lame, and after that, she told me i was pompous. it's cool how she can bag on me like that. i look like i've been attacked by a cat. i have three scratch marks on my left cheek, one on my right, one on my right arm, and a few on my forehead. apparently i've been scratching myself and not noticing, and because i've been biting my nails, my nails are all jagged and sharp. ugh. i washed my face last night, and it just fucking hurt. all right. i have a bitchload of coding to do. can you say LEARNING CACHE? |