In March 2014, The Colbert Report made a segment about
Daniel Snyder, the owner of an American football team the and the racism
associated with it’s name and mascot; the Washington Redskins. The segment
caused a backlash when one of the segment’s lines was tweeted by the show’s
official Twitter account.
The tweet (which has since been deleted) read: “I am
willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong
Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.”
The backlash came in the form of a hashtag campaign
"#CancelColbert" started by Suey Park who felt that in Colbert’s
attempt to satirise the racism of Dan Snyder against Native Americans, he in
fact simultaneously perpetuated racism
against Asian Americans. Her campaign gained massive criticism, in particular
due to an interview she gave with a reporter from The Huffington Post, Josh
Zepps.
It is obvious that Colbert’s intention was to use
overt racism as satire to ridicule and highlight the absurdity of Dan Snyder’s
racism and Zepps implies that satire doesn’t harm any group since it is
ridiculing the very thing it is targeting.
Does this mean that satire at the expense of a
minority group is acceptable because it is in defence of another minority
group? Park asserts that “satire is supposed to punch up”, or, aimed upwards in
the power dynamic, and that Colbert failed when he drew the parallel to Orientalism. Journalist Molly Ivins states that “Satire is traditionally the
weapon of the powerless against the powerful…When satire is aimed at the
powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.”
So which racial group holds the power; the position to
impose their world view to be accepted as the norm? In American mass media, it
is invariably the white majority who hold this position thus Colbert’s use of
satire in this case, according to Ivins, is not only ineffective but cruel,
further perpetuating the harmful stereotypes of Asian Americans.
It also speaks to the media’s use of overt racism when
such a comment about “Orientals” and negative stereotypes of Asians would be
deemed acceptable and humorous precisely because of its offensiveness,
regardless of the context in which it is being used. Furthermore, that in his
attempt to ridicule (and disassociate himself from) an overt racist (Dan Snyder),
Colbert inevitably reinforced the same type of racism under the guise of humour
and seemingly without fear of consequences.
So then was Colbert effective in achieving what he set
out to do? Park argues that “we can’t end racism by joking about it” and says
that if white liberals (Colbert Report’s target audience) were serious about
changing and ending racism, there are more effective ways to do so than to joke
about it.
Park states that some white liberals suffer from a
misconception that they are less racist by being able to “joke about people who
are more explicitly racist” but concludes that this does not contribute
anything positive towards ending racism. This touches on neo conservative ideas
of racism where people who possess a self-image of being “colourblind” believe
it is thus acceptable to joke about racism and also accuse retaliation from the
targeted racial groups as acts of self-victimisation and extreme political
correctness. Park concludes that what Colbert’s audience is most concerned
about is not in fact changing racism, but reasserting their right to laugh at
racist jokes.
Park’s backlash caused a backlash of its own with many
people expressing their opinions, almost overwhelmingly against her. These responses blasted Park’s age and lack of
experience and accused her of self-victimisation, attention seeking, and fake
outrage, or “poutrage”. The majority of her critics did not address Park’s view
that despite being satire, racist humour should not be acceptable, but rather,
they accused her of not “getting the joke”.
In one such video, the commentators accused her of
wanting “credit for oppression she never went through” and perpetuated overt
racial stereotypes, such as making fun of her name (Suzy Chew, Soy Pack etc..)
and implying the only oppression she knows was not being allowed to wear her
Hello Kitty backpack to school.
So what do you guys think? Is it an acceptable idea
that the use of racist satire is okay because we are acting against racism and
therefore cannot be racist?
Do you think that Suey Park was attention-seeking and
over-sensitising what was a well-intentioned joke meant to fight against racism? Or
were her points valid in discouraging the media’s use of racist comments regardless
of context?
Link to the Colbert Report segment: (starts at 4:46)
Link to Huffington Post Josh Zepps interview with Suey
Park:
Link to Joe Rogan on
racist Suey Park and #CancelColbert:
It’s funny you bring that up actually about people calling her over-sensitive, etcetera, because I feel like that happens with almost every slightly controversial joke now. As in, as soon as someone points out that the joke is offensive to some people there is like a public outcry about how if people can’t handle jokes they shouldn’t watch the video and so on. It is a strange plan to fight racism with racism though, but also maybe not the greatest idea to argue against that notion with a hashtag. Making a hashtag seems like the laziest protest.
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