Max Karson of Colorado University has given up on racial tolerance. Karson wrote a controversial column for the campus paper titled “If it’s war the Asians want…It’s war they’ll get,” in which he outlines an attack on the souls of Asian people. The self-called “No more ‘Mr. Pretend-I’m-not-Racist,’” says that “tolerance” and “cultural sensitivity” are over (his scare quotes, not mine). Karson declares a race war: “They hate us all… It’s time we started hating them back.”
I’ve been trying to stomach this racist hate speech for three weeks, during which my reaction has become more complex.
“I’m offended!” was my instinctual reaction. When I read Karson’s misguided satire about identifying Asians by asking us to do calculus in our heads, training us to read facial expressions, and punishing us for not speaking English, my thought process was “racist, racist, and more racist.” Here are the old anti-Asian stereotypes — that we are all math nerds, that we are inscrutable, that none of us can speak English, et cetera. By the way, if an Asian person can do math and has less than perfect English, that’s not a reason to attack.
Not only does Karson generalize all Asians, but his gross generalization is the basis for his violent hatred of Asians and need to “attack their souls.” Karson’s plan of attack has the ring of Nazi rhetoric. He invites his volunteers to “hunt” down Asians, round them up with nets, and throw them into a “reformation” program that tortures them until the “Asian spirit is broken.”
Karson claims that his exaggerated column is a piece of satire because he wants to say, “Hey, it’s a joke.” But the only person who would find this funny is a white supremacist. Maybe that’s close to who Karson is, considering he was arrested for making threatening comments about being “angry enough to kill people” during a class discussion of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung Hui. It seems that Karson takes his own satire quite literally.
Feeling offended is a combination of disgust and outrage. I am disgusted that such an ignorant piece of journalism went to print. I am outraged by the “apology” delivered by the editors of the CU Campus Press. Their apology is half-hearted: “We apologize for any ambiguity of the satire that may have been misconstrued.” I wish the editors would have just taken a bite of humble pie and said, “We made a mistake.” There’s a difference between saying “Sorry to anyone who might have been offended” and “Sorry for being offensive.” The first is phony, the second is genuine. Campus Press offered a fake apology, the same way Karson’s column is fake satire. To read a real apology, see the public statement from G.P. “Bud” Peterson, Chancellor of CU.
Another side of my reaction was a lack of surprise. I’m not surprised that someone declared “War on Asians” because I’m no longer surprised that racism exists. In 2006, there was a similarly anti-Asian “satire” in my own school’s paper The Daily Bruin. The article “A Modest Proposal for an Immodest Proposition” was also controversial and inspired complaint letters. Again at CU’s Campus Press, Lauren E. Geary wrote a racist column against Hispanics called “No Hablo Ingles.” All these racist articles represent more than a recent trend of on-campus racism; they are the present form of a history of racism in America.
My final reaction is resolve, that feeling of “I’m not gonna give up.” There’s racism and ignorance in the world of journalism, but I’ll take that as a reason to keep writing. Karson publicized what a lot of people think about Asian people, but most people know better to keep it to themselves and not act on their resentment toward Asians. We need to keep fighting the good fight, not a war against Asians or whites or any group, but a struggle to end ignorance so there will be less people who think the way Karson does.
Every act of oppression is met with a resistance movement. Students at CU rallied against the Campus Press’ infamous hate speech columns by Karson and Geary. The Asian American Journalists Association and numerous Asian American bloggers helped mobilize the outcry against Karson’s column. Protests can bring change: Karson has been suspended from Campus Press.
Who’s laughing now?
I’ve been trying to stomach this racist hate speech for three weeks, during which my reaction has become more complex.
“I’m offended!” was my instinctual reaction. When I read Karson’s misguided satire about identifying Asians by asking us to do calculus in our heads, training us to read facial expressions, and punishing us for not speaking English, my thought process was “racist, racist, and more racist.” Here are the old anti-Asian stereotypes — that we are all math nerds, that we are inscrutable, that none of us can speak English, et cetera. By the way, if an Asian person can do math and has less than perfect English, that’s not a reason to attack.
Not only does Karson generalize all Asians, but his gross generalization is the basis for his violent hatred of Asians and need to “attack their souls.” Karson’s plan of attack has the ring of Nazi rhetoric. He invites his volunteers to “hunt” down Asians, round them up with nets, and throw them into a “reformation” program that tortures them until the “Asian spirit is broken.”
Karson claims that his exaggerated column is a piece of satire because he wants to say, “Hey, it’s a joke.” But the only person who would find this funny is a white supremacist. Maybe that’s close to who Karson is, considering he was arrested for making threatening comments about being “angry enough to kill people” during a class discussion of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung Hui. It seems that Karson takes his own satire quite literally.
Feeling offended is a combination of disgust and outrage. I am disgusted that such an ignorant piece of journalism went to print. I am outraged by the “apology” delivered by the editors of the CU Campus Press. Their apology is half-hearted: “We apologize for any ambiguity of the satire that may have been misconstrued.” I wish the editors would have just taken a bite of humble pie and said, “We made a mistake.” There’s a difference between saying “Sorry to anyone who might have been offended” and “Sorry for being offensive.” The first is phony, the second is genuine. Campus Press offered a fake apology, the same way Karson’s column is fake satire. To read a real apology, see the public statement from G.P. “Bud” Peterson, Chancellor of CU.
Another side of my reaction was a lack of surprise. I’m not surprised that someone declared “War on Asians” because I’m no longer surprised that racism exists. In 2006, there was a similarly anti-Asian “satire” in my own school’s paper The Daily Bruin. The article “A Modest Proposal for an Immodest Proposition” was also controversial and inspired complaint letters. Again at CU’s Campus Press, Lauren E. Geary wrote a racist column against Hispanics called “No Hablo Ingles.” All these racist articles represent more than a recent trend of on-campus racism; they are the present form of a history of racism in America.
My final reaction is resolve, that feeling of “I’m not gonna give up.” There’s racism and ignorance in the world of journalism, but I’ll take that as a reason to keep writing. Karson publicized what a lot of people think about Asian people, but most people know better to keep it to themselves and not act on their resentment toward Asians. We need to keep fighting the good fight, not a war against Asians or whites or any group, but a struggle to end ignorance so there will be less people who think the way Karson does.
Every act of oppression is met with a resistance movement. Students at CU rallied against the Campus Press’ infamous hate speech columns by Karson and Geary. The Asian American Journalists Association and numerous Asian American bloggers helped mobilize the outcry against Karson’s column. Protests can bring change: Karson has been suspended from Campus Press.
Who’s laughing now?
8 comments:
okaaaay--did I miss something? his piece was a satire? isn't satire supposed to be funny? or at least a clever comment on something? One of the definitions of the word is 'writing that makes someone look foolish'. Oh--wait--it did. But it was the writer himself, not the subject that looked that way--and 'foolish' isn't strong enough to describe him or his opinion.
Well I think this is good for Asians (especially women) to read because even though he claims it is satire the fact remains his thoughts came from his feelings. It is good for Asians (especially the young, college aged and 20 somethings) to see because it is a wake up call that racism has not gone away.
Racism is alive and well it's just not as visible due to societal pressure (need to be PC). They'll tell you that they are sorry if anyone was offended but what that really means is they are are surprised they were confronted and now feel the need to apologize in some way. The problem is they are not truly apologizing because it is what they actually believe in and how they truly feel.
Asian women in particular need to wake up and not allow themselves to be lulled into this false sense that all is well. With so many ethnicities swooning over Asian women (especially whites) it is easy to see how they might feel the whole racism issue is exaggerated.
He got what was coming. At least the campus editors know better now before submitting this type of "satire".
This Karson guy is an idiot. He is one angry white boy.
aLOT OF THIS IS BROUGHT ON BY YOURSELFS. KARSON IS DEFINATELY WRONG---
MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY CALLING YOURSELVES WHAT YOU ARE AMERICAN ASIANS NOT ASIAN AMERICANS. ALMOST EVERYONE IN AMERICA CAME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE BUT WE DO NOT GO AROUND CALLING OURSELVES RUSSIAN AMERICANS,GREEK AMERICANS,IRSIH AMERICANS,WELSH AMERICANS. YOU CONTINUE TO ISOLATE YOURSELVES WITH THIS ASIAN AMERICAN TITLE. IF YOU ARE BORN IN AMERICA YOU ARE AMERICAN WITH ASIAN ETHNICITY....FREE SPEECH IS NOT ABOUT ENRAGING INDIVIDUALS AND FEEDING THE FIRE WITH THIS KIND OF OPINIONS YOU JUST POSTED. THIS ALSO MEANS YOU HAVE NOT QUITE CAUGHT ON TO THE TRUE MEANING OF FREE SPEECH. MOST INTELLIGENT PEOPLE THINK KARSON IS JUST A STUPID IDIOT WHO HAS BEEN MISTREATED BY SOME AMERICAN ASIAN. JUDGING AND PUTTING IT INTO PRINT WHEN YOU HAVE INFLUENCE OVER OTHERS MAKES THE SITUATION WORSE. YOU WANT TO BE GROWN UP ABOUT THIS THEN ACT IT.
There's more to this than just racism. The guy who wrote this article is not just a normal racist, he actually has an inferiority complex with asians, among other psychological problems. He claims to hate asians because they hated him first, but in the examples that he gave, it sounded like the asians he was talking to didn't understand English very well. He is just giving an excuse to hate asians. And if they were giving him dirty looks, which I suspect he was lying about, it's probably because he was asking them to do calculus problems in their heads.
I'm not asian, but I went to a school that had alot of them, and I remember being very offended at all the racism flying around. I found out that alot of racism in the educational system stems from the jealousy that the asian population in general gets better grades than everyone else. I think it comes from a cultural expectation to work harder, which is why it's a stereotype. He's probably just mad because he is not the star student anymore. It is that hard-working culture that he wants to expel from them through those Phase activities, because if they are not working as hard, it means less competition.
There are alot of people who become journalists so that they can complain about everything under the sun, so this rant doesn't surprise me. How it got published is beyond me, because the people who allowed it to go through must have also thought is was funny. What that tells me is that this level of childish hate exists not just at the student level, but in the higher levels as well.
I have some advice for any person of asian descent (sorry for putting all your nationalities into one group) who has read that article. Every race who has ever come to this country has had to fight intolerance for equality. Only by speaking out and fighting back non-violently can you take out racism.
DROP the them and us; it is ONLY you and me!
He is as confused as you are, he doesn’t have the contextual identity to resolve his issues. He is “white,” a non confronted, non minority identity” he is just one considerate soul who found a thread of a garment that cloaks who we are from everyone else.
Racism exists everywhere.
What are you? Korean? Russian? Whatever. Try living in your “Birth country for a while and see that there is racism even there! We are the marginalized. The ones who fall in-between the cracks. Too Asian to be American, to American to be anything else.
Reread the last line of this article. He too faced identity crisis. He assumes the role of the dominator and acknowledges having been dominated/packaged/weakened and molded.
I too, understand your reaction. I can't believe that there are people whose ignorance dates 1882 (Chinese Exclusion Act http://www.sanfranciscochinatown.com/history/1882exclusionact.htm) and 1982 (murder of Vincent Chin http://www.asian-nation.org/racism.shtml) history. It is definitely a reason to keep fighting in the name of racism anywhere. Keep up the good fight.
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