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April 29 Stop adding injury to insultsRecently, CBS fired radio host Imus for a racist remark. In spite of all the news coverage about this scandal, another radio under CBS, WFNY(92.3 Free FM), aired a program in which two radio hosts made a prank call to a Chinese restaurant, a call that is full of racist remarks and plain sexual harassment. This was not simply an occasional slur. It was a well-planned program that was aired twice. But upon protests from the Chinese community, CBS “suspended” these two shock jocks. What is going on here? Is CBS trying to show that it is easier to get away with insulting a particular ethnic group? The use of double standards simply adds injury to the insults. The Chinese communities are usually quite tolerant about such events, and do not take this too seriously. I personally know of incidents where victimized Chinese simply give up their rights to punish people who brought misery to their lives. Most of us know the virtue of forgiveness. But this should not be perceived as a weakness. Nor should it be taken advantage of, again and again. The society should not reward such behavior.
To make things worse, soon after this, Fox News aired an interview apparently showing support to the two radio hosts. There was a representative from the Chinese community, but Fox News made her look like as if she represents people who want to kill their jokes. I can just find is a déjà vu in their talk. In the future, if someone is found to be lacking humor, should they blame the Chinese too? How convenient!
One of the guests on the Fox News program said that the two hosts are hired “talents” to do their job. Talent of what? Job of what? Of calling innocent restaurant receptionist, calling them “son of a bitch”, and ordering “your spicy ass” or “flied lice”? I don’t know who gets more insulted: the Chinese community, or the comedian community? This kind of jokes disgraces the profession of people who are supposed to make people laugh. I remember overhearing two American gentlemen talking about the programs they watch: “I wonder what happened to humor nowadays. In the old days, you hear jokes. I mean real jokes. Now people attack somebody or each other to appear funny.” If this is a trend, there is greater need to do something about it now that people are hurt by such jokes, or bad things being done in the name of jokes or humor.
Some of my American friends and I did get a good laugh when discussing the different food we eat. We do tease each other about this. We do all of this in good will, with reciprocity, and proper caution to the reaction the other party may have over things we say. In addition I do have my share of complaint about the Chinese food here because many restaurants offer mostly Americanized Chinese food which does not taste right. But this does not give me, or anyone, the right to make a lewd prank call at somebody’s possibly very busy work hours just to get some cheap laughs. If these people cannot be humorous without having to attack someone, then they are probably better off being serious but decent guys. At least people wont’ laugh at their bad taste for humor.
Fox News, as well as other news media, taunts the protesting Chinese for making this a big deal, while they give themselves the joy of making this a big deal themselves: they make it sound like that the freedom of speech is now at stake. No it is not. At least this scandal has not done anything different to change it in a fundamental way. They should know better than I do that living in free societies does not mean there are no red lights or speed limits. That’s the entire point of having brakes. |
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