Chalk this up in the victory column. Sometimes, just pointing out something that’s offensive can make a difference. Earlier this week, Asian American bloggers like 8Asians (where I borrowed the great graphic) and Slant Eye for the Round Eye, among others, pointed out that the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, or MARTA, had named a train line that runs to Doraville, home to a large Asian community, as the “Yellow Line.”
Does anyone need to point out that “yellow” has been used as a racial epithet against Asians for centuries?
Asians and Asian Americans took offense and the decision became an Internet meme for a few days. Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that MARTA has decided to change the rail line to the name that critics had suggested: The Gold Line.
MARTA CEO Beverly Scott, who made the decision said she’s still planning to meet today with members of Atlanta’s Asian community. Now, the meeting is sure to be much warmer than it would have been despite the winter weather crunching down on the region.
It’s nice to see that the voices of the Asian community can be heard when they’re organized and in unison. I bet some (non-Asian) folks are wondering what the big deal it, but you know what? There’s a rule about Intent and Impact that Erin teaches in her coaching and emotional intelligence trainings, which says it doesn’t matter if your intent was good, if someone takes away a negative impact from something you do, then you need to accept that it’s negative.
The management of MARTA did just that, and I applaud them for it.
I think I’m even more offended than before. How dare MARTA evoke the gold-mining era of the American West that encouraged many Asians to move to the United States that ultimately led to the racial discrimination of the late 1800s?
Ultimately I guess it’s good that people spoke out and there was a resolution to this affair.
Speaking about intent and impact, one of the blogs mentions French’s mustard and how it would be absurd to boycott it because it’s yellow. It’s kinda on point because during the lead up to the Iraq war, there were reports of possible boycotts because of French’s name even though it refers to the founder’s name and not the nationality.
At the very least, French’s owners were worried about the negative impact from a completely idiotic assertion and reacted to it.
You know us older asian americans REMEMBER BEING CALLED THE YELLOW PERIL…so calling a train the Yellow train is a negative term…and Gold Train is a much better neutral term…so glad the Quiet Minority is no longer Quiet and Speaking up…we have long needed that….
I’m still very much on the fence about this. That train line stops at 17 stations other than Doraville (including the airport). I don’t see any problem at all for those other stops.
I can sorta see the concern about the sole Doraville stop and its population. Especially if there were slogans like “Ride the Yellow Train to Doraville” (but “Ride the Yellow Train to the Airport” has far less potential impact).
This whole thing reminds of a recent “Saturday Night Live” sketch where the character “MacGruber” is being racist. He overcompensates when he asks his assistant Charles Barkley to hand him the “African American” marker instead of the black marker. He then asks for the “Chinese” (yellow) marker.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/119796/saturday-night-live-macgruber#s-p10-sr-i1
It seems to me that it would be better to fight actual racism (overt and covert) than to fight a perceived slight that wasn’t clear to many MARTA officials and to many members of the affected community.
Good points, Ryan, but by pointing out this perceived slight, isn’t the Asian community educating the MARTA employees and others about overt and covert racism?
Have you ever heard of Zeitgeist or have you viewed the movie, Zeitgeist Addendum? What we should be spending more time at is to “All get together” (every Nation) and directs all of our energies to bring upon a Resourced Based Economy. This will break down the ethnic barriers and create a Human Race persuasion. As David Suzuki has stated that all of us from a genetic perspective are all the same.
For example, if an alien being came to us from another universe, they would probably not see any difference in all of us. But we are just one ….the Human Race, not separate nations as the Corporotocracy (Elitist with exorbitance amount of wealth and power) would have us believe.
Our life is so short on this planet as is. Lets all live in peace and understanding one another….Please!
Theodore Chiba
@Gil – Yes, I can see the potential for learning and changes, but there can be some hurdles.
For example, I initially had a hard time understanding the outrage about “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and a planned community showing in Sacramento. Although I believe I understand the concerns now, there was a moment of disbelief that I think many people shared.
Hi Ryan, I think “Tiffany’s” is much more clear-cut and patently offensive. It makes me cringe whenever I see the clip of Mickey Rooney playing “Mr. Yunioshi” with buck teeth, squinty eyes, magnifying-glass spectacles and a harsh accent. This was how kids taunted me when I was a kid, and it’s outrageous to see this character in an otherwise classic movie. Here’s a blog post I wrote about it years ago: https://www.nikkeiview.com/blog/2006/10/05/i-cant-separate-audrey-hepburn-from-mr-yunioshi/
Dear Gil –
I totally agree now about “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” It’s just that when the matter came up, I didn’t have any recollection about the Mr. Yunioshi character (I never really sat down and watched the movie all the way through).
In that case, I thought people were picking on what was, as you say, an otherwise classic movie. In that case, I think the Asian American community did a good job of explaining its position and why the movie was offensive.