Via Angry Asian Man: Look at this nice-looking, monochromatic morning show team and tell me you’re not surprised that they came up with a racist parody of an Eric Clapton song that stereotypes the Hmong, a population that’s concentrated in the Twin Cities area.
I dare you to listen to the song and not be disgusted, saddened and appalled.
Here are the lyrics:
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UPDATE:Due to a scheduling conflict, our conversation with Lynn Chen is now scheduled for Monday, April 11 at 7 pm PT.
Lynn Chen is a woman after Erin and my own hearts… and stomachs. She’s a foodie as well as a talented actress and musician, and she writes one blog, “The Actor’s Diet,” about “the life of a Hollywood actress. Meal by meal,” and recently launched another, “Thick Dumpling Skin,” about Asians’ diet and body issues, with Hyphen publisher Lisa Lee.
We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be speaking with Lynn for our next visualizAsian show on TUESDAY, APRIL 26MONDAY APRIL 11 at 7 pm PT (10 pm for you folks on the east coast). Just register here for the free dial-in and webinar information — if you’ve registered for previous visualizAsian calls, you’ll already receive the info.
Wow, you missed a powerful conversation with Lynn on April 11, but you can still register to hear the archived MP3 of the call for 30 days.
Lynn Chen, whose “excessive beauty makes us want to rip our eyeballs out,” according to the ladies of the Disgrasian blog, was born in Queens, New York in 1976 to a mother who sang at the Metropolitan Opera and a father who is an ethnomusicologist, and she was raised in New Jersey and attended Wesleyan University.
As a child, Lynn sang with the Children’s Choirs at the Metropolitan and NYC Opera Houses, and made her acting debut in the NY State Theatre production of “South Pacific” at Lincoln Center. Television credits include “NCIS: LA,” “Numbers,” guest roles on almost all of the “Law and Order” shows, and recurring roles in “All My Children” and “The Singles Table,” opposite John Cho and Alicia Silverstone.
Of her films, Lynn’s best-known as “Vivian Shing” in Sony Pictures Classic’s feature film “Saving Face,” a role for which she won the “Outstanding Newcomer Award” at the 2006 Asian Excellence Awards. Since then she has appeared in over a dozen films, most recently starring in “White on Rice,” “Why Am I Doing This?.” “The People I’ve Slept With,” and the just-released “Surrogate Valentine,” which is making the rounds of film festivals.
“Surrogate Valentine” was directed by Dave Boyle, the young filmmaker who also wrote and directed “White on Rice,” a terrific indie film, and it’s a fictionalized story of the real-life experiences of singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura. The film was the closing night selection of the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, and just screened at SXSW Film in Austin.
But Lynn isn’t just limited to acting. In fact, she took some time off from acting to deal with her eating disorders, and started “The Actor’s Diet” in 2009 as a way to write about food and to hold herself accountable for eating healthy (with the burgers and fried thrown in). Here’s how she explains the blog:
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Who’s sorry now? Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, who gave a typical non-apology apology after a series of TV commercials aired during the Super Bowl set off a social media furor, especially over the one shown above which makes light of the plight of Tibetans, is changing his tune.
Now, in a Bloomberg Businessweek article that suggests that Groupon severed ties with the agency, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky over the campaign’s fallout, Mason admits that he trusted his ad agency too much “to be edgy, informative and entertaining, and we turned off the part of our brain where we should have made our own decisions. We learned that you can’t rely on anyone else to control and maintain your own brand.”
I thought the agency initially got off too easy from the mess they created.
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Three local taiko drum groups, Denver Taiko, Mirai Daiko and Taiko with Toni, are hosting “Heartbeat for Japan: A Taiko Benefit,” a concert to raise funds for relief efforts in Japan, on Sat March 26, 7 pm at Colorado Heights University (formerly Loretto Heights) Auditorium at 3001 S. Federal Blvd. Admission is free but donations will be accepted. This should be a terrific evening of thundering drums for a great cause.
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The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported yesterday that Alexandra Wallace, the now-infamous UCLA poli-sci co-ed who posted a racist rant about Asians at her school, intended to start a blog about Asians in the library. The paper quoted her dad’s Facebook account proudly stating that she was looking that morning for a URL addressing “Asians in the Library.”
I gave her the benefit of doubt and thought she posted “Asians in the Library” on YouTube in a fit of pique after a crappy week of mid-terms (she says “finals” in the video), but I guess I was naive. She was aiming for her 15 minutes of fame.
Still, she probably didn’t count on the tsunami of infamy (both puns intended, thank you) that greeted her stunt, which is why she deleted it. But it was too late, of course. The social Web doesn’t allow for do-overs, and a bunch of copies of the video had already been made and re-posted. Now she’s been covered by everyone from the Daily Bruin, her school paper, to the New York Times (which oddly did not get any interviews from Asian Americans in its short coverage of the flap.)
I can only hope the shame and embarrassment of this incident will prevent her from coming up with any more ridiculous entrepreneurial ideas.
But the disturbing part of the aftermath of the flap over her video is the level of violent commentary aimed back at her. Anger I get — I’m pissed off every time I watch it too. Hate I get too, though I feel more disdain than hate. But she’s getting death threats, which are alarming if if they’re not meant seriously. This kind of response doesn’t help fight her ignorance and racism.
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It;s also available for the Barnes & Noble Nook reader and in the iBooks store for Apple's iOS devices!
