We Read Salon’s Interview with Suey Park So You Don’t Have To (and So Your Brain Won’t Explode)

I’ll be honest: I needed to take a day to fully process the surreal interview Salon did with #CancelColbert professional hashtag outrage-ist Suey Park. Published yesterday, it’s sincerely one of the damndest things I’ve read in years. I can’t tell how much of what Park says is serious, how much is performance art, how much is mindless repetition of the buzzwords and narratives drilled into a willing mind by a modern humanities and critical race theory education, and how much is just social media-fueled Millennial narcissism, her personal “brand” cranked to 11 because it’s what her fans expect and it keeps the spotlight on her. Regardless, if you’re a reasonable, sane person, it’s almost impossible to read the interview from start to finish and still take Park seriously. It’s so out-there that I’d be curious to approach some of the Twitterati I respect who have inexplicably defended her and ask if they feel like they still can. I read this thing with a look of absolute bewilderment on my face half the time and when it was over all I could come up with is that Suey Park is the Shia LaBeouf of activism.

I’m not going to fully and seriously analyze the interview. I genuinely don’t know if I even could. I’m simply going to post some of the best excerpts from it here and leave it to you to decipher in the comment section. Yeah, contrary to the title of the piece, in some ways you’ll have to do the heavy lifting on this. I’ve distilled it down to the best, or worst, moments, but they still can’t fully convey the sheer madness — or willful bullshit — on display as Suey Park makes her case, keeps her name in the headlines for another 15 minutes, and makes it clear that she’s always been the center of this ridiculous #CancelColbert controversy because that’s the way she intended it to be. This was never about making a difference for the oppressed, particularly given that she managed to take the focus entirely off Dan Snyder and the Native Americans who were angry over his team’s use of the term “Redskins” and put it almost completely onto herself and her plethora of grievances. This was always about Suey. This was always about what she thinks is important, with herself sitting at the very top of that pile.

Here’s how the whole thing starts, with Prachi Gupta asking the questions:

Did you watch the Monday night segment on the “Colbert Report”?

No, and I think that’s an irrelevant question.

Why do you think that’s an irrelevant question?

Because you’re still trying to understand my context, rather than the reaction and the conversation that I was trying to create.

You don’t think understanding your context is just as important?

I don’t think so.

Right off the bat, it’s the same combative tone we’ve quickly become accustomed to from Park. From there the problem with the world, according to Suey, becomes obvious.

So what do you want from this conversation?

I wanted to hit the irony and inability of the left to deal with their own racism. I think as a result of the white ally industrial complex, for too long people of color have been asked to censor whiteness, they have been asked to educate their oppressor, they have been asked to use the right tone, and appease their politics in order to be heard. And in an effort to just contribute to the self-improvement of white allies that are often times just racist. So I think it’s kind of like pulling a blanket off the façade of progressivism. It forces people to deal with those conversations about race that go beyond micro-aggression and that go beyond being politically correct, to what it means to uproot racism in its entirety.

In that case, do you think that “The Colbert Report” itself is oppressive or just that specific joke or comment was oppressive?

Neither.

Neither?

I’m talking about whiteness at large.

Yes, “whiteness at large.”

Then comes either the best Millennial-ADD moment or affected impression of an ADD-moment — depending on whether you believe anything that comes out of Park’s mouth — you could possibly imagine.

So what do you want to see happen in your revolution?

I mean, it’s already happening I think. The revolution will not be an apocalypse, it’s gonna be a series of shifts in consciousness that result in actions that come about, and I think that like, at this point is really like, ride or die, in terms who’s in and who is out. I don’t play by appeasement politics, it is not about getting my oppressors to humanize me. And in that sense I reject the respectability politics, I reject being tone-policed, I think we need to do away with this idea that these structures are … that the prisons can undergo reform and somehow do less violence as a structure. But any example like that.

Wait, can you ask that question again, I got distracted real quick, there was a bird outside my window.

From there Park’s almost staggering narcissism takes over as she puts her work writing Twitter hashtags on the same level as civil rights pioneers who truly put their lives and futures on the line to advance noble causes.

I was asking you about if you want white people — because they’re still the majority — if you want them to be allies in your goal to end racism?

Well, one, they won’t be the majority for long. And two, I don’t want any ally who is going to use my emotional labor with no guarantee of aiding my liberation. And so I feel like this question that white America asks of us, “Why can’t you be reasonable to get us to work with you?” And I keep saying, being reasonable has never worked in history. All other big racial justice movements, all of the big historical figures in racial justice were never reasonable. They were always painted as crazy during their time, and even afterwards now.

And now, the least surprising moment of the entire thing.

Would it be inflammatory to say that you think white men are sort of the enemy?

Um. I mean I think they are, and we might as well label it. Whiteness will always be the enemy. It’s not like I want to hurt them, it’s not like I want them to have any pain, but like, I just want them to realize what they have, and to honor the advantages. And I don’t think it’s much to ask to just even acknowledge it.

Jesus, the youthful moral certitude and inability to see anything in colors other than black and white (almost literally, in this case). No, of course there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the proven fact that white people on the whole have it easier than people of color in that they’re born with certain advantages. But to call them the enemy is shockingly stupid and counterproductive. The fact is that if social justice is to be achieved, it requires an inherent balance which means that we all have to work together and antagonizing allies and potential allies by labeling them natural adversaries — and ignoring or dismissing the work many have done in helping push for social justice, particularly if it’s because they happen to disagree with you on one or two points — is unbelievably childish. As usual in cases like these, it’s perfect being the enemy of very good. It’s incremental but important positive changes not being enough for those who believe it’s all or nothing.

Finally, toward the end, Park talks about her social media “becoming.” And she explains that #CancelColbert was meant to be over-the-top because that would grab attention. The fact that it would grab attention away from an injury to a minority group she doesn’t care about as much as her own, of course, escapes her.

I think a really beautiful part of me living through, like my rebirth online, is that like it shows that it’s OK to engage critical thinking, it’s OK to admit that what I thought two years ago is very flawed, and that I have a fuller picture now, and it’s still incomplete, and it’s still ongoing and changing. I’m taking in new information, and after I made my first hashtag POC4CulturalEnrichment, I took in new information about how to make my next one more impactful, to make it larger scale, to make it more deliberate. And so I think that really had to realize that like, it’s OK that I like the Colbert show, it’s OK that I like watching it once in a while still, and it’s also OK for me to realize that it can be a both ends situation, it doesn’t mean that he is off the hook and he is like immune to critique because I enjoy his show… But then #CancelColbert was never literal.

It goes on from there, but you get the idea. Honestly, it’s exhausting reading. It makes your brain hurt just trying to digest such entirely alienating sanctimony. I get that I’m a white guy and that to someone like Suey Park this makes my opinion invalid, but that’s a ridiculous tack to take and it shouldn’t shield a bad opinion from criticism. Park doesn’t in any way deserve to be threatened; she shouldn’t be mocked because of her background or her gender or for any reason that isn’t directly related to her deeply absurd opinions and her actions of late. But when it comes to those opinions or actions, yeah, have at it. They’re deserving of every bit of derision and ridicule that’s been heaped on them — from people of all races, genders, and backgrounds.

But hey, here I am writing about Park again. She got what she wanted.

  • Malby

    Is English her second language? Because her usages are so bizarre. The “enact the labor” phrase int he HuffPost interview; “censor whiteness”; “pulling a blanket off the façade of” and so on.

  • thinkbeforeyouspeak

    I knew after a couple sentences into this–kidding, after reading the title–that it was written by a white dude. Of course you didn’t get her point at all, and furthermore shut down and stopped listening when hearing the things we are all so scared to say. She might not have been the most eloquent, but good for her and her bravery. (Also, I’m white).

    • GetItGoing

      Bullshit. She clearly is a person without substance and could not even answer direct questions in a mature, intelligent manner.

      I heard her interview. She also does not understand what a “loaded question” is (when she was asked a direct question actually).

  • MoDare

    She sounds like a right ƒucking tw@t.

  • perspective

    Why do you think there’s only one way to fight for social justice? There isn’t. It’s not uncommon for pro-reform folks to want to completely dismiss the pro-revolution folks and you’re not giving much of a new perspective in having your way of thinking which is the same of many pro-reform folks through all of history.

    Just because you seem not to be able to understand what she was saying doesn’t mean she has no point. In fact, you’re exactly arguing against what she’s arguing. She even already countered the point you made. You think she needs to act reasonable and try to win people over. She doesn’t and she isn’t. Totally consistent to me.

    I think you didn’t understand her point, which means you lack the credibility to discredit her.

  • Caedric McPotato

    aww poor poor chop suey

  • Kevmo

    From the moment she said she hadn’t even seen the segment, I knew that the rest of the interview was going to be “Baffle with Bullshït” and not “Dazzle with Brilliance.”

    Seriously, I just did this: Copy-paste her responses to the question “So what do you want to see happen in your revolution” into a sentence-diagram program. They’re easy to find on Google. Park doesn’t form a single coherent thought in response to that question.

    The only other time I’ve seen such pure gibberish is when I did the same with some of Sarah Palin’s 2008 interview responses.

    • thinkbeforeyouspeak

      She says in this interview that she did see the segment. What are you talking about?

  • Jean

    I like in the original article when she says that white people have never done a single thing for people of color. That’s just willful blindness, right there.

    • Kevmo

      By the logic she’s using, couldn’t you say the same about people of color in regards to White People? You don’t see many minority groups going out of their way to help Whitey (I love that word and I’m bringing it back).

      Here’s a wacky thought: As long as they’re not actively hurting anyone, who gives a cold, wet shït what other peoples’ social issue priorities are?

  • Evvi

    She’s an idiot. Thus irrelevant. I think we can move on now.

  • Kavod And Kaved

    It’s easy to understand Suey Park and the New Left, parse Jonathan Haidt’s Righteous Minds (if you haven’t been on the Left yourself). To be “victimized” on the Left is to have power: the power to have one’s one POV heard and to easily shut down others with minimal intellectual effort by simply pointing to the race/sex/sexuality/gender experience of one’s critics. Those 4 things are all that matter to the new Left, and if you possess one of those coveted victim cards, it doesn’t matter how rich you were born, how elite a school you attended or that you likely have never experienced a moment of genuine suffering or racism in your life, and never will, you now have a free reign to bash and bully people who are actually far less privileged than you and get away with it.
    However, because Suey Park and others like her know that they are actually very privileged, they must work twice as hard at manufacturing outrage to show how victimized they actually are. One generally finds it among people who in previous generations would have been considered more or less white (definitely not Black or Native/Aboriginal) and struggled to be thought white and blend in, who now assert their non-White status loudly (because to be “White” is now a bad thing in their circles, to be repudiated). You will occasionally find the same self-righteous squawking from rich and middle-class Harvard educated Black activists but mostly it’s Asians and (mostly non-Muslim) Middle-Easterners….the “Brown” contingent. Keeping attention off how NOT victimized and privileged most of them are requires a constant stream of siren-like outrage and grasp of bafflegab and doublespeak on their part that would make Orwell roll in his grave.

    • Tim Holland

      The twist with Park is she’s claiming to be victimized by the left, kind of like the same way Michelle Malkin claims to be victimized by the left.

      Maybe the real lesson we learn from Park is that we need to reevaluate the concept of “our side can do no wrong, and the other side is always wrong” approach to race politics. Or to reexamine the widely denied concept that, pretty much everyone on some level, is guilty of racism.

  • TheSubtleStoner

    I find it hilarious that the people who talk shit about Suey Park for not being nice to racist/sexist dudebros on twitter are the exact same people who consistently bash political correctness.

    • That River Gal

      Oh look, the traffic from the wet blankie site has begun to trickle in.

      Anyone need popcorn?

      • TheSubtleStoner

        What wet blankie site are you referring to, specifically? I found this on google… lol, nice try though.

        • That River Gal

          You’re new here. Please, look around and comment often.

    • Tim Holland

      Hilarious? Like the way I find the sun setting in the evening, or any other predictable correlation, “hilarious”? I’d expect dudebros to be a small subset of the anti-PC crowd, but I’d also expect people who want to have honest and intelligent conversations about social issues to not engage in euphemisms that sound nicer, but carry the same racist baggage.

      I’m not a huge fan of reframing words, in increasingly vague terms, with the intention of stifling dialog or sweeping conflict under a rug. Just because you use prettier words to describe an issue, doesn’t mean the problem simply disappears.

  • donzaloog

    I would personally like to congratulate Suey Park on the resounding success of her cancelColbert movement. Stephen has been fired and now has to settle for replacing David Letterman hosting the Late Show. You sure showed him.

    This woman is a professional troll. She deserves no attention. All she cares about is herself and keeping the spotlight on her. Just another famewhore like so many before her.

    Eat a dick, Suey Park.

    • Jezzer

      Wait. Is this THE Don Zaloog? :O

      • donzaloog

        Yes, it is.

        • Jezzer

          Superficial people 4EVAH! *brofist*

          • donzaloog

            *brofist*

  • Lost in the Morridor

    She’s a schmuck, and a cautionary tale of choosing battles wisely, or at least knowing what the hell it is you’re actually doing.

  • sortiz1965

    Either I’m too stupid to understand the complex nuances of modern day social justice theory or this lady’s brains are severely scrambled. If this is the product of a modern day liberal arts college education, God help us all.

    • Kevmo

      Eh, I have a Lib. Arts undergrad, from a notoriously Liberal hippie college, and even they weren’t trying to push what Park is pushing.

      She reminds me of the phrase “educated beyond their intelligence.” She doesn’t appear to have the mental faculties needed to actually utilize what she was taught as her educators intended. So instead, she selects bits and pieces of the subject matter to try twisting it into something that benefits her.

  • Badgerite

    “Whiteness at large.” ? Oh God. Make it stop. So, we are supposed to apologize to her for being ‘white’ but only if you identify politically as a ‘progressive’. I guess if you are not a progressive, then your ‘whiteness’ is not so offensive. I’m confused.
    “Squirrel”.

  • Andrew Buck

    My brain didn’t hurt reading Park. I’m sensing that “close reading” is a dying skill in this age of pithy, ADD-ish blog posts. Park might say a few “out there” things, but so what? I find her interesting, but more than her, I find her IDEAS interesting. Not necessarily right or wrong, but certainly great fodder for thought and conversation.

  • Dick Lipski

    Ching Chong. I bet hers goes sideways.

  • Stephen Trapp

    Racism is just as ugly in a pretty girl.

  • tpx

    Since the author is not going to take Ms. Park seriously, then it obviously is because he cannot.

    • Jezzer

      Go write a hashtag about it. That’ll fix everything. #hashtivism

    • GetItGoing

      Because she’s not to be taken seriously.

  • Jeff

    “I don’t want any ally who is going to use my emotional labor with no guarantee of aiding my liberation.”

    seriously, who talks like that? its like “what buzzwords can i use in this sentence?”

    • clemdane

      Why would anyone want to be her ally anyway?

      • Elaine Guillermin

        Honestly, the very group she is blasting is a group that would not want to be racist. But she insists they are too stupefied by their white skin to know that they are racist. Just a bunch of dumb white liberals.

        • thinkbeforeyouspeak

          She has a point, though. And I’m a white liberal.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            So, are you racist then? Or too stupefied to know you are racist? Or are you one of the “good” white liberals who somehow have managed to rise above all despite your despised privilege? An ally or not?

          • thinkbeforeyouspeak

            haha, yes, by acknowledging my privilege, that makes me racist. Open your mind, and let the hate out of your heart. Us poor white folks have so much oppression to deal with from minorities, now don’t we.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            I don’t have a stitch of hate in my heart. And I am acutely aware of racism. I just don’t like the likes of Suey Park’s rhetoric. It is disingenuous and creates a newfangled abstract kind of racism that is just fodder for impossible living.

  • Synclavius

    Here’s her real failure: white liberals sometimes say racist things. If that was pointed out in a clear and non-accusatory fashion – most would try to rectify their error and learn more about another cultural/racial group. However, if the starting point for this potential discussion is that all white liberals are automatically condemned to some quasi-religious original-sin simply by virtue of the color of their skin and the culture they were born into Suey can expect them to tune out and dismiss her point (which may be partially valid).

  • ThompsonSHunter

    Perhaps like, this would have like, made more like, sense if you’d have like, divided Suey’s remarks into like,140 character blocks.

    When I first read the Salon …do I call it an interview?…with Park, I had to make sure it wasn’t an Onion send-up. Surely no human being can be this vapid. And it’s not just the wading-pool depth of character that is striking, but the fact that she clearly revels in her own shallowness.

    What she thought 2 years ago is very flawed? She now has a fuller picture? How is it even possible that what we’re getting now from the astonishingly immature Suey Park is her idea of a fuller picture? Just how stupid was she 2 years ago?

    Suey Park is an inane, silly, …..I’m sorry, I just heard an ice cream truck. What was the question?

  • zombie377

    I’m exhausted just having read your excerpts.

  • Mickey Bitsko

    Frankly, I don’t want any ally who is going to use my emotional labor with no guarantee of aiding my libation.

  • chris ellis

    damn if she isn’t crazy attractive

  • villemar

    Hey she’s written comedy scripts before, I’m sure she’s a real laff riot who knows her comedy. Clearly she’s the only rational choice to replace Letterman next year

    • Robert Scalzi

      you have just won the Interwebs today !

  • aceshigh

    This reads like a monumental troll-job of Andy Kaufman-esque proportions.

    Seriously, every answer of hers is a near-indecipherable garble of bullshit. She makes Sarah Palin’s mangled syntax sound as mellifluous as Sir John Gielgud on ecstasy.

    • villemar

      “Tone Policing” gave me a laugh, among her other insane shibboleths.

  • DL

    It came off as dishonest. I’ve had better conversations with staunch neocons who at least understood that the basic tenets of context and intention cannot be dismissed as I saw with this attempt.

    When the premise is dishonest on the face of it, there is no point in even engaging.
    It’s a non-starer.

    Most people’s internal bs detectors are intuitively aware, you really can’t tap dance your way around that, it is fun to see people try though.

    It really sucks for the issue with Snyder that was at the heart of it, now it seems it gets a pass as everyone chases after the drama.

  • V.

    So, she says “context” oppresses her. Not some particular context, but the ontological category of context; context in general. In other words, she’s an idiot who doesn’t want to think.

  • Susan Yee

    I’ve never heard of her until now, but reading parts of the transcript reminds me of the nonsensical jibberish of Mrs. Palin.

  • Liadan

    I never heard of her. Don’t think I want to again. She’s incomprehensible.

  • DJEB

    “I wanted to hit the irony and inability of the left to deal with their own racism.” I think as a result of the white ally industrial complex

    The issue is the inability of the left not to weed out morons like Park and her fans.

    As evidence, I offer up exhibit A:

    The claim there is a the “white ally industrial complex.”

    Propagating this sort idiocy takes the pressure off actual work done to combat racism. Way to give Stormfront an easy target that makes the fight against racism look like a joke. I’m sure they appreciate it.

  • LQ
  • undsoweiter

    In like fairness, I like read the whole interview, and it like gave me a better like understanding of where she’s like coming from.
    Totally.

  • meriah

    suey park is absolutely insane she should be ashamed that she grabbed onto someone who is actually famous and talented just for self promotion the solace I gather from this is that park and her supporters are now the laughing stalk of the globe

  • Robert Scalzi

    Suey park = the Glen Greenmold of race politics

  • https://twitter.com/JeremyGold_ Massif1

    Suey Park is a pariah in a real world. You will never get a real job working for a real company, unless of course everyone there is Asian. You can use your gender and your ethnicity so far until you’re another moocher trying to make a quick dollar.

    • beulahmo

      “You can use your gender and your ethnicity so far until you’re another moocher…”

      Of course, that criticism only applies to non-white folks, right?
      Let me save you some time and effort. You won’t find sympathy for white supremacy anywhere here at The Daily Banter. You’re much better off staying at Amren and Stormfront, where you usually hang out.

      • https://twitter.com/JeremyGold_ Massif1

        It applies to every ethnicity, including whites. This woman is just going around making blank statements against white men. Sorry, but whites don’ go around California locking legislature that would benefit blacks and hispanics from attending universities, Asians do.

  • POTRZBE

    Chop Suey. What a twit.

    • Lady Willpower

      Not helping.

    • DJEB

      Way to lend legitimacy to her, asshat. Just what we need: ammunition for her followers.

    • beulahmo

      Ooh! Yuk. Spend a little time thinking about why this is out of bounds.

    • CL Nicholson

      Oh great, a troll. Just what we need, some idiot making racist comments to valid a vapid woman of color thinks everyone’s out to get her.

  • https://twitter.com/JeremyGold_ Massif1

    Suey Park’s intention is to make money out of her hatred towards white men. She’s already promoting her self as an activist on her Twitter feed.

  • villemar

    My question to her would be, why does she hate Native Americans so much? Everyone on Twitter should ask her this. I can’t understand. Why does she hate Native Americans so much?

  • villemar

    This article is Triggering me!!! Stop Triggering me with Words or I’ll have an epic fit that would make Raymond Babbitt in a bear hug seem like the Teacup ride in Disneyland pale in comparison!

  • OC_DC

    Anything that ends with an “ist” be it “racist”, “activist”, “capitalist”, or “feminist” is sure to spew out all sorts of idiocy and nonsense. If someone identifies as one of them, don’t take anything they say seriously and consider them mentally ill. You’ll thank yourself for it.

  • Badgerite

    What the hell does she mean, “All of the big historical figures in racial justice were never reasonable”. Martin Luther King Jr? Medgar Evers? Rosa Parks? These men and women were the SOUL of reasonableness. And they got a lot more done than any hash tag activism ever will.

    • Elaine Guillermin

      Not defending her tactics or stance, I think they are small minded. However, she did get a whole Colbert Show devoted to the kerfuffle.

      • Badgerite

        Yes, there is that. But It was a grossly unfair attack on him.
        Still it just gave Colbert more comedic material. So I don’t imagine it harmed him any.

        • Elaine Guillermin

          absolutely.

        • Elaine Guillermin

          no, it didn’t harm him, but it provided her with the platform she was seeking.

          • Badgerite

            Yeah. Probably the 15 minutes of fame thing, though.
            I think it will wear real thin if she does this again and has so little to really justify her choice of targets. She demonstrates a certain humorlessness. And a ‘platform’ only goes so far. I think she needs to work on the content. Self righteous anger only goes so far and then people tune out. At least I do. But, she did raise the profile of Asian Americans. I think she is right that white America almost doesn’t see them as having any problems relating to being a minority in America. But I’m sure they do. So, maybe her overall point is valid.

            NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sorry. Wisconsin lost to Kentucky.

        • clemdane

          I’m glad he didn’t give in to the temptation to break character and apologize for the satire.

          • Badgerite

            Well, they did take the offending tweet down.
            And as I have said elsewhere, there is a defense to be made of her emotional reaction to the term “Ding Dong Ching Chong” or whatever. Suzy Park certainly didn’t make it but a woman named Jessica Prois did in the Huffington Post and the article is entitled:
            #Cancel Colbert Response Has Basically Amounted to Hate Spewing.
            It is a very good article and a very good response to the kind of nasty attacks the girl has been getting on Reddit and You Tube. Even Colbert himself was not on board with that.
            I think the article explains her sensitivity to the term better than she ever could. And that is that Asian kids growing up in all-white communities have heard this refrain hurled at them in a demeaning way all their lives. And I think it just triggered an emotional reaction in her. I would encourage anyone to read the article by Jessica Prois if only to get a different perspective.
            I did and it sort of won me over at least to the point that I understand now why she was so upset by what was clearly not meant as racist in any way, shape or form. At a different site (America Blog) one comment noted that people who have been exposed to this kind of thing when young, tend to be so sensitive to it, that they see attacks on them when no attack is made.
            It is easy to find, if you are interested. Just google the title and it is the first thing up.

          • clemdane

            I’ll read it now, though I don’t believe in the concept of “triggering” except in really extreme cases (like war or sexual assault.)

          • Badgerite

            Thanks. Don’t get me wrong. I love Colbert. He’s one of my favorite TV personalities. But I feel as if Suzy Park maybe was not the best spokesperson for some people who really do get that ‘punched in the gut’ feeling when that phrase is used because they have heard it as a taunt most of their young lives. I completely agree that she was not a particularly good spokesperson, for sure. But I thought Jessica Prois was and did a really good job.

          • Malby

            Yes, and she is the only person who has ever had that problem. Funny, I thought we all did and all grew UP. SO SO SENSITIVE SUEY!! “Triggered” into an idiotic reaction.

          • Badgerite

            Well, if you look at human history, I would have to say that most of us have never grown up. But, I don’t defend Suzy Park’s reaction so much as Jesssica Prois’.

    • Nick L.

      There were definitely white people who considered them radicals and completely unreasonable. However, those people courageously stood up for themselves and refused to be treated as anything but equal. Their goals were much more immediate and tangible than the culture war jedi mind trick that is happening here

      • Badgerite

        Yeah! When you watch old interviews and panels of someone like Martin Luther King,JR. it is hard to see how he kept himself from punching some of those people in the face. Their questions definitely came from a status quo mind set. But, when you watch him answer them, its like watching Carl Sagan deal with people who believe in UFO’s. Just masterful. And eminently reasonable.

        • Elaine Guillermin

          “it is hard to see how he kept himself from punching some of those people in the face”
          Hey, how about Obama? No drama Obama. How he keeps a straight face I just don’t know. He is the calmest person I have ever seen. And he just stays the course, calmly. I don’t know why anyone would want to be president. I can’t wait to read his memoirs.

          • Badgerite

            I hear you.

    • Karlin D Carney

      All of those people were basically hated by the dominant i.e. White society at the time. Now people do the politically correct thing of acting like they would be supportive of them, but that just reality.

      • Badgerite

        No. That is not the case. What they did, at the time and with the help of new technology and media, was hold up a giant mirror (television) for the country to actually look at what it was doing. The middle man was pushed out and people could see for themselves. And when they did, what they saw was indefensible. In another era, the civil rights movement would not have succeeded. But with the advent of national television, it had a rather powerful ally. An ally that made the experience of news a visceral one. The tactics that the civil rights movement had to confront were on display and, as the man said, all they were asking is that the country live up to what it had written down on paper. The contract. Just killing people, (something that had worked in the past) didn’t work the same anymore. It only made people angry and disgusted. Black people, white people. People. Those pictures of the students desegregating Little Rock and the crowd there to stop them? The looks on their faces. What better argument could be made as to which side you would be on in the dispute?
        I don’t even know what you mean when you talk about “the dominant white society”. Who exactly was that? The Kennedy’s did not hate them, though, being politicians, they were reluctant to take on Jim Crowe. Johnson didn’t hate them. Even those idiots on those panels and interviews didn’t hate them. They viewed their job as that of putting questions to the interviewee that were being asked by others.
        And some of those others had an agenda, shall we say. And they probably hated them. J. Edgar Hoover clearly did. Some did, for sure. One of my friends father’s for one. But MOST people? No, I don’t think so. The Civil Rights Movement became a cause celeb for a reason. It was a rather clear choice. There was no middle ground.

        • Karlin D Carney

          99% of whites did not want the civil right bill to pass thats why why is was so unpopular at the time. White Americans knew about mistreatment of blacks-they were the ones doing it! The thing is that the international community saw how the United states treated blacks, so they started to receive international pressure and the dominant society got scared because of some of the riots and police sniping that started to happen.

          This whole white savior narrative that alot people like to create is BS, because right after the bill passed the incarceration of black men began to rise, white flight started to happen in more cities and discrimination in education, health and labor did not end. BTW Johnson did not like black folks-there’s tapes of him calling Dr King a N****r preachers, etc.

          • Badgerite

            I don’t know where you come up with “99”% but for something that had no support in the country, they sure seemed to get the votes. And the media attention.
            And it was not until Reagan that anyone even BREATHED the idea of repealing or altering the Voting Rights Act. Reagan unsuccessfully sought its repeal. I’m not even implying that there were not underlying racial tensions and bigotries that persisted.
            I’m not saying ‘white savior’. I’m saying people banded together to support a just agenda where the justice of it simply could not be denied. . Most were black. Some were white.
            Some of those whites gave their lives as well. And I believe they did so because they saw their own self interest in the movement.
            And I can’t say there is anything wrong with that.
            And perhaps even national interest. Like Lincoln said, if A can enslave B, then B can enslave C and C can enslave A.
            The same applies with civil rights.
            It was not like South Africa. There were no international sanctions. This was done by Americans. Black and white.
            Blacks were the driving force, for sure. And had been all along.
            A. Philip Randolph was the black lawyer behind the legal strategies that ultimately prevailed in Brown v Board of Ed.
            It gave the US a PR black eye in terms of the propaganda wars waged by the US and the USSR. But that only went so far to sway the voting public and the voting Congress people.
            And South Africa, at the time, still had apartheid and suffered no real international consequences from it until much later, when blacks in America swayed white establishments all over the world to sign onto to sanctions. And when you say the word ‘international’ , you know, there are a lot of white people encompassed in that term as well.
            So when this young woman tries to say that the content of your argument matters less than your skin color or ethnicity , that the content of what you argue matters less than external factors ( race, religion, etc), I cringe.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            ” I think the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s saved the country.”
            Me too.

          • Aron

            He’s not worth arguing with: absolutely no grasp of history. His 99% quote tells it all.

          • Aron

            Yeah, the quite from LBJ regarding ‘niggers voting for us for generations’ is a fabrication. Johnson was one of the greatest allies the American poor and oppressed ever had.

          • Karlin D Carney

            I did even go to that quote, but he is on tape calling Dr. king and other black “leaders” niggers and other names- I know because I’ve heard them. So lets not go there.

          • Aron

            Evidence, please.

          • beulahmo

            Oh, dear. Aron, the tricky aspect of this conversation is in evaluating Johnson’s behavior in the 60s from the socially-advanced frame of today. It’s best to just keep that front-and-center in your mind when attempting to discuss Johnson’s behavior and speculation about his motivations.

            And yes, Johnson did speak about black Americans that way. In fact, I’m sure it was his typical manner of speaking when he was off-the-record; and sadly, this manner of speaking was frequent and unapologetic. But Johnson was a complex man — a master politician working to accomplish complex goals within a deeply racist political milieu. So his manner of speaking might not be a reflection of his views as much as a reflection of his resignation to the social and political realities of his environment. (And by the way, this is true for all politicians, so that’s why I really hesitate to speculate about their personal motives. It’s too complex for anyone to make claims with certainty.)

          • Aron

            I was considering explaining to him the social mores of the 60s, along with the fact that LBJ grew up in abject poverty as a Texas sharecropper. And that he was also perhaps the most color president we’ve ever had.

            But then I decided it just plain wasn’t worth it. (Johnson is one of my favorite presidents, in case that wasn’t painfully obvious.)

          • beulahmo

            Oh! LBJ is one of your favorites?? Wow, that’s so interesting to me! (And no, it wasn’t obvious; but then, hardly anything is ever obvious to me, I’m afraid.)

          • Aron

            While his micromanagement of Viet Nam was deplorable, I can somewhat forgive him for Great Society.

            Oddly enough, I also hold Nixon in very high regards, for almost the exact opposite reasons. Aside from his creation of the EPA, his domestic policies were deplorable, undoing almost all of the Great Society programs. But he was a master statesman, and one of the great foreign policy minds of his generation.

          • beulahmo

            Oh, yeah — LBJ was a complex and fascinating character. He’s even more fascinating when you look at his life and work not only within the context of U.S. history, but also in the deeper context of local politics. I learned so much more about LBJ from reading about Texas history than I did from reading just the historical information about his presidency. You really picked a great person to place your interest in.

            I confess I don’t know much about Nixon. Frankly, his personality really, really unnerves me. {:-[]

          • Elaine Guillermin

            “So his manner of speaking might not be a reflection of his views as much as a reflection of his resignation to the social and political realities of his environment. (And by the way, this is true for all politicians, so that’s why I really hesitate to speculate about their personal motives. It’s too complex for anyone to make claims with certainty.)”
            yes, just like African Americans use racial epithets about whites, in private, and they are not particularly racist, they are just in a different social context.
            Sometimes you have to appear to be on the side of your potential opponents in order to move an issue forward. I am glad I am not a politician because I could not stomach doing that and I would not be able to keep a straight face. I don’t know how Obama does it really. I do not know how he functions with all the racism he experiences. I can’t wait to read his memoirs.

          • Malby

            the socially-advanced frame of today? You mean the critical race-gender-white privilege micro-aggression twit-wit frame of today?

          • beulahmo

            I can’t tell if you’re just playing with me or not. This is sincere: I would try to answer your question, but I don’t know what you mean by “…critical race-gender-white privilege micro-aggression twit-wit frame of today…”

            This is a subject I genuinely care about, but I don’t have an academic background in it. I’m old, and I majored in history, so a lot of the language sounds esoteric and foreign to me. It really helps me if you can use more common language (“dumb” it down).

          • Badgerite

            Well, Johnson grew up in the South. Texas, no less. I think you put too much stock in some behind the scenes name calling.
            Especially so since Johnson, in getting the Voting Rights Act and other Civil Rights legislation through Congress had to deal with some substantial southern opposition. I don’t know but I imagine there was a lot of ‘good ole boy’ cajoling involved.
            I will tell you what Lyndon Johnson would never have thought of doing and that is disrespecting Dr. King or other black leaders to in their presence.
            And he made a decision to throw all of his political weight behind the passage of the civil rights legislation that still serves to this day as the legal bedrock for actions against voter ID laws, and other attempts to restrict universal suffrage. And he did not HAVE to do that. In fact, advisers were telling him not to use his political capital for a ‘hopeless’ cause. He ignored them.
            And this was at a time when he was well aware that this decision was going to cost his party the support of the south. Perhaps for generations. And at a time when governors in the south were literally refusing to enforce the law and standing in school house doorways to block blacks from entering.
            I would guess that were Dr. King asked to choose between having a say over how LBJ would refer to him in private versus
            getting the civil rights legislation that stands today as bedrock protection for civil rights in this country, I think he would have gone for the legislation. Lord knows he was called a lot worse things by people and people who were getting in his face.
            (check google and you tube about his trip to Cicero, Illinois)

          • Elaine Guillermin

            I don’t know any whites who believe in the white savior narrative. But then again, I might just have smart friends, who read history.

            There were many white people who fought for civil rights. I don’t know where you are getting your 99% figure from. I agree that there were whites who opposed and there may have been an embarrassment factor from abroad that pushed politicians to vote accordingly, but to make a blanket statement that whites did not approve of civil rights, well, that’s just not accurate. Politics is complicated — there are pressures and reasons to avoid things — to say things, to not say things. It is very difficult to know what the truth is. Many whites did support civil rights and I know so many whites that work harder toward social justice for African Americans — more than African Americans themselves. That doesn’t mean that whites think they are saviors (though some do!) Should they stop doing social justice work so blacks don’t accuse them of having a white savior complex. All of these labels are damaging. Daring to have direct human relations with people of all races and discussing the hard questions without being accusatory — that’s the hard work of social justice.

            Here is the voting record for the civil rights act

            The original House version:
            Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
            Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)
            Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
            Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)

            The Senate version:
            Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%) (only Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
            Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%) (John Tower of Texas)
            Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%) (only Robert Byrd of West Virginia voted against)
            Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)

          • Karlin D Carney

            “I know so many whites that work harder toward social justice for African Americans — more than African Americans themselves” This quote from you says it all. LOL. You can keep telling yourself that but again if this is the case then. But black folks know better. I went to school with many people who thought like you, and non of them others then repeating what you are saying did ZERO to help black folks.

          • Badgerite

            Supporting the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s and 70’s doesn’t necessarily mean ‘helping’. It was just the right thing to do for the country. It was the dismantling of the Jim Crow legal structure.
            The Courts helped some. Affirmative Action, etc.
            But that is as far as it went. I would grant your point that Black accomplishment in this country is Black accomplishment and not White accomplishment.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            “Supporting the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s and 70’s doesn’t necessarily mean ‘helping’. It was just the right thing to do for the country.”
            That is a good way of looking at it.

          • Badgerite

            Well, I think our friend Karlin misses that. And that is what I think motivated most white support. Like the man said, they were only asking that the country live up to the social contract. And that is an important part of who we are as a nation. The social contract.
            Besides which, you know, white kids couldn’t get enough of Motown.
            It was like the bursting of a damn culturally.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            “It was like the bursting of a damn culturally”
            I miss those days. The language then had hope and power in it. I would not want to go through aspects of it again, but then I did have this idea in me that African Americans would be okay because now they found their strength, so it seemed. But something went awry and the momentum seemed to slow down. Sort of like the women’s movement — I never thought that ERA would NOT pass. On a different note, I never thought gays would ever find the right to be married, not in my lifetime anyway. The LGBT movement has been an interesting one, full of twists and turns. Of course to be married on one state and not the other is a head-scratcher.
            I don’t care for all the social science language to describe social groups that are hankering for change (and I have a social science background). I think the terms are clinical, too soft, and alienating from our true emotions. And social change is dependent on emotion. White allies? huh? Marginalized groups? enact the labor? Huh? Sounds like a landscaping project. Yeah, we can understand it when explained, but I think there are more powerful and effecitve ways to draw attention to those who need it. I was much happier when people said things like “Black power” and we had buttons that said “59Cents.” I still remember when someone informed me some years ago that people did not wear political buttons anymore. Maybe what happened to us is the Internet. We don’t have to own ourselves anymore and confront each other in the street. We don’t have to be flesh and blood anymore. We can just hang our heads down and mutter into our smartphones and tune society out. Maybe I am now obsolete. It happens.

          • Badgerite

            Sorry. Can’t have that. But it was.

          • Malby

            “Black accomplishment in this country is Black accomplishment and not White accomplishment.” Well, a candidate for the Obvious Statement of the Year Award.

          • Badgerite

            Let me know when I actually win.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            Dear Karlin,
            I hate to break it to you, but there are indeed SOME white folks who do more for social justice than SOME black folks. Sorry for your need to generalize. But do your homework. You want to fester in bitterness, see where that will get you.
            As I said, this controversy has created wounds where none had to occur. I am sorry you do not value the work of white activists. And I am glad I am the sort of person that knows that you don’t represent all black folks. If you don’t think there are African Americans that shoot themselves in the foot, and will sell their brothers down the river, well…I don’t know where you’ve been…
            There are no white saviors, and there are plenty of white hypocrites, but there are many decent human beings, who do work for justice, who happen to be white.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            “I went to school with many people who thought like you, and non of them ”
            Yes, you know all about people like me, don’t you? People like me.

          • Malby

            Elaine–stop trying. He’s hopeless. He knows everything about everybody, can’t you see? And you know nothing. Argument finished.

          • Badgerite

            Morris Dees, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, comes to mind. His organization has been the legal scourge of countless white supremacist, neo-nazi groups throughout the country. And he does this because of the kind of society he wants to live in and pass on to his grandchildren. It is the best kind of self interest, I think.

          • Malby

            Morris Dees does this for society? Right. SPLC has been exposed for the being the Drudge Report of the Left, selling its products and making money while doing nothing to address Southern Poverty.

          • Badgerite

            The SPLC “product” is lawsuits that vindicate the rights of citizens who are on the receiving end of some pretty hateful groups and policies.

          • beulahmo

            “I don’t know any whites who believe in the white savior narrative. But then again, I might just have smart friends, who read history.”

            You probably just have smart white friends or you have a generous heart and focus on their virtues so much you don’t see their flaws. I’ve seen the white savior crap acted out far too often, by people who are well-intentioned, but motivated a little too much by their need to be acknowledged for their support for justice. It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to white people who want to distinguish themselves from the ones who fight to maintain an unjust status quo. I totally understand that feeling. But they need to understand that white people already dominate almost everything; they need to check any impulse they might have to dominate in this area too (though it may indeed be motivated by good intentions), because it undermines marginalized peoples’ power in advocating for their own equality.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            ” But they need to understand that white people already dominate almost everything; they need to check any impulse they might have to dominate in this area too (though it may indeed be motivated by good intentions), because it undermines marginalized peoples’ power in advocating for their own equality.”
            I would agree with you under most under circumstances. I do not think that this applies to the Colbert situations, nor does it apply to the heinous #CancelColbert tweet. For so many reasons.
            My whole life has been about social justice. I’ve never asked for a stitch of acknowledgement from anyone. And I, along with my family, have been burned by society in more ways than one. But I won’t spread my victimization stories in a public forum, and I’ve not stooped so low as to judge other races based on the bitterness I now feel from the generalizations about white liberals, and whiteness in general. And I do know white hypocrites — plenty. It is more accurate to call them hypocrites. But not invent a new category of people to hate — white liberals. Hypocrites abound in this world – we don’t need new words for them. But this instance of Colbert has most definitely been mischaracterized. And the mischaracterization has created wounds, called forth the vampires and the creepy crawlers to feed on discontent. Sorry they are all knocking at Suey Park’s twitter account, but there are no internet police — doesn’t she already know that, being a Twitter activist? I have never seen a more unproductive use of the social justice theory in my years. I am not ancient yet, but I’ve ben around the block of few times. I think that there is such a lack of discernment and use of generalizing going on. There is a muddling of thought beyond belief. We should be doing better in 2014, but I see we’ve taken a few steps backward. Discernment. That is what intelligence and fairness is about — discernment.

          • nevilleross

            Here’s some other thoughts on this issue by Kenzo Shibata:

            It was not something that would have normally entered into my radar since I don’t follow the show. Frankly, I lost interest in the show after its first season. We get it. He’s a fake pundit. His schtick is that he acts slightly more ridiculously than right wing Fox News talking heads. His schtick made for passable segment fodder, but I don’t have the patience for 22 minutes of ironic racism, sexism, and classism. This is on the network that put Daniel Tosh’s punch-down-and-laugh-at-rape brand of humor a nightly delight and made famous comic Anthony Jeselnik, whose show The Jeselnik Offensive exists solely to give a national platform to racist, sexist, classist jokes. With a line-up like this, sometimes it’s hard to tell where the winks-and-nods exist.
            Initially, I wasn’t all that offended by the fact that he told a racist joke. I was offended by the fact the tweet was a racist, UNFUNNY, CHEAP joke. This was the kind of joke that 5-year-olds would tell to bully me when I was in grammar school. Upon watching the full sketch, I failed to see any kind of high satire from it. The construction of the joke was indeed satire, but sometimes it’s hard to tell when someone is laughing at you or with you when the punchline is basically the same punchline an actual racist would tell. Regardless of how someone whose never been slurred ethnically may feel, the difference between ironic racism and racism is a liberal arts degree.

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kenzo-shibata/hashtag-activism-and-the-_b_5078964.html

          • Malby

            Muddling of thought seems almost a given in an intellectual universe that limits expression to 100-some characters. Ms. Park’s notion that tweeting and “tweet trending” accomplishes anything worthwhile (except for her, of course) is bizarre. The “revolution” will not be the result of any of her tweets.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            “You probably just have smart white friends or you have a generous heart and focus on their virtues so much you don’t see their flaws.”
            Yes, I do have smart white friends and I do have a generous heart and I do focus on their virtues. But, I do see their flaws, as well as my own. I don’t know any white person who has worked in social justice and studied contemporary race issues who believes they are white saviors. It is just such an outdated idea that has been debunked and most white social activists I know (now, not 30 years ago) just find this stance objectionable. They can’t change the color of their white skin — what’s a white social justice activist to do?

          • beulahmo

            The white social justice activists you know are likely careful to avoid dominating behaviors. What I’ve seen has occurred in less savvy populations — like in churches and interfaith groups. As I said, their intentions are good, they cheerfully volunteer their time and resources, and they’re almost always blissfully unaware of what they’re doing. I have a difficult time feeling anything close to anger toward them, but I can imagine that, for people from marginalized populations who do work with them, it must be frustrating and exhausting.

          • Elaine Guillermin

            “What I’ve seen has occurred in less savvy populations — like in churches and interfaith groups. As I said, their intentions are good, they cheerfully volunteer their time and resources, and they’re almost always blissfully unaware of what they’re doing.”

            Absolutely. But, at least their boots are on the ground. Education, conversation, human relations…to me, that is what makes real change. And building things together. There is certainly a good amount of paternalism. I think I have been fortunate in my life experiences in that I have had a lot of experiences with many races and ethnicities. I have had bosses who were African American…in fact my first ever boss was and this was in the 70s. I feel fortunate that I have had close friendships with black women as well.

            Should we get those white church ladies some t shirts that say “white ally industrial complex.” Poor things, won’t know what hit them. And my shirt will say “faux white liberal. I just look like I am here.” Oh boy. That is the first joke I have made about this. It WAS a joke. ;-)

          • Malby

            “Dominating behviors”? Does that include expressing opinions or asking questions? And you “imagine” that marginalized people are frustrated and exhausted. What right do you have to assume their reactions and feelings?

          • beulahmo

            In this case, I used the words “dominating behaviors” to describe behavior that’s guided by paternalistic attitudes. If there’s a more precise and up-to-date way of communicating that, I haven’t learned it yet.

            And I don’t claim any right to assume any other person’s reactions and feelings — especially when I don’t share a similar lived-experience. But in the absence of any other information I could use to attempt to personally relate to their feelings and behavior, flawed though it is, assumption is all I can use. I will add that I’m under no illusion that my assumptions are an ideal reference point, though.

          • Malby

            Wait, someone was just complaining that whites don’t do enough and now you want them to step back and let you feel empowered? I’m confused.

          • Badgerite

            You certainly are. The SPLC has won many lawsuits for their clients. Drudge has won——-Ummmmmm.

          • beulahmo

            I don’t want to dispute the truth of your statements but I do want to challenge the proportionality of your claims. There were so, so many factors at work during the Civil Rights Movement and in the decades of aftermath. I hope you’ll take a look at my other comments on this thread, and add those views and experiences to your understanding of the history here. I believe there’s a lot of complexity yet to be revealed and examined (both in academia and society in general).

          • Swami_Binkinanda

            If it was the case that 99% of Americans didn’t want a civil rights bill, none of the civil rights bills would have ever passed. Look at how the Chinese were treated in the 1880s after the railroads were completed-chased out of towns with torches and pitchforks like Frankenstein’s monster. Native Americans were granted reservations by treaty which were taken away the minute enough white people got together to decide to take it away, at gunpoint if necessary. White ethnics were treated as non-whites in a racial-ethnic heirarchy that made Irish, Italians, Poles and Slavs, even Baltic and Swedish people essentially non-white in terms of rights.

            It’s a long hard road and it’s ugly but without people of good will and fair judgement no progress would have ever been made towards the dream of freedom and equality. The price of that journey is eternal vigilance.

          • Karlin D Carney

            Thats a lame liberal talking point. If all of these people were so concerned about black civil rights how come they didnt do anything before or even after the Civil Right Movement for black folks? Gentrification, police brutality, unjust imprisonment, education/labor discrimination, the Voting Rights Act, etc. if so “white liberals” many were on black folks side then and now, how is it that the same issues plague blacks now?

          • beulahmo

            That’s where relative privilege does come into play, and I don’t have a feel for how much it affects liberal white people. I’m sure it does to some degree, because nearly every human being employs privilege in some way, to avoid having to deal with injustices in the world. I’m not excusing privilege; I’m just saying it exists and it’s part of human nature. Often people don’t prioritize stuff that they can just put aside as ‘someone else’s problem’. The Civil Rights Movement was effective because it forced the inherent violence to the surface (and its non-violent approach meant that the horror of it wasn’t muddied through any kind of tit-for-tat exchange of violence and retribution) so white folks were forced to look at ‘someone else’s problem’.
            I’m not saying it would take another 1960s-style civil rights movement to get some progress, because I honestly don’t know what it would take to get privileged, apathetic people to make it a priority to address the ongoing injustices toward black folks in the U.S. Seriously. I don’t relate to how they can continue to avoid seeing suffering that needs to be addressed. Some of the suffering could be eliminated, right now, if it were important enough to be an American priority.

          • Malby

            An excellent question. You are all for self-empowerment, right? Where is it?

          • menacingphantom

            99%?! LOL.

          • Malby

            Wow, that’s a long list of buzz words without any logical connection. As for “99% of whites did not want the civil right bill to pass thats why why is was so unpopular at the time,” I’d love to see your data on that. (And were you even born then?)

        • beulahmo

          You’re right about profound effect that television had in raising consciousness. The spectacle of such violent reaction to non-violent civil rights protests made it impossible for white people to simply use their privilege to avoid having to acknowledge that segregation is an intolerable condition in the U.S. And it helped many white people (those with consciences) have confidence that they constituted a righteous majority of Americans.
          My mother, who grew up in the deep south during legalized segregation, said that she knew a lot of white people who were afraid to speak out about the inhumanity that was tolerated and even considered acceptable by ‘polite’ society. They were very afraid, because as much as there was the ever-present, mostly-unsaid-but-always-understood threat of violent retribution to ‘keep the black folks down’, there was an equally vicious threat understood by white folks, were they to be suspected of being ‘n—r lovers’. So the civil rights movement of the 60s — the way it was televised — helped some of those white folks put aside their own fear about speaking out too. And the strategy of non-violent protest helped keep it crystal clear — it put aside behaviors that civil rights opponents might try to use to confound national discussion and distract focus from the inherent violence embedded in segregation, because everybody could see with their own eyes that it took so little (just acts of non-violent, peaceful protest!) to bring the implied (what I earlier called ‘unsaid-but-understood’) brutal violence to the surface.

          • Badgerite

            That’s it exactly. To me, the tactics of the Civil Rights movement were brilliant because the violence on one side met with the non violence on the other made the issues :”crystal clear” and for exactly the reasons you said. And the violence could only go so far because there were TV cameras running. It really made the country confront the reality of Jim Crow in a way that had not been available before AND I think it empowered opponents of it everywhere.

      • Malby

        Nonsense.

    • CL Nicholson

      The fact that this child compares her temper tantrum on Twitter and the Left media’s nervous breakdown to, oh, I don’t know, being beaten, jailed, and in the case of MLK, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, killed in the name of freedom and equality , probably makes me take her even less seriously than I did before.

      You know what is even sicker – Dan Snyder gets away Scot free. We’re all worried out this minor pest on the internet than the real battle of a billionaire jackass refusing to change the name of his stupid football team to something that isn’t the equivalent of calling me or my wife “Coon”.

      • Badgerite

        Denise Oliver Velez has a piece up today on Daily Kos about the Southern Poverty Law Centers report on how well states teach the actual history of the Civil Rights Movement in this country. Most states get a D to an F. Ironically the Southern States (except for Texas) all get A or B.
        People forget, Malcolm X’s father, who was a very successful man in terms of business, was murdered by a mob in Lansing, Michigan. His family was torn apart.
        I think maybe the false equivalencies come from a lack of real knowledge or appreciation of the history. And that may be because it is so poorly taught in most of the country. School boards matter too, I guess.
        Yeah, her target was ridiculous. And she took away from the point that Colbert was TRYING to make. “Squirrel”!

        • clemdane

          If you become a self-appointed spokesperson for social justice you are responsible for educating yourself about the history of the civil rights movement. It’s way past time to blame the educational system.

          • Badgerite

            Well, she is young. And her hash tag followers are young. They have time to learn. And maybe this should serve as a wake up call for them.
            If you attack someone like Colbert, who makes people laugh and therefore contributes to their happiness, AND tries to point out the insulting nature of a term, you had better have thought out your responses when people come to ask you, “Okay. what’s this about?” At least better than. “Yeah, but you’re white.”
            All she had were these ridiculous hash tag responses. Maybe it is indicative of the medium these kids operate on. I don’t know.

          • nevilleross

            Better yet, said spokespersons should have learned that school can’t teach everything: you have to find things out by yourself most of the time, whether by going to a bookstore, the local library, or in the case of today, using the Internet. Also, people like Ms. Park should also learn that history doesn’t begin when they notice it,

          • clemdane

            I just wonder if someone who has been so indoctrinated with political theory is still open to and able to take in information from outside sources without filtering it through her distorted ideology.

  • Elaine Guillermin

    Everything she writes, speaks, does and professes to believe is based in Critical Race Theory. It has been a while since I’ve studied radical theory, so I did a little refresher for myself…and if you just read the basics of that theory, you will see where she is getting this terminology from. She wants to use Twitter and the digital nation to change the world as a fundamentalist critical race theory activist. There are coherent critical race theorists in existence and coherent CRT activists as well. She is just a poor example. I personally do not subscribe to all of its assertions, but CRT does provide a lens for observing some salient phenomena concerning race and gender. Its proposed solutions leave much to be desired. Suey is so excited by her twitterversy, and the fact that she was able, by crying “Fire!” in the movie theater, to stir up resentments, hostility and other unsavory sentiments among many, and to get a whole damned Colbert Show devoted to her (simply amazing), that she is probably now even less able to see the fallacies in her logic.

    • DJEB

      Though not normally one to prescribe a language shift to make social change, I think the world will be a better place when we stop using the word “theory” when we are really talking about “hypotheses.”

      • Elaine Guillermin

        Yes! That is what makes me react so viscerally to her tactics. Bad medicine based on bad hypotheses.

    • beulahmo

      Thanks — I knew her language must have a lot of esoteric meaning; I just didn’t know the source of it. I’ll have to do some reading about critical race theory.

      Well, she is young, so her views and her work will hopefully go through a maturation process, and perhaps she’ll learn to translate her thoughts into more common language. Right now, all of her statements smack of academic elitism which, by itself, draws derision and dismissal. And that’s a shame, because it may be the delivery of her message, rather than the substance of it, that moves people (even some who might otherwise agree) to dismiss her so quickly.

      • FlipYrWhig

        You give her too much credit. The only concept is “privilege.” People who have it need to be told that they have it, and people who don’t something something. It’s not esoteric, it’s just a way of saying “shut up” with more syllables.

      • Elaine Guillermin

        it is actually pretty interesting and some aspects of it can be useful. But it is highly ideological and does not necessarily base itself in rationality. I think it has evolved over the years — and I am not familiar with its more contemporary iterations.

  • http://vermillionbrain.blogspot.com/ Vermillion

    is that like it shows that it’s OK to engage critical thinking, it’s OK
    to admit that what I thought two years ago is very flawed, and that I
    have a fuller picture now, and it’s still incomplete, and it’s still
    ongoing and changing.

    Huh, she basically predicted that she is going to feel like a complete tool when she reads stuff like this interview in a couple years.

    That’s nice.

  • Razib_Taif1

    I hit “white ally industrial complex” can couldn’t read another word….

    • DJEB

      Me too. My brain just refuses to accept any more stupidity.

  • Grant Beaudette

    I want this woman to either actually go on Colbert or go away forever, but I don’t think either will likely happen.

    • Razib_Taif1

      It’s almost a reason to boycott twitter as it is the medium that allows her to enter my world.

      • Robert Scalzi

        I have since it’s inception – it really is a useless forum that should be ignored.

  • astrocat96

    Thanks for picking out the choice bits, Chez. I personally only made it about 1/4 of the way through the interview before I remembered I would rather have herpes in my eye than read one more word she had to say.

  • Victor_the_Crab

    Someone needs to ask Suey Park these questions:

    -Has it ever occurred to you that you’re a fucking idiot?

    -Are you fully aware that sane, rational people of all races, gender, religion, sexual orientation consider you a fucking idiot?

    • UnclePaul

      She may sound weird, crazy and outright stupid to regular people, of all races, but her overdramatic and pretentious nonsense if standard among her end of academia, the social justice end of it.

      So as a permanent student or future professor, she will always be around people who agree with her, so she’ll never know how crazy she sounds, and she’ll just keep being a crazy extremist and get praised for it.

      • clemdane

        Thank god i left academe.

      • Hadtogotoschoolwithher

        Suey considers the academic industrial complex another enemy. Her perspective on academia is tainted because she failed to complete not one, not two, but three graduate programs. Academics don’t want her either.

  • ToThePoint

    You have to admit, the woman is a prolific buzzword generator.

  • condew

    Suey Parks sees racism everywhere she looks, but is somehow blind to her own racism, She set out to take on strike a blow for — something, but has struck a blow against her own credibility instead. I hope this stupid episode in her life haunts her for decades.

    • Elaine Guillermin

      “but is somehow blind to her own racism,”
      the idea of “whiteness” is inherent to her social project (if we actually call it a project). Her views are based in Critical Race Theory which posits that whiteness inherently confers social privilege. Okay, white people accept that, most do. However, it is the solutions proposed by the theory that inform her speech, incoherent as it might be. CRT solutions lie in accepting racism as a given — can’t change it, don’t want to, it is inherent in the structure. It is inherent in the actual construction of the legal system and the very foundation of most institutions touched by whiteness. So seemingly reasonable social mores do not apply to her. The ends justify the means. So to slander a good man like Colbert is okay. She got the platform she needed. The context of the racist stereotype did not matter — because has long as it was manhandled by a white liberal (considered to be the enemy because they maintain the status quo) makes it fair game for attack. Actually, it seems to me that anything could be fair game for attack — which is what makes her approach so disturbing. And to put people on edge like this, get them off balance, is a fine activist strategy. She is already bragging about how everyone is afraid of her.

      • FlipYrWhig

        Isn’t “activism” worthy of its name supposed to, like, do… things? What kind of “activism” involves creating hashtags, which are, in essence, stupid taglines to text messages sent to the world?

        • Elaine Guillermin

          she got a whole Colbert show devoted to the controversy, and she got coverage in Time, CNN, Salon, multiple blogs, just to name a few. All with that hashtag. So, one could argue that she achieved an activist goal of drawing attention to angry Asian women who do not want Asian stereotypes handled by comedians. I contend that she has created more harm them good, because it created conflict based on false premises — that the satire was racist. We would have to shut down the shows of almost every single comedian — black, white, Asian, Latino — if we follow her logic. And the weird thing is is that most other comedians are actually poking fun in a racist manner (and we laugh anyway). What Colbert does is encapsulate the racist language within a larger narrative in order to point out that racism is occurring. His satire is sophisticated — and what she does with her complaint is try to diminish it. It is rather mean spirited. And her supporters pretty much just say “Hey stop saying that” because we are the oppressed ones. Well, I don’t know, I suppose there is something to that — and I would agree if it was not THEATER. And if the content was derogatory. The content is there to inform of the problem. Her supporter hear none of that.

          • molosky

            Primarily she has done three things. She has introduced more total people to CRT than thousands of college courses combined. Second, she has made CRT look both incredibly stupid and dangerous, marginalizing even among the left those who engage in both her substance and tactics as brainwashed fools. Third, she has positioned herself to be a hero among CRT-obsessed jargon-spewing “activists”, which will perpetuate her career in selling them her sanctimonious writing and speeches, despite that their own interests have been harmed by her ascent to de facto spokesperson for their supposed movement.

            Since #3 was her sole goal, she is indeed successful.

          • ykh

            Your summary of critical race theory is somewhat flawed, however. While it does posit that racism is institutionalized, it in no way makes any claims about social mores not being applicable, or that slander is ok. This is just a bizarre interpretation. And no, following her logic, you would not have to shut down every comedian, because 1. she stated outright that’s not what she even wants, and 2. the identities of the comedians matter. People who experience racism will respond to a white person making racist jokes differently than to, say, a black person making racist jokes about black people, because we assume that said black person actually knows what it’s like to suffer racism (of course this is complicated by issues like internalized racism, but everyone has their own sliding scale of what jokes are appropriate and what jokes cross the line).

            I personally was not offended by Colbert’s joke, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t offensive. It’s just one of many completely tired jokes made about how weird Chinese sounds, made because Asian Americans are considered safe to make fun of. Asian Americans are model minorities and aren’t poor and are good at math, so what possible racism could they be experiencing, compared to the Native Americans and black people? This mindset assumes that one can’t recognize differing degrees of oppression and racism, or that choosing to recognize and bring attention to racism experienced by Asian Americans automatically means they don’t care about people who have it even worse. This isn’t true, and is a tactic more often used by people to shut others down and dismiss their concerns (“Oh, you feel terrible about the fact that someone stole your wallet? Well, don’t, because there are children starving in Africa.”)

            To bring it back to Park and others like her, while I am somewhat doubtful about her tactics and her choice of words, I think you completely mischaracterize what her goals when you describe CRT the way you do, and say she “doesn’t want Asian stereotypes handled by comedians.” That’s not the point of these types of activists. They want to bring attention to the fact that these kinds of insults happen ALL the time, throughout their lives, directed to them by non-comedians, comedians, well-intentioned but ignorant friends, actual racist pricks, etc., and after a while, it ceases to matter whether the comments are meant to be scintillating satire or just crude remarks. To bring up a simple example: if someone steps on your foot, it will hurt whether they meant it or not.

            I’m pretty sure many of the people who were offended by Colbert’s joke knew what he was trying to do. This is because every time an offensive joke like this comes up, defenders rush in to explain how we are only offended because we didn’t get it, and that it’s actually brilliantly sophisticated satire (there’s even a term for this: “hipster racism,” where people are racist, but it’s ok because they’re just being ironic). And on one level, I get that. Good comedians tend to offend, and they’re supposed to push the envelope. But since this particular joke didn’t push any envelopes and fell back on “denouncing” racism by making racist comments about another group (that many racists are already happily making jokes about with no repercussions)? I can see why people like Park would be annoyed. They’re part of the group who are already aware that there is a racism problem and see this joke as merely exacerbating it. Is she being mean-spirited? Maybe. But “ching chong” jokes are also mean-spirited, as are the assumptions made in these comments about Park’s intelligence, just because people reading the interview aren’t aware of the theory behind her language. (It’s certainly legitimate to argue that maybe she shouldn’t use jargon in a Salon interview, but I see people sneering at some of her phrases and implying that she’s dumb for using them, when they’re the ones being ignorant about where those phrases come from.)

          • Malby

            Personal aggrandizement. That’s “social activism.”

        • ykh

          For some reason this keeps coming up as “criticism” of people who choose to use social media as a platform for activism: this idea of “why aren’t they doing ‘things’?” But spreading awareness of a problem IS doing something (especially nowadays when you have the potential to reach way more people than, say, handing out flyers on a curb or picketing, two tactics employed by many activists now and in the past). On top of that, you have no idea what Park — or any activist who maintains an active online presence writing about the issues relevant to them — does with the rest of her time. For all we know, she could be an active donor to charities that help underprivileged children get better education, or whatever. Since we don’t know what the rest of her life is like, we hardly have any right to say she’s not being a proper activist.

          And out of curiosity, what exactly qualifies as “activism worthy of its name”, if spreading awareness of an issue via our modern technology doesn’t?

          • FlipYrWhig

            “Spreading awareness” is the cheapest possible activist tactic. It’s step one, and the easiest step. What’s step two? Think of the difference between “cancer awareness” and cancer research. Once we’re Aware, we something something, then… Justice? You can’t petition the world. You need a damn plan. You need to want things and also to understand how wanting things might become getting things from people and forces that can provide them.

            IOW, social media is not a “platform for activism,” and never will be. That’s like saying that your platform for activism is a Spotify playlist. It cheapens the whole notion of activism, which is about practices and accomplishments, to reduce it to stunts and one-liners that don’t involve actual bodies and other tangible presences.

          • ykh

            We’ll have to agree to disagree regarding social media as a platform for activism then. I clearly think it is and you clearly think it’s not, which makes it a little unproductive, as I imagine we’ll just be yelling at each other. I just want to say that I don’t mean to imply activism stops at spreading awareness. I simply mean that spreading awareness is an important part of activism, and in this day and age, the internet is one of the most effective means to do so. That cancer research you mentioned is often taxpayer funded, and if taxpayers don’t know about x-cancer and think it’s irrelevant, they may not be willing to support that research. I completely agree that successful activism requires a plan, a strong desire to get things done, and “actual bodies” to do so. I guess what I’m saying is that real activists have all of that, *and* they are also on the internet, spreading awareness. (By which I am not necessarily implying that I think Ms. Park is an activist. I have no idea what she does with the rest of her time and cannot say one way or another.)

  • Lady Willpower

    My brain hurts.

    I wonder, has anyone heard from the Angry Black Lady lately? I’m kinda interested, yet scared, to hear her thoughts on this.

    • BumpIt McCarthy

      ABL instantly became Suey Park II, including ignoring any attempt at civil discourse. I know her Twitter feed filled with a bunch of vile, racist stuff that would infuriate anybody, but she also jumped completely on the Suey bandwagon before its wheels started coming off so obviously. She refused to engage in any discussion with respectful but dissenting voices.

      I haven’t looked at her Twitter lately, because it made me both sad and furious. I donated to her blog back in the day, when she was between jobs and I wanted to support what I still think is a smart, funny woman from whom I could learn, but this last week wasn’t her shining hour, IMWPO (WP=white privileged — after donating to her fundraiser, I suddenly said to myself, You just gave money to a LAWYER who has a whole lot more job prospects and financial security than you do!)

      • Lady Willpower

        Oh, that’s disappointing. I wonder how ABL feels now that Ms. Park has revealed herself to be nothing but a twitter troll?

        • CL Nicholson

          I was listening to TWIB last night and frankly, she’s and Elon James White still on a (slightly less of) a tear. (Then again, that cat is almost always on a tear, but whatever).

          I think like many Black feminists she’s conflating the legitimate criticism of Suey Park’s asinine crusade with racist and sexist attacks against her. The knee-jerk response to jump into every schoolyard scuffle on Twitter is a dangerous way to get burned . And ABL, TWIB and a lot of other solid progressive folks got a serious case of metaphorical third degree scolding following Suey Park down the her personal rabbit.

          But, well, what do I know? I’m just dude (a black dude, but still a dude) man-pslain through the lends of cisnormative privilege.

          • Lady Willpower

            The personal racial and sexist attacks against her were obviously NOT OK. I think any idiot knows that. All other criticisms of her were perfectly valid, not to mention spot-on.

            Dap it out.

          • CL Nicholson

            Lady Willpower – we’re pariahs because we thought ‘Blurred Lines’ was goofy pop song made by a 35 year old hitting on college girls, not an invitation of rape. I think most Left Wing temper tantrums could use good dap out.

  • Christopher Foxx


    I got distracted real quick, there was a bird outside my window.

    http://www.unitedbyhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/squirrel.jpg

    • http://vermillionbrain.blogspot.com/ Vermillion

      I am amazed that the interviewer didn’t shut down everything at that point. How any supposedly reputable publication could even consider this woman anything close to serious escapes me.

      • Art__VanDalay

        It’s Salon. They stopped being reputable years ago and now pedal almost exclusively in bullshit just like #cancelcolbert.

    • Badgerite

      Seriously. First thing that came to mind? “Squirrel”

      • Malby

        I thought it was a joke!

  • Schneibster

    Follow the money. Money never sleeps.

    • justinslot

      Yeah, she did sort of let slip towards the end there that she lost $4000 in canceled gigs due to this, and as far as I can tell speaking gigs are her income, so…I mean, obviously it is good for business for her to stir up controversy. You can’t dismiss her because of that alone–we all gotta make a living, and if she can make good scratch based entirely off trending hashtags on twitter, more power to her–but it is a factor.

      • Schneibster

        Fair enough. I never expect complicated humans to act on a single motivation unless it’s a survival imperative with short reaction time.

  • gorge jung

    How many times does she use the word LIKE in her interview?

    • Elaine Guillermin

      in all fairness, Salon could have edited that out. It was a telephone conversation. I think Salon wanted to highlight her flightiness — which I think she is flighty…

      • BumpIt McCarthy

        I loved how Prachi Gupta didn’t let Park get away anything. Park obliviously babbled on, trying to use Gupta as a stenographer for her performance art/egotistical palaver, but it was a terrible mistake to talk down to a real writer hired on the basis of her abilities. The noting that she was hung up on, the use of “cause” for “because” and the bird moment/gambit I like to think of as Gupta giving the readers little side glances without Park being aware.

  • james

    Jesus. What a friggin’ knob.

  • tjuarez

    Park doesn’t in any way deserve to be threatened; she shouldn’t be mocked because of her background or her gender or for any reason that isn’t directly related to her deeply absurd opinions and her actions of late. But when it comes to those opinions or actions, yeah, have at it. They’re deserving of every bit of derision and ridicule that’s been heaped on them — from people of all races, genders, and backgrounds.”

    This argument needs to be used in so many more situations – the idea that attacking the arguments a person makes is not the same as attacking the person. Personally, I’ve gotten to the point where I feel I have to expressly state that I’m attacking an argument a person has made but not them before I can even address what I consider are the flaws in the argument.

    Republicans constantly whine that they’re under attack when you attack their ideas and we need to call bulls**t with this point whenever they do.

    It’s not a new point: Dr. King talked about judging people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. How else can you determine their character than by their own words? Even the (Christian) Bible quotes Jesus as saying “beware of false prophets” […] “you shall know them by their fruits”

    • condew

      You are being far more generous to Suey Park than she was to Stephan Colbert. She has every right to say she is offended, even if it’s because she is belligerently ignorant, but not to seek the destruction of another person’s career. But she did, and it’s perfectly reasonable to say she is unfit for her job.

  • Nick L.

    Don’t fail to notice how she always manages to work in to every interview that she “is a writer”. This is about her own publicity. I think this is the interview where she talks about all the scripts and comedy she writes. That line seems out of place until you consider that this whole thing is about her.

    Her supporters have been incredibly dismissive of the many Native Americans who have expressed frustration at her actions and other Asian Americans who disagree with her tactics. I am not impressed.

    • D_C_Wilson

      Exactly. Her tirade was never really about what Colbert said or did or about racism in general. It was about promoting herself and feeding her narcissism by latching onto somebody famous. Can we declare her 15 minutes up now?

      • Nick L.

        When she declared that Michelle Malkin was a better ally than Jeff Yang at WSJ, I was done considering her point of view.

        • Otto66

          Agree. And usually when someone uses “I” so often they end up talking about themselves in the 3rd person. Gonna happen.

  • muselet

    Why do you think that’s an irrelevant question?

    Because you’re still trying to understand my context, rather than the reaction and the conversation that I was trying to create.

    You don’t think understanding your context is just as important?

    I don’t think so.

    My rough translation into English from whatever the hell that is: Don’t try to understand what I did, but instead try to understand what I did.

    Somebody misunderstood Jacques Derrida in college, methinks.

    –alopecia

    • D_C_Wilson

      I think it’s more like “Don’t try to understand what I did, just tell me I’m awesome.”

      • muselet

        You could very well be right, but beneath the smug me-me-meness of it all seems to be an attempt at profundity. It’s incoherent enough to make analysis difficult.

        –alopecia

    • villemar

      Shut up! So-called “Context” is just another form of oppression used by White Industrial Complex thugs to delegitimize me!

      • muselet

        Shouldn’t that be the White Industrial Context?

        –alopecia

  • Lauren

    Thank you for doing this, because I was genuinely only able to skim it. Total nonsense.

    I did like the unintentional joke in an early line, though: “I think it was just an opportunity to use hyperbole in a way to make social commentary, which is what the [unintelligible] would want to do to begin with.” That actually makes sense if you take the brackets out.

    • D_C_Wilson

      The irony here being that was exactly what Colbert was doing.

      • Lauren

        I was just mocking her clunky, Palinesque syntax, but of course you’re right.

        • Malby

          Palin! Thank you. I had been reaching into my mind to find that same disconnected, almost-English usage pattern and had trouble. But it’s Palin.

  • Grizzle

    Question: Did you watch the Monday night segment on the “Colbert Report”?

    Answer: No, and I think that’s an irrelevant question.

    Okay my face just met my desk…

    • Christopher Foxx

      It was irrelevant to what she’s trying to do. Which has nothing to do with whether Colbert is a racist or not, or the Redskins controversy.

      Colbert’s segment that Monday night wasn’t about validating or aggrandizing Suey Park so, yeah, it was irrelevant to her.

      • Nick L.

        What is interesting is that she retweets people calling for her to appear on his show. So, she obviously is interested in the show as a platform, but only if she is the one using that platform.

        • Christopher Foxx

          I’d love to see her on Colbert. He’d show exactly how stupid and hypocritical she is, and she’d not catch on to any of it.

          • Nick L.

            If that is the troll toll, then so be it

          • UnclePaul

            She’d never actually show up if she thought it wouldn’t help her career, she would have to be tricked into an interview, Ali G style, or get a big paycheck.

    • Elaine Guillermin

      I think I can actually explain that. Not defending the inanity, but I think I know why she said it is irrelevant. She has said in previous dialogue that she is not going to do the emotional labor of explaining things to the oppressor. She is simply not going to engage in what she believes is a dialogue dominated by the white liberal oppressive. Its the white man’s dialogue not hers. So it does not count. These are only my inferences based on things she has said. All inane.

      • Nick L.

        And one problem with this is that it is also comes from an incredibly privileged place. If cultural destabilization is one’s primary goal then that person or group doesn’t have enough real problems. Her assumption that a blow struck in the name of her race war is a blow struck for all minorities completely silences people who are so relatively underprivileged that they are looking for very basic respect and support. I will stand with the people whose racist depictions are still used as mascots; whose children are being gunned down in the streets and imprisoned at alarming rates; whose adults are unemployed and disregarded.

        • ykh

          I’m sorry, but I don’t think you have the right to tell any marginalized group that they don’t have any real problems. What you’re doing is engaging in oppression olympics, this idea that you can dismiss the problems of one group just because there’s this other group that has it worse. There is always someone who will have it worse than you or me. But that doesn’t mean we cease to have legitimate concerns that shouldn’t be addressed. You can stand by all those people you mentioned, and still recognize that Asian Americans are a marginalized group that has to face harmful stereotypes, made all the more harmful because they are told by people like you that they should never complain about it. In fact, if there weren’t tons of people who are already upset to the boiling point by having to face racial slurs daily, this hashtag wouldn’t have been so popular. (Asian Americans, incidentally, don’t just include the relatively more privileged Chinese, Japanese, and more recently, Korean immigrants but also Pacific Islanders, SW Asians, and other groups that people don’t even think of when they say Asian American — although even in the more privileged cases, let’s not forget the historical damage done by things like the Chinese Exclusion Act, the treatment of Chinese railroad workers, the Japanese internment camps during WWII…)

          People seem to be indignant about how she’s apparently taking attention away from the Redskins issue: how is she doing this exactly? They are two completely separate problems. If people saw the original Colbert segment, they will know about Dan Synder and his racism. If people are curious about the original Colbert segment that started the
          CancelColbert hashtag, they’ll go back and look at it, and then lo and
          behold, they’ll become informed about Dan Synder and his racism. As well as the fact that Colbert made a “ching chong” joke. By all means, everyone should pay attention to the Redskins issue — it’s extremely important. But Park choosing to bring up racist representations of Asian Americans in the media is a completely legitimate thing to do, because that is also a problem. If you think it’s less important, you can ignore it, and pick and choose your issues and who you want to “stand by”, but people who face the negative effects of racial slurs constantly do not have the luxury of ignoring that problem.

          And what really gets to me is this: if Mr. Pazienza was really concerned about the attention being taken away from the Redskins, then why spend all this time writing about what he considers completely illegitimate whining? Why not use Park as a springboard into the more important topic and focus entirely on the Redskins instead?

          • Nick L.

            Her stated goal is racial division and wholesale cultural destabilization. These goals reflect a personality that has no interest in truly helping people.
            You make an assorted collection of assumptions that cannot be deduced from my post and I would suggest you quit thinking like a disaffected humanities student. Ms. Park herself stated that she looked at the original tweet as more of an opportunity to troll white people than an actual incidence of offense. She is duplicitous and naive and I would be ashamed to take her part.

          • ykh

            I responded to your comment about “that person or group doesn’t have any real problems.” Since Ms. Park is part of a marginalized group, I found it problematic for you to say that just because you disagree with her tactics, then the group of people to which she belongs “must not have real problems.” I do not agree with Ms. Park’s behavior personally. She sounds too young and ignores nuance in favor of being inflammatory. But just because that’s how she chooses to behave does not make the concerns of her group (Asian Americans) invalid. If you find her tactics distasteful, that’s one thing, but surely then there is no need to go on about how you’ll choose to stand by those you consider more “underprivileged” as if you can’t also acknowledge Asian American issues. And I should also point out that I agree, it is a fact that there are definitely groups that have it worse than Chinese, Korean, or Japanese Americans. But people can get a little sensitive if they are trying to discuss their own experiences and someone else always barges in with “well, your group’s experience is invalid because so-and-so suffers more!” That is what it sounded like you were implying. And if that was an incorrect assumption on my part, then I will apologize for that.

            Other than that, I’m not sure what further assumptions you thought I was making. If it is the 2nd and 3rd part of my response where I reacted more generally to other comments I was seeing, then that is my bad. I should’ve made it clearer that those were not directly in response to what you wrote.

          • Malby

            “Asian Americans are a marginalized group that has to face harmful stereotypes … ” so we respond by harmful stereotyping of white people (whatever that means these days) and white males in particular. White makes cannot even discuss the issues because they are white. Well, that certainly gives the Emperor some cover for his nakedness here.

          • ykh

            Um, ok? Nowhere in my post did I say that white people can’t discuss these issues because they are white? You seem to be doing just fine discussing these issues and no one’s exactly stopping you.

      • clemdane

        That’s good because I have zero interest in her explanations or point of view.

  • WiscoJoe

    I can’t shake the feeling that if these quotes came from Glenn Greenwald (and lets be honest, the rhetoric is strikingly similar), that Salon and other lefty publications would be falling over themselves to praise the brave contrarianism and bold use of hyperbole.

    • Victor_the_Crab

      She’d fit right in with Salon’s cast of characters, for sure. Maybe she’s got a job lined up with them.

    • FlipYrWhig

      Glenn Greenwald is HARDLY the kind of person who is locked into idiosyncratic personal views that must not be criticized and whose Twitter flying squadron swarms to lavish friends with praise and detractors with derision.

  • Jason E

    She makes me want to reconsider my positions of A. Being anti racism and B. Being a male feminist. Chez, Thank you for reading this so I didn’t have to!

    • Elaine Guillermin

      don’t stop fighting the good fight Jason.
      We need the White Male Ally Industrial Complex.

      • Jason E

        I’m good, still on board. All systems go!