JCC The Chinese Hate Jimmy Kimmel

solojones, if you can scale back the indignation for a moment...

Even putting aside the debate in France about what it means to be French, I think you will find from either studies or just talking to the man in the street is that a large portion of first generation migrants, both legal and illegal, feel more <identity> than they do French. This is less pronounced amongst second generation immigrants, who despite feeling <identity> also feel strongly French.

I guess, whilst you may have met the necessary requirements to exhibit sufficient liberal angst in the US, it's not really relevant in the French context. Moreover, segregating migrant workers who are not necessarily intending to not return to their country of origin, and people who, by definition consider themselves ethnically Basque and not French is not, as you put it, racism.

So, in conclusion, when speaking of Wocky - il n'est pas raciste.

 

You realize I said the opposite? That most of the ethnic minorities in the modern day People's Republic "are still part of groups that are indigenous to the areas that have always been recognized as part of China." The word "always" makes it literally impossible for them to not be considered Chinese.

I'm at least pleased your passionate about the issue. Though, again, your reading mistakes my intent, mostly because you shift contexts so wildly. You didn't ask me about who should and should not be considered French, nor was I attempting to comment on that. You asked me whether a comment about the nation of France would be considered a comment that is primarily about the ethnic group(s) or taken to apply equally. I feel, then and now, that the former would probably be the case. The only other actual instance of this we have is the insistence on a distinction between being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, but that argument often is not accepted. More broadly, when people are speaking of a country, they usually are discussing its predominant or controlling ethnic group, to the exclusion of others. People, for instance, refer to the "American work ethic" interchangeably with the "puritan work ethic" even though a considerable number of Americans were never Puritan, nor Protestant, nor even Christian at all.

All that said, "actually" was a poor choice of words relative to something like "ethnically." But all this puts a rather bizarre cast on your arguments to date. You think an offensive remark was made. I've explained my thinking in making the remark, and why I think you misinterpreted me. But I don't think that you were somehow faking your feelings, that you were blowing things out of proportion, that you were attention seeking, or that it was somehow illegitimate for your to raise the issue. Why do at least some of these things apply to the protestors in this case, weren't even wrong in some of the ways you plainly are here?

EDIT: I would thank Ender Sai above, and note that some of the points he brings up above are ones I tried to include and which I thought would give my post better contextualization. Ultimately, though, I think solojones is correct that it still wasn't the best job of expressing myself, which is finally my responsibility as much as--if not more than--the reader's.

 

This is so sweet. Ender and Wocky. Side by side,

 

Yeah I'm hugely uncomfortable right now, so way to amplify that.

The way I'm electing to see it is that I'm usually right and rational, and therefore anyone who decides to be these things will end up on my side.

I... I need to believe this.

 

Lol.

I guess that edit didn't really help anything, huh?

 

No, you were still in the right with your posts. We cool Wocky.

 

I sincerely doubt that after pages of explaining, with varying degrees of patience, that this was a 'straw the broke the camel's back' scenario, only to be told the Chinese should "lighten up" and the joke's on the kid not them... yeah I can' see Rogue or SJ thinking as anything but Americans in this instance and that lack of cultural empathy gives us at least 3 more pages.

 

Part of the basis of the defense of Kimmel is that he didn't make the remark and a little kid did. But the question Kimmel asks in the first place bugs me. It reeks of that nonsense scaremongering about "owing" China a lot of money, as though they can repossess Texas and paint it Red. Why not ask about the hundreds of billions in U.S. debt owned by the United Kingdom or Japan? I know Anglophobia is so 19th-century and we stopped being terrified of Japan's Yellow Menace sometime in the 1990's, but c'mon. To Kimmel and his writers, it's probably a legitimate issue in U.S. affairs. But is it really? There's no way it wasn't fishing for some sort of, er, insensitive response from the children.

 

Sorry, you're asking for a rational discussion about China - that's not possible. Despite a history of strong (and culturally rooted) opposition to outwards conquest and being an "empire", we have to accept that China has designs on conquering the world.

 

Don't we have a Senate forum for this sort of discussion?

 

No.

 

Ok, then. I had to be sure.

 

Well I'm glad we cleared that up.

 

We're not remotely serious enough.

 

Nah, I'm done talking to Wocky about it and I most certainly don't see the point to continuing a conversation with you. It's not worth having a conversation about national prejudice with someone who routinely uses his own national prejudice as his answer to any disagreement with any person from a massive and diverse country. Someone who says, "lol dumb Americans just can't get it" every time they can't actually think of a topical response pretty blatantly can't be taken seriously on the subject of how bad it is to say mean things about a whole country.

Sorry, obviously Rogue and I just couldn't possibly be globally-minded at all. We're Americans, so clearly our extremely straightforward reading of a joke on a television show isn't remotely up to your sophisticated Anyone Not American standard. How could it be, really? I spend too much of my day chewing skoal and cleaning my guns to have time to learn anything first hand or otherwise about other countries. And I mean, as someone living in Southern California, one thing I absolutely don't know anything about is migrant workers or the differences in self-identity between first and second generation immigrants. Sadly I was sick the day we went over that in 9th grade so I'll never have your level of sophistication on the matter.

And I'm definitely not someone who routinely criticizes my country or deeply dislikes many aspects of its culture, nor do I care at all about understanding anyone else's. I'm definitely not annoyed by this protest because of the incredibly American nature of the outrage and the manner of response. It's just that I like making fun of the Chinese so much.

And what's worse, I don't understand anything about the nature of a protest that happened 1.7 miles from my house involving people from my community and revolving around the field I work in. I could never hope to grasp the motives and reactions of people so far-removed from my own world. So thank God I've got your insight into it! Whew.

And God knows that Rogue as a Native American couldn't possibly begin to understand how hard Chinese-Americans have had it, historically or presently. His culture has really just been so privileged and pampered, you know? He doesn't know what it's like to be part of a group that even in 2013 is deemed acceptable to be mocked by Johnny Depp in a modern minstrel show on an international scale. He can't possibly identify the difference between ignorantly racist and hurtful comments or actions and an inoffensive comedy bit about the crazy things kids say. He's just really not qualified to talk about oppression of minorities in the US.

I mean, this Kimmel kid is basically to China what you are to the United States, Ender: an ignorant child giving a knee-jerk, thoughtless, extreme blanket response to a whole country he finds problematic because he's not going to be bothered to actually take the time to think it through.

The difference is, we laugh at him because he's a kid and it can be darkly amusing when a kid has an extreme reaction like that. A pompous adult who actually believes what he's saying doing it? Less amusing. More just sad.

So then, later

 

Lack of cultural empathy? Honestly Ender Sai, that is an out of line, hypocritical statement. You say that you are "rational" but you create threads like this:
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/ender-sigh-says-moar-islams.50015404/#post-51028168
and afterwards, you berate others for no "cultural empathy".
Clearly, you are the one with no cultural empathy, never have I ever encountered one so ignorant.

 

Studies show that the US has enough energy to power itself, and in a while, (a long one) oil will run out. The US has the most competent workforce as well as a large population and is most likely going to be the survivor among the dead (metaphorically speaking). They can do the research, and have enough resources to achieve what they require. And while China is powerful, it gains through its industry. When oil runs out, whose going to have industry? Only the US will still stand.

 

Yay for excessive patriotism!

 

Haha, Ender's culturally empathetic and I'm not. I'll just leave that there.

 

Rogue1-and-a-half: Were you ever planning on responding again, or did you leave along with solojones?

 

Everyone left to celebrate America for the weekend.

 

Lol. You are going to have a splendid time here sport, because jumping into situations where you know less than half the facts is - and you are quite right to point this out, sir -the very opposite of ignorance. Quite.

solojones, after the French post I stopped being serious and started being facetious. You should not afford these posts the respect you would give anything else offered in earnest.