I’ve noticed a disturbing trend emerging in Asian American pop culture recently, one where a slur used against Asians is not only being accepted, but wanting to be owned by Asian Americans themselves.
Well, to all my fellow Asians out there who don’t believe that “chink” is a destructive and derogatory word, here’s a story for you.
Minhee Cho, 24, was shocked when she learned she had been described by a Papa John’s employee as “lady chinky eyes.”
The public relations rep spotted the disparaging phrase on her receipt Saturday a day after visiting a Hamilton Heights branch of the popular pizzeria.
“Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn’t ‘lady chinky eyes,’” Cho tweeted, along with the an image of the offensive receipt.
“I was very surprised because the lady that was serving me was super nice and we joked and it seemed super normal,” said Cho, an uptown resident.
Papa John’s tweeted Saturday evening that the employee is being axed.
“We are very upset by recent receipt issue in New York & sincerely apologize to our customer. Franchise employee involved is being terminated,” the tweet said.
When reached earlier by the Daily News, a Papa John’s assistant manager said she was certain her employees didn’t mean to offend the customer.
“I apologize. They’re not bad people,” she said. “I’ve seen the receipt and I don’t know why they wrote that but I’m sure they didn’t mean to offend her in any way.”
The owner of the store, Ronald Johnson, said that he was shocked over the incident and planned on having sensitivity trainings to make sure nothing similar ever happened again.
“It’s just wrong,” he said. “I was shocked and I was very, very upset about it.”
He added that the employee responsible for the receipt was a teen — who he believed was misguided by “hip hop culture.”
“It’s unfortunate, but this is the modern culture that they’re involved in,” he said.
Imagine that you’re getting ready to tuck into your pepperoni pie, when your eyes scan the receipt tacked onto the pizza box. Everything looks alright until you notice that the clerk has identified you as “Lady Chinky Eyes”.
You do a double take. Yup, it’s still there, printed in intelligible black ink.
“Lady Chinky Eyes”, really?
Really.
Not surprisingly, the story has led to outrage from the Asian American community, with many saying they will never visit the pizza chain ever again.
Well, fuck that, I’ll enjoy my delicious garlic sauce with my pizza if I want to and holding an entire company responsible for one dumb fuck is hardly logical.
No, anger at a company isn’t what I took away from the story, rather what I enjoyed most is the fact that it took some bigot in New York to make Asians realize that “chink” and its derivative slurs should never be accepted as a word to describe a person of Asian descent.
—–
Part of the reason I bring this up is because I remember when rapper J. Reyez tried to spit what he thought was a clever line about racism. It went: “My name is J. Reyez, yup the Korean guy, I represent the Asians, we all chinky-eyed.“
It rightfully set off alarms in certain quarters, but the overwhelming majority expressed support for its usage. I’m guessing primarily it’s because popular Korean artist Jay Park was featured on the song.
Hell, Jay Park himself took the time to write some inane diatribe about the whole thing.
Click To Enlarge
Following that tweet, the reaction was overwhelmingly in the vein of “OMG LET’S HAVE ASIAN PRYDE YO CAUSE WE CAN CALL EACH OTHER CHINKY-EYED AS A WAY OF RESPECT“.
My reaction? Fucking pathetic.
Look, listening to this lyrical rhinoceros trying to move through a song like he’s got the gift of gab is painful in itself, but hearing his fans Jay Park’s fans defend the usage of the word and trying to promote it was like a bullet to the heart.
Sure, J. Reyez and Jay Park tried to make it about legitimizing the usage, as if it was a “fuck you” to the racist establishment, but it’s a short-sighted rally at best.
Why?
Think about the usage of the n-word by African American people as a way to take the word back. How did that work out?
The n-word is practically mainstream now, and all you have to do to hear it being used by suburban white teenagers is log on to Xbox Live, where they’ll scream it randomly for no reason at all. Hell, you’ll hear it on the streets from people using it indiscriminately, apparently seeing little wrong with the n-word or just not caring at all.
“Why is it wrong? My favorite African American rapper and/or athlete uses it, so it’s fine for me too, right?”
You’re saying that’s what you want out of “chink” and its derivatives?
For what happened at Papa John’s to become the “cool thing”?
Fuck. That.
—–
Assimilating slurs into everyday language will never work and it will never be okay.
What the Papa John’s employee effectively showed Asian Americans is that no matter where we go in America, no matter how fluently we speak or immerse ourselves into the host culture, Asians will always be looked at as immigrants or outsiders.
To this day, people still ask me when I came over from Asia. Thanks, fucker. Actually, I was born and raised in America, just like you. Ugh.
So by calling a customer “Lady Chinky Eyes”, the Papa John’s clerk helped make people realize that “chink” is still very much a powerful word infused with hatred and prejudice used to demean people of Asian origin.
Sorry, living in the 21st century hasn’t made it any less potent or hurtful.
=====
As a whole though, Asian Americans are fairly lucky in the sense that we’re at an early point in preventing racial slurs from becoming everyday slang. We can make our kids and our friends understand why it’s not okay to use the word or accept it.
Back in the day, Jay-Z attempted to argue that African Americans should take back the n-word and use it is a form of empowerment.
Considering how commonly it’s used today, all I’ve got to say about that (and to anyone who thinks that’s a plausible avenue for the Asian American community) is:
I’ve got 99 problems, but delusion ain’t one.
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Wow what a dumb shit those two were about this issue.
Fans agreeing with them are the types who will just agree with everything their biases say.
OPPAR DIDN’T MEAN IT
I fucking agree man. I was born in the US, am half white, half Korean, had white cousins that attended the same school as me, my first and last name are white, and I still got asked shit like “Where are you from?” Hell, I’ve had stupid people even ask me “Is your mom from North Korea or South Korea?”
I guess I’ve been “lucky” since I’ve only been called a chink a few times in my life, but that was a few times too many and I wouldn’t want to see the word in the mainstream.
You ever been called “boy”?
:o
Nope, just chink and Yao Ming.
I hear people getting Yao Ming a lot.
I was once chatting with a cute guy…
“What’s your name?”
“It’s ‘Long’…”
“How long can it be [lol], try me…”
“No. My name IS Long.”
“Oh…”
“OMG! My name isn’t Long, it’s Tony! I can’t believe you’d think I’d have such a Chinky name! [Bwahahahaa]”
“[sigh] No, I just thought your parents were idiots.”
I really don’t understand why people don’t accept this as a racial slur. That’s the problem. I mean, you mentioned the N-word, and it’s true that’s it’s mainstream. I GUARANTEE you that no one would ever say it to my face (because it’s just understood that you shouldn’t), and even the ones who will would probably stop if I gave them shit.
This should be no different. People are just screwed up…
Didn’t even know you were a woman. :o
Hm. Interesting. Then I guess you don’t approve of Leehom coining the phrase “chinked-out” in reference to his music, either.
That’s just stupid, regardless.
:o
It doesn’t even sound cool.
“ALL CHINKED OUT IN MY RED LAMBO”
Almost as dumb as Chinese kids trying to identify themselves as black and calling themselves “Chigger”.
A chigger is a fucking mite.
wtf
I would chimp the fuck out.
jay park is a dumb fuck. Period.
More minus points for jay…=.=
he got in trouble the last time for similar irresponsible ignorance. This just proves he hasnt learned. Use of slurs create more separation and bitterness between races. Its not abt the intention of the speaker using the word. Its about what the word itself entails and how the receiver is left to feel bcuz of the word. Jay Park needs some asian pride and less “artist” pride. Being an artist doesnt excuse u for ignorance. =.=
Well, he never struck me as the brightest bulb.
:o
This situation is very jacked up. Seems like every race is doing something that lowers their worth. Ignorance is killing our youth. There was an incident at my old high school recently where 2 white kids brought a noose to the school and threatened a black girl with it. The school said it wasnt a hate crime. No thats a big hate crime. Its insane.
What the fuck.
there is a chink in my armor
Inception.
I don’t like racial slurs either, but when did this go from Papa Johns to J. Reyez to Jay? lol I’m not an “oppa didn’t mean it” fan, but in this case, he didn’t say it, he was telling people to give J Reyez a breather, which, just because he said to back off doesn’t mean people have to back off, I know. But hey, in another post/article, you said free speech is good, whether hate or not, why is this post different?