A few years ago the editors of the late, great mag ego trip published a fantastic Big Book of Racism that must be one of the funniest, edgiest, most on-target treatments ever produced on the glory and ridiculousness of inter-cultural discourse in America through the ages and today. In 300 pages of over-the-top gonzo charts, lists, graphics, mini-essays, and assorted unclassifiable content, the collective turned every stereotype on its head and made fun of everyone on an equal basis using as its great leveler the power of the absurd. A precursor to Borat, in a way, but with much broader scope, knowing detail and subtlety, and without the escape hatch of the visiting-foreigner device. I wish I had my copy on hand so I could excerpt a few of its classic moments, but I don’t, so I can only encourage you to check out what’s available on the Google Books preview and, better yet, just buy the damn thing.
It seems a close reading of this book would also have benefited Chanakya Sethi, the editor in chief of the Daily Princetonian, and his colleagues at the student newspaper of Princeton University. Last week the paper ran its annual “joke issue” made up entirely of fake news and parodies, and as you may know, included a faux op-ed by “Lian Ji.” The reference was to Jian Li, a student who filed a civil rights case against Princeton for not admitting him (and went on to Yale), and the copy included passages like this:
Princeton claims that it increase diversity by rejecting an Asian-American. You make joke? My mom from same province as General Tso. My dad from Kung Pao province. I united 500 years of Rice Wars. I invented Asian glow — new color, new race. Hey, what about yellow fever? Heard that’s hot on this campus. This is as diverse as you can get.
Plus, no-color people all go to Ivy Club; I would have made Campus Club alive again. Plus, I would have created first Asian a cappella group. Plus, I would have starred in first Chinese Opera in McCarter Theater. Plus, I would have join USG, become USG president better than Rob Biederman. Who you think get better deals with Ivy Garden boss anyway? Plus, I know how to make bubble tea. Plus, I would have taken one engrish class and be liberal arts. Writing seminar count, right? Multiply, I make DDR varsity sport.
I’ll spare you the blow by blow account of the ensuing shitstorm: see the New York Times wrap, for instance, here. But there is also a Desi Angle (TM) in that the paper’s editor-in-chief, and therefore presumably the one ultimately responsible for what get published, is desi — as is, incidentally, the next editor in chief, Kavita Saini, who takes over next month. Sethi and his team have now apologized in an editorial, adding:
Many criticisms of the column, however, do not recognize its purpose. Using hyperbole and an unbelievable string of stereotypes, we hoped to lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous. We embraced racist language in order to strangle it. At its worst, the column was a bad joke; at its best, it provoked serious thought about issues of race, fairness and diversity.
The column in question was penned by a diverse group of students — including several Asians on our senior editorial staff — who had no malicious intent. Given our purpose, we are deeply troubled by and reject the allegation of racism.
You can read letters to the editor here. They span the spectrum of course: offended Asians, non-offended Asians, offended non-Asians, non-offended non-Asians, people objecting to the theme but not the writing, people objecting to the writing but not the theme. You can count me in that last group. As the Big Book of Racism and Borat demonstrate, heinous racial stereotype can be put to use in its own destruction, with the added benefit of deflating self-appointed guardians of one ideological correctness or another. But it’s a difficult art, and one that doesn’t work unless you take a real risk.
What Sethi and crew did was the opposite. They didn’t take the risk of offending everyone: instead, they targeted one ethnic group alone, and to do so, impersonated a real-life character who is already vulnerable and compromised. Borat took the risk of playing the offender; Sethi and crew took the easy route of playing the offendee. They wanted to be Sarah Silverman; they came off like Michael Richards. Memo to Chanakya Sethi: It isn’t racism, my brother. It’s laziness, privilege, and idiocy.
Satire is definitely the most difficult form of comedy to produce. Satirists have to be smarter and more articulate than any of the people they are mocking. When it’s done well, see Stephen Colbert, it can be sublime. When done poorly, you’ll end up with a total shtstorm, as Siddhartha put it (or perhaps just a big pile of sht). Regardless, things like this have taken place in every college campus around the country. There’s no need to single out the ivy leaguers as they certainly don’t hold the patent on idiocy. It’s just more amusing when they put it on display.
What I found particularly disingenuous about the editors’ response was the “we’re Asians and we found it funny” line – right, fudge the desi-East Asian difference when it suits you and pretend that the silly stereotypes could apply to you as well. I haven’t heard if there were any East Asians on the editorial staff, but I’d be very surprised if there were.
And even when they are, there are still dumb people eager to not get it even when it’s bashing them over the head.
Take Robert Crumb’s famous satire, When the Goddamn Jews Take Over America!. It’s satire, people. It’s FUNNY – I think so anyway, and I’m not easy to please in that department. But even the site I link to here doesn’t get it…unless they’re satirizing others’ response.
But I agree with Siddhartha on the “Lian Ji” passage. It’s lame.
They wanted to be Sarah Silverman; they came off like Michael Richards. Memo to Chanakya Sethi: It isnÂ’t racism, my brother. ItÂ’s laziness, privilege, and idiocy.
Loved that sentence. Keep writing bro!
Borat took the risk of playing the offender
Hardly – looking for anti-Semitism in the most philo-semitic country is not a risk. The Princetonian’s antics just confirm my own prejudice – the Ivy League is just a sports league for guys who couldn’t play sports.
So the Harvard Crimson carried a defence of the Daily Princetonian written by another desi kid. Here it is:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=516680
There were East Asians on the ed. board, but saying “We’re Asian, and we thought it was funny” is not a defense for the writing being offensive, racist, and totally unfunny.
Nina P said:
Totally – isn’t that why Dave Chappelle left his show?
Oh, it’s racism too.
I was waiting for Sepia Mutiny to cover this!
Buchu beat me to posting the link to the desi guy at Harvard’s defense.
I completely agree with siddhartha — it was written in a horribly offensive way. My biggest issue with this is that they’re using broken Engilsh to pretty obviously mock a REAL PERSON who is second-generation Asian-American and most likely speaks English in complete sentences. (Especially considering that he got into Yale). Really, this just reinforces Princeton’s image as a place for the snobby and preppy who look down on people who couldn’t get into their own institution. (Because obviously they’re the best since the US News Rankings said so!)
To expand, truly using this kind of comedy requires a self-awareness that just isn’t present in this piece. It’s just whaling on this specific kid and using the most inane possible method to do so.
but this is an excellent analysis of the newspaper’s “apology” letter.
Am I the only one who gets it (that is, thinks the Princeton spoof was funny)? And I hated Borat.
Speaking of comedy Siddhartha, have you read Phatphree’s “Look at my striped shirt: Confessions of people we love to hate”.
Definitely funny and along the lines of good humor that really snipes at everyone and everybody. The essays are hilarious. The onion, Phatphree, David Sedaris, etc., have a good track record of making sure things are actually funny.
Really. Princeton is as Princeton does. The explanation/apology/defense from the editorial staff was lame and so was Sahil Mahatani’s laborious piece in The Crimson. I confess though, that I did enjoy this one sentence from the original: “What is wrong with you no color people?” A real satire would have been written in the language a Freshman Yalie might have used.
Well I suppose that’s to be expected from the second best university in New Jersey, as we at those of us at the best university in NJ liked to refer to our neighbors from the South.
GujuDude: I second, third, and fourth the “Look at My Striped Shirt” as an example of appropriate satire. Dallas is full of these dudes.
Ugh I’m an idiot. That should read
as weas those of us.I said we were the best, not necessarily the smartest.
they probably didn’t see it that way. Lian Ji is challenging affirmative action, one of the 3rd rails of the american left.
there’s an emerging tradition of using racial caricatures to marginalize minorities who don’t tow the liberal line…clarence thomas as sexual predator, very dumb and controlled by scalia (julian bond), gen powell as uncle tom (harry belefonte), condi rice as aunt jemima (some liberal radiao talk show host), house nigga (ted rall) big lipped parrot controlled by bush (pat oliphant), dineash d’souza as uncle tom (doordarshan).
Manju Err.. “Lian Ji” is the fake name on the trying-to-be-satire letter. “Jain Li” is the real person filing the lawsuit. But you know that, right?
Siddhartha and others: You have no problems with Borat but think this is offensive?
They are both similar in the most important thing that counts: most people reading/watching it are not laughing with Borat/Li but laughing at him.
But then, y’all probably identify as an Asian and/or a minority, but not as a foreigner. Which would mean only desis with an accent/FOBS would be offended by Borat. After what one finds offensive is only an indication of how one identifies.In which case, carry on.
oh. thanks xicatric.
I have seen clips of it on YouTube and I HATE it. I dont hate Borat because he talks in a fake accent, I hate it because he tricks people into saying offensive stuff which he then films and sells for profit. Most people are engaging with him out of some level of decency.
Other sickening thing about Borat is that, it, by showing how bigoted some people are, reinforces a false sense of “being enlightened” in a lot of people. I am not able to express my point properly, wish I could explain my point in Hindi. Basically Borat makes people feel good by showing how bad others are. but those others were tricked into saying stuff. In anycase, does Borat not have any biases?? Yeah right!!!!
And yeah this Princeton thing …I agree with most people here. Lazy and offensive. Which Princeton student talks like that?? The ones who may talk like that are in Grad school (Engineering) and are foreign students so AA doesnt matter to them anyways.
I am not able to express my point properly, wish I could explain my point in Hindi.
Express away brother!
Rajesh: Which Princeton student talks like that??
Oh lots. I once had one Princeton frat boy stay in my house for the summer. True he was on some sports scholarship but I got the feeling he was both poorly educated and unintelligent. Pretty strong words here (unintelligent) but that was my considered assessment. I spent two months in Cambridge recently and many of the Harvard undergrads came across as airheads. Rich airheads, but airheads none the less. I live in LA so of course the general intelligent ambience of Cambridge outside of Harvard square was refreshing.
The point of Borat isn’t to laugh at Coen’s character, it’s to laugh at the bigots who think that they can say whatever stupid thought pops into their head because they’re not talking to someone “important”.
I wonder if there’s a Kazak version of SM, The Iranian or Angry Asian Man. I would love to read their take on Borat.
Perhaps this problem is not endemic to the Ivy League, as this post and some commenters seems to suggest, but instead reflects what appears to be a growing general desensitization to insults directed towards the East Asian community. But then, an analysis blaming what is clearly racism on ivy leaguers and privilege might also be correct…
These comments (from that link) to the desi Harvard Crimson defence of the desi Princetonian “satire” hit the mark:
“Chanakya Sethi (the editor in chief at the daily princetonian) and Sahil K. Mahtani seem to have positioned themselves to be the next generation of “Dinesh D’Souza’s” in order to profit from bashing minorities (other than South Asians), and “them darn libruls.”……..Sethi & Mahtani and those like them reveal a schism within the muddled geo-graphic term: Asian-American. It is not asians poking fun of themselves with racist language. It comes across as Indian editors planning and approving a racist mockery of an East-American man”
“Mahtani is a tool or a South Asian apologist or worst. Attributing broken English to a Yalie with perfect SAT verbal scores, because he’s of Chinese descent, is the pure definition of racism. And the Prince article was definitely written be a fellow South Asian. Look in the mirror my friend. You’re not white and attacking East Asians won’t make you any more so.”
“I’d like to thank Sahil and all his dark homeys at Princetonians for doing our dirty work for us. White folks are always on the lookout for other non-whites to hate on them asians so our politically correct gov.t won’t have to bust our whiteasses all the time. Many people don’t realize it, but it’s getting really hard nowadays for whites to be a proper racist. Normally we prefer using fine asian women to put them asian guys in their place, But if some whitewashed Indian/Bangladesh dude wanna help out, it’s all good.”
Quite parallel to my perception that there is a lack of sensitivity to insults directed toward the S. Asian community….perhaps no Asians are being taken seriously in this way.
I am stunned by the humorlessness and Ivy League-bashing. Are we so thin skinned and insecure? Is satire dead?
Group rights demand such desensitization. The fake op-ed was parodying the notion that an asian should enjoy equal protection under the constitution or ’64 civil rights act. In this worldview, discrimination against such individuals should not be taken seriously because they are part of a privileged group. thus, the princtonian used a ridiculously stereotypical asian because it is these very stereotypes that justify the lack of protection.
If serious legal scholars argue that individuals from particular privileged groups (whites, asians, desis) should have a different level of protection due to their privilege, then how can we not become desensitized.
for example, the harvard crimson sees the real racial provocateur as jian li:
I’m de-lurking because the comments on this subject seem so totally off from what I feel that I MUST abandon laziness and actually type.
So often on SM and elsewhere people (desis and white and others) assume that you have the right to make fun of your ‘own kind’ – because that’s proof of your being witty, sophisticated, etc; plus you have those unique insights into, say, Punju aunties (Vidur Kapur). But when one makes fun of others it is racism, bigotry and an inflated sense of the self. Why must a comic or an act that is truly and obviously designed to be funny (like this one) have to prove liberal credentials by first making fun of his/her own kind? Why must an Indian-American not make fun of East-Asians? They’re trying to justify their behaviour by saying they’re all Asians – not an intent to hide behind a convinient label, but IMHO that’s just a way of saying we’re all outsiders. After all, a food critic isn’t great only if they critique their own ghar-ka-khaana, are they?
No, that’s only half of the point of Borat. The other half – and the appeal – of Borat is in fact the character he plays and the people he caricatures with that character. They’re just easier targets, because Kazakhs don’t have the ability to create a shitstorm here, whereas Asians do to some extent.
To think that the audiences of Borat are solely laughing at the people who respond to him, and not to the character itself, is to delude oneself.
anyway, this Princeton thing is just so poorly executed, it’s not witty in any way whatsoever, and it’s just obnxious. I may not agree with siddhartha’s sidenote on Borat, but aside from that I’m with you all the way.
Not quite. Those commenters did not even parse the text in either article well.
The Princetonian article isn’t very funny. But very few college articles are. But to accuse them of racism is really taking offence where none is intended. I agree with Siddhartha’s assessment. It is somewhat lazy, not racist.
Borat’s disturbing, but at least it’s weird and uncomfortable enough that it can claim a critical edge. This is just lame Chinese-bashing: comfortably privileged students mocking the uncivilized hordes outside the gates.
It’s then retroactively claimed by its authors to be brilliant satire. Right. And the guy yelling ngger out of a car window is not really racist, why no, he’s “using hyperbole and .. stereotypes … to lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous.” Yes, that’s the ticket, he’s “embraced racist language in order to strangle it,” in the hopes of “provok[ing] serious thought about issues of race, fairness and diversity.” As another example, who can forget Michael Richards’ “Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a fcking fork up your ass.” Brilliant, exquisite satire, for those sophisticated anough to grasp it…
Anyway, that part about provoking “serious thought about issues of race, fairness and diversity” really pisses me off. They’re a newspaper. They want serious thought on these things, they can fill their column inches with it. It’s not like people have to be provoked into thinking about these things, like this is some boring topic that needs a hook. The main problem is getting people to think carefully about these things, without resorting to dishonest poses.
That “Ego Trip” book is great. It included list like “top 10 white women we are supposed to believe are hot just because they are white” Julie Robert’s was number one and also Kristen Dunst, from Spider Man, was on it. Top ten celebrities who try to hide there middle eastern background. It had essay on who is more Latin, Cameron Diaz or Christina Aguilera.
What Sethi and crew did was the opposite. They didnÂ’t take the risk of offending everyone: instead, they targeted one ethnic group alone, and to do so, impersonated a real-life character who is already vulnerable and compromised. Borat took the risk of playing the offender; Sethi and crew took the easy route of playing the offendee.
Are you suggesting, siddhartha, that they should have run one long article that made fun of every ethnic group? Or that they should have run one article each offending one particular ethnic group?
ps: I didn’t see any purpose to the article myself but I don’t quite understand what you mean.
Just to throw this out there…do any of you think Carlos Mencia is funny? He admittedly gets pretty “racial.” Personally I think because he takes a chance-by carefully aiming the humour in one direction, like a Sarah Silverman or Sasha Baron Cohen, it’s hilarious. Whoever said it before you are right, satire is difficult and you have to be smarter than everyone else.
It’s not like East Asians are all one happy family, either. Just how far do you think the Princeton editor would get with that “all in the family” defense if he was of Japanese or Vietnamese descent?
Not at all. I’m saying that race play tends to work best when the writer/actor/narrator puts him/herself at risk, exposes and explores their own vulnerability alongside that of the other, rather than taking potshots from a safe distance. Borat, like him or not, actually put himself at physical risk to carry off his humor. The Silvermans and Ego Trips of this world make fun of themselves and “their people” at the same time as they make fun of others.
It’s not being thin-skinned and insecure. This article wasn’t funny. I don’t think we should congratulate stupidity and ineptitude.
No offense, but this is ridiculous. It’s not about “liberal credentials,” there are a lot of things going on when someone makes fun of their “own community” versus another person’s. There are power relationships, history, class, and all sorts of things going on. To ignore the social and cultural context behind comedy is misleading. What next, a Sambo revival? Which leads me to…
I think Doordarshan’s reference (#29) summed it up best. This is like the NYTimes article on higher ed that separated admissions into 3 racial categories, Whites, Asians, and minority people of color.
be more manish!
Yes, yes it is.
No the audience laugh at the misogany and anti-semite and anti-every-decent-western-thing behavior by the charactor. Which proves my point, that audiences love it because it reinforces their superiority.
No, the article wasn’t funny at all, and I seriously doubt it was meant in a satirical fashion.
However, I still don’t think we should attack the Ivy League or any particular institution over it. If UCLA published a similar article, we wouldn’t blame “Pac 10 twerps” or “UC twerps.” We’re fooling ourselves if we blame this ongoing problem on social elitism or privilege. The real problem isn’t localized…it’s a national phenomenon that deserves attention in that context.
no one’s saying an indian person can’t make fun of an east asian person. i may not find him funny all the time, but russel peters manages to do just that, without a hint of racism and with some charm to boot. the difference is that the princetonians fall back on lame, negative stereotypes and pin a mocking accent onto someone who is asian american and probably doesn’t have an accent at all. for sethi to claim that he’s part of the asian club so it’s okay for him to do it, is one of the most offensive parts of this. one would think he would understand, or perhaps he’s never had an apu accent thrown at him, or someone ask him to pump his gas, or wonder why he smelled.
My sister used to work at a similar level ivy institution and was the managing editor of her paper – desi writers rule!
ivys are overrated!