Recently, browsing through the Chinese blogs in my favorites list, I came across a rather surprising image (click here for full size version, image after the jump), a mockup of “evolution” in several different countries parodying the classic from-monkey-to-man evolution image found in high school textbooks. The reason it was posted in China is that the “evolution” line leads to a picture of a crab with watches on (an internet meme), but the first thing that would strike any American looking at the image would be that Africa’s evolution line ends without evolving beyond apes.
Some commenters addressed the issue directly but insensitively: “That Africa one is hilarious!” wrote one. Many more praised the picture generally but didn’t comment on any specifics. One commenter simply wrote: “Ten thousand years!” (a traditional wish of longevity that obviously indicates high praise here). Another wrote, “Fuck, I died laughing! Classic!”
Some commenters were a bit more astute. “That Africa picture [... people will] definitely say you’re racist, do you know?” asked one on 不许联想, the only one of 50-plus comments to really directly address the issue. Commenters on Hecaitou fared much better: “Not funny + Racist,” wrote one. “The part about Africa is a bit too offensive,” wrote another, and someone noted that “the last [figure] in the Africa line should be Obama!”
A couple commenters on Hecaitou also indicated they knew something was going on in the Africa one, though they weren’t quite sure what, writing “That Africa one…” and then not commenting further. The vast majority of commenters though, failed to comment on it at all. Reasons for that can and probably do vary, but one may well be that they simply weren’t aware of the racist implications the image has. In fact, the first direct reference to the Africa part of the image on 不许联想 goes like this:
Commenter 1: How come there’s nothing after “Africa”?
Commenter 2: With an IQ like this you still come to this site? It means there’s been no improvement in Africa, orangutans have just become gorillas.
So is it ignorance or indifference that caused most people (including the bloggers themselves) to ignore the racism and post the image? It’s difficult to tell, and for our purposes here, making that distinction may well be irrelevant. Either way, it’s indicative of one aspect of Chinese culture that’s likely to cause problems as relations between Africa and China get closer and Chinese people have to, well, actually meet Africans.
I’m willing to grant that I may just be, by some people’s standards, taking this too seriously, coming as I do from America, the most race-sensitive nation on the planet. I’m also willing to grant that the internet as an institution is practically overflowing with racism. Still, these are well-respected blogs, not 4chan. That this obvious an issue could make it under so many people’s radars might indicate an impending rude awakening in a country where people will confidently tell foreigners “there is no racial prejudice.” That, I suppose, is where the “China” part of the image fits into this discussion; racial “harmony” is, as most foreigners in China are painfully aware, superficial or downright nonexistent as soon as someone different actually shows up. That Chinese people, as a whole, aren’t racist is as much of a joke as a River Crab wearing three watches.
I don’t mean to suggest that Chinese people are a bunch of torch-bearing clan members, nor do I mean to blame them, per se. As this report points out, one possible reason for Chinese prejudices against dark-skinned people is the negative roles they’re often seen playing in films. For the average Chinese, whose only exposure to dark-skinned people ever might be through the silver screen, it’s probably easy to get the wrong idea, and that’s Hollywood’s fault.
Other influences on Chinese perceptions of Africans include media reports of wars and “backwards” living conditions in African nations, which fuel the idea that Africans are somehow inferior. Since many African nations are poor, some Chinese may also look down on them for being economically inferior.
That’s not to say things aren’t changing. According to the New Yorker report linked above, people living in proximity to the African communities springing up in Southern China have grown to accept them (being allowed to marry someone’s daughter seems as good a measure of acceptance as any). As in all countries, young people in China tend to be more open-minded than their parents, perhaps partially because many of them idolize African American basketball players like Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson, or dark-skinned footballers like Ronaldinho and the rest of the Brazilian national team.
Does the future hold acceptance or increased tension? It’s difficult to say, but one Fudan University sociologist believes there may be trouble ahead: “”Racial issues could become a serious problem as China develops and more foreigners come here seeking a job. Then we would have some conflict,” Yu Hai told the Shanghai Star.
It’s not a difficult scenario to imagine, especially for Americans who have watched centuries of racial prejudices spring from the fear that immigrants may take jobs away from natives for one reason or another. In the States, the reason for this fear is generally that immigrants are often willing to work for less (see: Chinese, Irish, Italian, Mexican, and Puerto Rican immigrants, among others), but in China, the reason might well be that they can appear more attractive to companies than Chinese workers, perhaps offering international connections for business or the convenience of native English speaking skills.
So what do you think? As ever, we invite your comments. (And if you’re wondering about explanations for the other countries, Japan’s is a robot, Korea’s is a StarCraft character, and America’s, well, no one seems to be able to tell. The most popular interpretation among Chinese commenters was “hip-hop guy”)
UPDATE: For those who don’t know already, Hecaitou has responded to this post. He offers five reasons why the post isn’t racist, which include ‘China never had slaves’, ‘black people really do look like monkeys’ and ‘black people in China are not treated differently than Chinese’. All in all, I think it supports what I’m saying in this post pretty well, but you’re welcome to go there to check it — and the comments — out.
UPDATE 2: Things are progressing faster than I have time to follow, given that I have a full time job, but check out 不许联想’s excellent response to this post and Hecaitou has also responded, this time in Chinese. His response, which I’ll translate for the sake of fairness when I get some free time, might best be summed up by this sentence from it: No matter how often you update, there’s still no racism in China. Suffice it to say, I think he’s misunderstood this post as an attack on China or Chinese people, when it’s intended as nothing of the sort.
UPDATE 3: There is a new post about this post and further discussion with Hecaitou and Wang Xiaofeng here: “Race and China: Touching a Nerve”. It includes some correspondence between Hecaitou and me, as well as additional analysis.
Hmm, since the first 3 have the same fonts, one could easily assume that they were the original and then each of the others were individually added over time, as those 3 have different fonts. The person who added China probably received it with up to Korea added, just as the person who added Korea probably received it with up to Africa added, etc.
Yeah, that seems likely. In other news, this post seems to have confused the hell out of our Google ad. Anyone else seeing the “Albinos in Tanzania” one?
[...] Custer posted an article named 《Racism in China》. It seems that I have made a big trouble in my article 《Evolution》. Mr.Custer said: So is it [...]
shit !
C. Custer, you’re stupid !
Unlike Anglo Saxons, the Han does not have a record of slavering other races. Hence, people are less sentimental about “racism” as it never was something people practice in the same way that Nazis or pre-1964 white Americans do. With the image in the article, I’d say it’s more of a matter of disrespect and ignorance rather than prejudice and contempt that qualify as racism.
Having said that, I also need to agree that some of the comments from Chinese netizens are purely embarrassing. Chinese people in general need to learn how to get rid of our post-colonialism complex and stop thinking in the illusion that everyone else in the world is hostile.
As a white man in China, I must disagree with the above poster that what happens cannot be qualified as racism. All the times that people have said to me, “I don’t like Africans,” or “How come, in America, the blacks don’t care about education?” come to mind. Of course these are personal anecdotes and are certainly not representative of the whole, but it does make me angry when someone says to me, “There’s racism in your country, not ours.”
Yes racial sensitivity is something China has to work on. But gaging the mostly indifferent responses of anonymous Internet users to a random cartoon is hardly telling. If you posted a racist cartoon on an African website, do you think you’d get much more than indifference ?
More concerning is the overtly racist and often violent fashion Greeks and other Europeans treat blacks in their country.
^and by racist cartoon I refer to a caricature of a ‘Chinaman’, for instance
That there is racism in China should come as no surprise, as China is, er, a part of humanity. That there are no real attempt to address the issue is a bit more worrying.
But anyway, I don’t agree that the caricature is racist. The whole thing talks in stereotypes, and just as it’s clear Japanese people aren’t actually robots, it should be clear no one suggests that Africans are apes, but that africa as a continent has somehow stayed behind.
I know in the US the very image would be considered offensive, but it’s not necessarily so in other countries.
@ Josh: Agreed. I think anyone that’s been in China more than a few months can pull up some personal anecdotes about Chinese people saying that kind of thing about blacks. And Chinese people have their own issues with prejudice against their own ethnic minorities.
That having been said, China is certainly not one of the worst countries in the world in this regard and maybe even counts in the upper 50% (a purely subjective opinion). A lot of what gets said really can be chalked up to media influence and not having the same PC sensibilities as Americans and others.
@ Racism?
Don’t be a jerk.
I’m gonna have to go with Tom on this. Using comments on a blog to make a sweeping generalization seems more revealing of how you perceive things rather than how the orginal posters felt about the mockup.
Interesting conversation going on here. I tend to agree with Rachel and Lin – racism towards blacks (African or otherwise) in China isn’t a mirror of how it is in white-majority countries. There are stereotypes, and they aren’t kind, but there is little to no racial violence – and that speaks volumes.
That said, the response from 槽边往事 is weak and does well to illustrate China’s still “evolving” ability to look past stereotypes and fenqing-style rhetoric.
My opinion as a Chinese:
No spontaneous reaction of racism and as mentioned in the post I believe nor do most Chinese audience. This is actually a good thing for Chinese because people here are actually able to read the wittiness in this pic beyond those historical chains you Americans can’t live without.
Do you guys know the notion of racism doesn’t even exist in China before you guys invented (and well… practised )it? Imposing it to this part of the world does’t justify its universal correctness or your great American values. You guys cannot even mention “black” in public, what in the world can be more racist than that?
[...] (ChinaGeeks) [...]
I should perhaps make clear, I wasn’t really suggesting that Chinese people are any more or less racist than people anywhere else. In a way, I suppose they count as “less” racist because I think most of it comes from ignorance rather than hatred.
Dude, you don’t need to over-analyze this. Chinese people will say that it’s natural — they’ll say (quite right) that Westerners have had to force themselves to behave and think in a certain way about race. I agree, but though I am no fan of over-political correctness, I find it distasteful that some Chinese will poke fun at this struggle against racism rather than be inspired by it.
So why don’t you think it’s natural to be prejudice? Chinese people live in a mostly homogeneous country centered around one ethnic group (where everyone looks similar vis-a-vis the outside world). So they notice others are different and then build into their impression their prejudices and stereotypes. It’s natural to identify differences and then build stereotypes around them.
That’s probably the way just about everyone in Europe years ago. But in the past several centuries, Western nations then had to struggle with immigration, slavery and building nation-states around the concept of citizenship rather than ethnic and cultural groups. In Europe, this has proven to be a challenge even to this day, and even in this century the two large wars both involved ethnic issues. We’re talking about 50-60 years ago!! In the US, integration has proven somewhat easier than Europe in many ways because we do not have a fixed ethnocentric national culture. The Chinese will always be behind the curve in dealing with this, because China will not suddenly become a diverse nation-state where its small number of minorities play a central role in the culture and politics. Think Japan. They’re a country that’s been probably been more open to the world culturally than China. And they’re still generally racist/prejudice.
Here’s my sweeping generalization. What the posters, commenters (Chinese in General??) lack is empathy, perhaps the cartoon wasn’t racist in intent, though if it was drawn by a French person drawing on similar parallels with the Han race, it would surely “hurt he feelings of the Chinese people” and we would all be boycotting croissants right now. Why should the African continent, arguably a far more diverse populous, be any different?
You know what is racism? Free Tibet instead of free the whole China.
@ Xuthoria: I agree that, to an extent anyway, racism and stereotyping is probably “natural”, at least, it seems to happen in all communities. That doesn’t mean it’s OK, though, or that we shouldn’t attempt to hold ourselves to a higher standard, even if we occasionally fail.
A Chinese collge teacher here: The racial context in the US can nowhere be found here in China. When young people grow up all they see is people who look like them.
One example is quite telling. During the Beijing Olympics, the Spanish basketball team made quite a stir by slanting their eyes in a group photo. Even though Chinese rights groups in the US and Europe were outraged, a CNN article found that most Chinese people in China interviewed didn’t find it offensive. Some even asked what the players were doing in the picture.
Innocent ignorance – by ignorance I mean by US or western standards – is in full play here.
The other day I showed my class of freshmen Chinese students the infamous NY Post cartoon about a chimp and its comparison with Obama. The students, mostly girls, just thought it was scary with the blood and the gun. But nobody believed it was racist even after I told them about the history of associating blacks with apes in the west. And then when I asked them about how they thought of the n word, all of them said no one should be allowed to use it, but then the most interesting thing happened – many of them didn’t associate the word with racism either. The concept of racism does NOT exist in their vocabulary. And that’s probably why some Chinese say there is no racism in China. Even when they’re able to recognize an extremely offensive remark, they would just stop short of calling it racist.
Going back to the Olympics example: The Chinese don’t even recognize racism against themselves, how can you blame them for being intentionally racist when it comes to other peoples.
Racism, by definition, is the application of stereotypes based on a person’s race, isn’t it? So for those who are saying the cartoon isn’t racist because obviously the Japanese aren’t robots and Koreans aren’t the Zerg, that doesn’t make it any less stereotypical. It’s just that the stereotype about Africa is the only one that can be applied to race. The fact that they’re stereotyping many different cultures doesn’t make it any better.
@chocobo: While it’s true that the notion of racism didn’t exist in China until westerners invented it, it seems obvious that the reason for that is because China was closed for so long. Also, just because westerners were the first to practice racism, doesn’t mean the Chinese are invulnerable from doing the same.
Perhaps it’s because I’m an EFL teacher, but I can’t think of any institution in China where racism is so widely and openly practiced as in the practice of hiring foreign teachers. I’m not sure what Chinageeks’ policy is on linking other websites is, so I apologize if I am in violation here, but here’s a pretty informative and comprehensive article on the subject that sums up what I mean much better than I can, or have the space to do so here.
http://middlekingdomlife.com/wp/china_teaching/teaching-english-in-china-for-non-white-non-native-speakers/
One other thing, it seems like all those who have posted here so far (from what I can gather, anyhow) are either white westerners or Chinese westerners. I’d really like to hear what a non-white, non-Chinese person has to say about this or their personal experiences.
“Do you guys know the notion of racism doesn’t even exist in China before you guys invented (and well… practised )it?”
Utter nonsense. Labels aren’t necessary for the attitudes and behaviour consistent with racism to be present.
Are you aware that black slaves traded via Arabs were used in southern China centuries before Europeans thought about it? I suspect not.
On a general note, the picture is indicative of a serious racial problem in Chinese society. And those attitudes are already breeding resentment among the African nations now home to large Chinese populations.
China not racist? Come on. Most people I speak to are pretty racist about Africans. It seems to be a result of unfamiliarity and ignorance, but it’s none the less real. There’s also the obsession with being as white as possible, even to the extent of scarcely being able to buy sun block without skin lightener in. And there is the heroic effort of some Chinese archaeologists to disprove the “out of Africa” theory about the origin of man. And before Westerners get all superior about this, the decline of overt racism in polite society in the West is the result of determined government education campaigns over a period of years (what the hard of thinking like to refer to as “political correctness”).
Still think hecaitou should be much more ‘well-respected’ than 4chan?
[...] blogrolled these guys two weeks ago and have meant to call them out. This post on racism in China (if, of course, it exists at all) and how it compares with that elsewhere gives me special reason to [...]
to C. Custer:
If you think the images posted on hecaitou’s blog – Evolution, is out of racism,
then what would you think when you look at the image at the bottom of hecaitou’s blog – “Racism?”, which was originally from New York Post?!
All I can say is that you are lack of sense of humor!
PS: I have seen those images long time ago. According to what I remember, they were not created by Chinese, and your guess was right: the last one about China was added on later.
Everyone knows that the only racism that exists in China is racism directed at the Chinese. I realize that racism is such a foreign concept to most Chinese — for example, if you replaced the crab in the pic above with a bucktoothed monkey with a tiny penis, most Chinese would just find it amusing and would be very confused if anyone suggested it was racist. Right? Yeah, right.
The key point: people magically gain an understanding of such a difficult, “foreign” concept like racism when it is directed at them.
[...] discussion on China Geeks caught my eye, mostly because it is one of the few that has managed to engage the [...]
Firstly, one needs a working – acceptable – definition of ‘racism.’ A definition that can be readily agreed upon by those within the discussion. In my opinion, Josh is incorrect when he states ‘Racism, by definition, is the application of stereotypes based on a person’s race.’ Many ’stereotypes’ are indeed, accurate and true, even though they are based upon an individual’s race. And, therefore, are not in and of themselves – racist. This is inherent in the definition of ’stereotype,’ not racism.
In my view, RACISM must include hatred and intolerance with intent to do harm or deprive – physically and/or mentally – on an individual basis or by government policy.
The word RACIST, arguably the most misunderstood, incorrectly used, and excessively used word in the lexicon, to the point of triteness, I dare say, and is far too complex to be defined and discussed in a couple of sentences on a blog comment section.
Irrespectively, congrats on a great post and an excellent blog.
W.D.Box
I should also say that Chinese stereotype other Chinese as well. Ask any Chinese person to tell you their opinion on people from different provinces/regions in China and most will be able to tell you that “Dongbei ren are like…” “Sichuan ren are like…” “Chongqing girls are prettier” etc… I think people in China tend to have a stronger belief in group influence compared to more individualistic Western societies.
Question 1: What makes the Africans so sensitive about their skin color though they should have been proud of that?
Chinese didn’t mean to insult the Africans by this picture, as you could see a crab is put to representing themselves in the same image.
Yeah, you could say though they didn’t mean to, or even didn’t realize how ridiculous it is by doing so, it still would hurt the feelings of the Africans. So it comes to Question 2:
Why should the Africans feel insulted by a picture like that, when everyone can see it simply a joke?
Why doesn’t the Japanese, the Korean, the Europeans or the Americans feel insulted by the same image? Why didn’t you think they should feel that way?
What makes you think just the Africans would be totally offended by it?
If it is the case as you described, one possible reason could be the Africans are made lack of confidence and even couldn’t afford a joke. The question is, by who? Of course not God, but some people and nations that regard themselves as God, and believe they could spread their opinions as social values throughout the world.
You label this particular case as racism but I couldn’t see you are more civilized than the Chinese you criticized. You obviously are well educated though, yet the Chinese do not own them debts. We no need to make up this lesson. At least in this particular picture, we treat them just as equally as any others, including ourselves.
As to the prejudice towards the Africans in China, which is actually a different topic, but comparatively, the treatments they receive from Chinese may be better than that gained from the Americans. They even receive better treatments from the government than that for the local citizens. I do not understand why noticing this disappoints you so. As you could see from the picture, we are on our way building a more “harmony society”, wearing three Rolexes. Now you are offering to donate more, but could you please manage to get the other 5 please. Maybe both Hu and Obama would sign an award for your contribution. While the Africans would be so thankful that they nominate and elect you as the chief of the continent.
So why why, why should it be regarded as and related with racism? Use your fingers to count how many people have been worshiping King Kong. Africans, as any others, deserve the respect but not the protection from some people who think they are superior and could exert absolute influence on anyone. They are independent. They have self-esteem. They have the sense of humor. They are not so narrow-minded. They are not so easy to fool. They have their opinion, but not all American rubbish. The discussion may be more productive between the Chinese and the Africans, if it is an issue to them.
So I have to say, good efforts sir, but you think too much. The Americans, if I could venture to say, in lots of cases, they are far too good at nothing but stirring up shit. BTW, here it’s just a picture, but unfortunately from your points of view, it’s shit. SHIT!!
Go find a pair of new glasses please. Since you know China so well, you know where to find cheap and good stuff—do not tell me you are so principled and never try any of them. If you do not know, check with any Chinese you bump into in the street, and I bet he/she would love to tell you, even though there does have prejudice or racism in this perfect world, especially China.
@沙鸥: You can say it’s just a joke all day if you want, but I have a feeling that if the Chinese one were showed to have evolved into comfort women (though I’m not sure how you would show that in a small picture) or somehow labeled them “Sick Men of Asia” then you would likely be singing a different tune.
The point is that Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese people don’t have a 500 or so year long history of being labeled robots, zerg, and river crabs, respectively, whereas blacks have fought hard within western society to overcome the racial barriers imposed upon them by the majority. So I imagine they would have every reason and right to be offended.
As far as whether they receive better treatment here than in America, well, I don’t know if you read the news, but a black man is president of the US. And while I can’t speak for all Africans in China, I can speak for the African students at my university when I say that they do feel racially discriminated against here in Tangshan.
@Riace: So we can establish a definition easily –
rac⋅ism [rey-siz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
You pegged the third definition, but I think the first one is the most widely accepted and applied.
@沙鸥
You either didn’t really think about this or are being intellectually dishonest. Showing the Japanese as robots is making a joke about how Japanese people like robot cartoons. The Korean zerg is a joke about Koreans loving Starcraft. The African monkey is a joke about how Africans are stupid and animal-like….
Which one doesn’t fit?
Japanese = robots. Japanese like anime, haha funny!
Koreans = zerg. Koreans like Starcraft, haha funny!
Africans = monkey. Africans are subhuman, haha funny!
Which one of these is not like the others, 沙鸥?
Oops thought my comment got erased the first time when I tried to submit so I typed it again.
@Chris Hearne:
You made me crack up.
Why the three have to be alike?
“The African monkey is a joke about how Africans are stupid and animal-like”,
that is your interpretation, not everyone’s.
So how would you interpret the image posted on hecaitou’s blog –”racism?”, that was from New York Post?
Go clean up your own ass first before pointing fingers towards people from other country! Plus, you don’t even know for sure who created the images in the first place, ha ha! That would be even funnier if the original author was from your own people.
My wife (Chinese) tells me how as kids they imitated Westerners by placing thorns from plants on the bridge of their noses (to imitate the “big nose” Westerners have). They did this in the same way young kids of my generation would pull their eyes back to make them appear thinner in imitation of asian eyes. I love the fact that she and I can talk about this without any “racism” hangups. She actually giggled when she saw the “slanty eyed” thing. It is really only Americans that get worked up about such things.
On another note, what is the final evolution of the America image supposed to be? I can’t make it out even in the full size image.
There is a culturally relevant analogue for this kind of discussion: predominant Han views of the Uyghurs. I’ve been pursuing an academic interest of the Uyghur people for several years now, and that has lead me to discuss Uyghurs with a wide range of Han Chinese people – from shopowner to academic, in Xinjiang or in China proper, on topics such as traveling to interethnic relations. A vast majority of Han people I have spoken with on the topic consider Uyghurs to be exotic, lazy, dirty, and dangerous – in fact, most Han don’t tell me this opinion outright but rather obliquely express these sentiments by warning me, with entirely sincere intentions, that I should “watch it” when I’m in Xinjiang because Uyghurs are all of the above. Don’t take my word for it: if you’re an expat, go out and ask 10 of your Chinese friends what Uyghurs are like.
I’ve thought a while about this and I’ve come to the personal conclusion that this has nothing to do with Han people being inherently racist; rather, I believe racisim among Hans is the inevitable result of an education system with a political agenda. In Han schools, subjects such as education, the history of colonialism, politics, and modern Chinese history are all taught with an extremely strong “Social Darwinist – survival of the fittest” theme. The century of humiliation happened because we weren’t strong enough – we must develop (evolve) so it will never happen again – etc. There are alot of political incentives to teach in this manner – China “helps” the Uyghurs and Tibetans (by occupying their homelands) because they are too “underdeveloped (read: “less socially evolved”)” to help themselves. The CCP deserves to be the sole uncontested party ruling over China because it has the most advanced (read: evolved) thought and so duh, elections aren’t necessary. So the party reaps political advantages by educating the (mostly Han) youth of China in this manner. A byproduct of it is racism, including an obvious racism towards blacks in Africa because most Han will rationally and scientifically explain the backwardness in Africa as a result of African people being “less developed.” To me, that’s why, what, only 1 in 50 commenters even noticed how racist the graphic was. To everyone else, the Africa graphic just made sense.
My tenant is from Nigeria, who is as black as one could possibly be. Recently the police informed us that we need to report regularly the number and name of his roommates and that he might be subject to random inspection without warning because, as the police revealed, drug activites by Africans in China are increasing lately. This precedure means he, and believably most Africans, will have no privacy (and dignity if you go futher) whatsoever while this policy is in effect.
Now if anything remotely resembles this happens in America you’d see Sharpton running warfares in DC and every African American stock up ammunitions for their 8mm calibres. But here in this country, no one cares.
That’s all because America has a long and dark chapter in their history marked by nothing but slavery, something so unforgettable that sensitivity to racial inequality will be carried on generations over generations, while China does not.
[...] 经网友提醒，伟大的Custer又Update了他的日志，他说： For those who don’t know already, Hecaitou has responded to this post. He offers five reasons why the post isn’t racist, which include ‘China never had slaves’, ‘black people really do look like monkeys’ and ‘black people in China are not treated differently than Chinese’. All in all, I think it supports what I’m saying in this post pretty well, but you’re welcome to go there to check it — and the comments — out. [...]
@Linda
I think it’s frighteningly obvious what the intent of the graphic was and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone in my entire life who would be obtuse enough not to understand such a crass joke.
And yes, it’s possible that it was originally created by an American. Completely and absolutely possible. But if it was, the average American wouldn’t try to justify it but rather take it for what it is and move on. But it wasn’t found on an American blog. It was found on a Chinese blog, and a very well known one at that.
@Vincent
That really seems to explain it almost too well. Not that I don’t believe you, but wow, I never thought of it that way at all.
[...] 之前贴了一个黑猩猩进化的图谱，于是就看到有一个英文博客说中国人歧视非洲人。后来我想了想，中国人还真的挺歧视非洲人，你别看中国人到哪儿都让人瞧不起，但五十步还可以笑百步，如果说种族岐是最厉害的地方，当属中国吧。出于政治正确角度的考虑，和菜头老师把那幅进化图修正了一下，算是“第一修正案”。张贴如下。看来我一个朋友的博客说我是专门养黑猩猩的还真没说错。 [...]
@Josh:
I have never met anyone in my entire life as sharp as you, who found those images on a Chinese blog, and hence thought they were originally created by the blogger, and also imposed your own interpretation on other people!
On top of that, you ARE VERY SMART in that you avoided what I mentioned about this cartoon posted on New York Post! — Clean up your own ass first! God, I hate to repeat! Don’t even bother to respond back to me, please! you are too much of a smart ass!
I suggest everyone read through the two blog comments themselves rather than rely on the interpretation of all the comments by one person. Most of the comments are centered on censorship and how well the picture of the crab describes China; I find it hard to believe one can equate indifference to racism.
Dear Brother Correct, I bet you don’t watch South Park, my favourite cartoon made in US. Don’t be so dull, mmmkay?
You are so ridiculous. Don’t be so sensitive and nervous,Relax,OK?
This debate has turned ugly.
hecaitou’s original blog clearly has no intention on African row at all. He posted it because of the last row — quipping China government’s Internet censorship. Then this blog charged Chinese people as a whole ARE racist, well, with good intention to remind China. Then hecaitou replied angrily, and now Mr. Custer’s update suggests it reinforced his view.
As a Chinese in US, I sensed the problem of that image the first glimpse I saw hecaitou’s blog. But I’m not worried because this blog is in Chinese, and toward Chinese. Chinese as a whole likes to steorotype people, even themselves. We say Shanghai ren are mean, Dongbei ren are rude, Jews are shrewd and over-influence in America (Jews in the west may say it’s anti-semitism?), and Africans are stupid. Call this racial insensitivity, but it’s far from racism. I don’t see Chinese really go against Jews or Africans as a race, and given China’s current trend to be rich, a lot of people even admire the Jews.
hecaitou’s rebuttal is weak. I believe Mr. Custer will fight against NY poster’s racist cartoon as well. serious racism in US doesn’t justify racial problem in China. If this image will have negative feeling to Africans, especially being center of this distorted debate, then the best thing is to remove this image or cut the African row — His blog doesn’t need this row in the image.
China sure has her racial problem, and I’m sure black people won’t like being steorotyped this way. China as a whole also didn’t have any real test on racial issue. These are things to worry about. As China becomes more and more open to the world, this may be an increasingly important topic. To this sense, Mr. Custer’s this blog deserves the respect that he reminds China there’s such thing as racial sensitivity.
But charging China as a whole racism isn’t the conclusion I can draw from these blogs as well. Calling “racism in China” only turned an otherwise healthy discussion into an ugly debate. By doing this, Mr. Custer didn’t turn any Chinese into more racial sensitive. On the contrast, many Chinese viewing this blog and steorotype Mr Custer as an extremely PC-paranoid anglo-saxon. In other words, if this blog intends to be famous, then it’s successful; but if this blog hopes to turn the world (well, Chinese) a little better, it failed badly.
@ Wu: I agree that this debate has turned ugly, but I fear you’ve misunderstood (or perhaps I’ve been unclear) if you think I’m accusing all Chinese people of being racist. I have no intention of making such an accusation, and I know plenty of Chinese people who would be just as horrified as I by the posting of this picture. As I pointed out in the blog post, several Chinese netizens called Hecaitou on the racism present in the image well before I did.
But of course, a foreigner makes a much better target for a straw-man argument, so my name will be dragged through the mud and their comments will continue to be ignored.
As a sidenote, the purpose of this blog is not to “make China better” or anything so grandiose. My only real hope is that this blog can continue to serve as a way for me to learn about China, and perhaps help inform some other curious foreigners along the way. Sometimes, that means pointing out China’s problems and sometimes that means pointing out good things about China, but either way, China’s future will be shaped by Chinese people, not by the blogs of foreigners.
@ Dennis: I do watch (and enjoy) South Park, although I’ll admit since I moved to China I watch it much less. Recently I’ve been mostly watching The Wire (which, I should note, is as good a show as any to learn about American racial prejudice from for those of you longing to criticize the USA).
BTW, “-ism”s are always invented by “serious” people, and “-ism”s fight with each others and kill innocent people.
““Dongbei ren are like…” “Sichuan ren are like…” “Chongqing girls are prettier””—-That’s how you start a conversation and have some fun, same as everyone like to say “girls are…”, “men are…”, “Correct” is for maths, not for life…mmmkay?
C. Custer: Glad you like SP too, I’m wrong.
I’m not longing to criticize USA, SP criticizes, and I hope we can have this kind of smart show in China too, but there’re too many serious people here……
Shorter discussion:
Depicting Africans as sub-human monkeys = Hilarious! And what is this foreign concept “racism,” anyway? Don’t impose your western values on us!
Depicting Chinese as sub-human monkeys = Racist! Kill all foreigners!
Ehh… … Racism is popular in US, but not here in China. I am Chinese and I found a bit of racism of that African one — after you mentioned it. See, most of us are not so sensitive to that as you are. People are not perfect, sooooooooo sorry that we disappointed you, get used to it.
In 1955 (or thereabouts), Zhou Enlai delievered an influential speech in which he declared that China was a nation “uniquely without racism.” (This reminds one of the claim, “How could we Chinese be racist? There are no black people here.”) In spite of obvious evidence to the contrary, the Chinese have continued to believe this ever since.
Prof. Frank Dikotter’s book is a good place to start an investigation of racism in China. Likewise, the anti-African riots of the late 1980s, during which foreign student dormitories in Nanjing and other cities were surrounded by angry crowds of Chinese shouting “Kill the black devils!” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Anti-African_protests) would seem to argue against the idea that racism is absent China.
And by the way, you know what is the real problem in China? “Racism” against our own people from different parts of China! Why don’t you criticize that? It is a MUCH more severe problem. We can see Chinese people all around but what is the chance we see a black person? I think we should debate on more important issues rather than this tiny, little, and for god’s sake, a problem we don’t even know whether it really is a problem
China is known to have slavery of Chinese, even back in Han times. The Shang dynasty that was toppled by the Zhou was known for human sacrifice.
Chinese imperialism is such that in 99% of cases you never hear about it because the victims have either been assimilated, wiped out, or both.
Regarding racism, I don’t think the Chinese can be left off the hook that easily. I agree with other posters that most Chinese racism is just naivete, but what about the 1987 anti-African riots, or the current anti-Japanese sentiment?
Frank Dikotter has written two books on the subject of race in China. They are called ‘The Discourse of Race in Modern China’ (1992) and ‘Racial Identities in China: Context and Meaning’ (1994).
Racism (or in its primitive and relatively harmless form) exists in China of course. It is a non-issue as long as the yellow skinned people (me too, so don’t throw titles at me) are donimant in numbers, and people from other races receive more curiosity and guest hospitality rather than the tension of competing for social resources on a massive scale. Baseline: you do not stir up issues and the Chinese (and the For the People) will leave you alone.
“I am Chinese and I found a bit of racism of that African one — after you mentioned it. See, most of us are not so sensitive to that as you are.”
Yeah, you really have to be incredibly over-sensitive to find comparisons of black people to apes racist. Well, I guess I’ll just start talking about Chinese people with the same level of sensitivity that they generally talk about everybody else with and see how that goes over. I have a pretty good guess.
China does have a lot of discrimination, but probably not very race based. This is because we don’t have too many races. You can really not tell people’s race according to their colors or faces generally. Besides, we never had one single campaign fighting against racism in history. This might help to explain why Chinese people are not that sensitive to racism. Racism is far less serious an issue in China than other types of discrimination. I don’t think they meant to insult the black. It was just a careless mistake.
Mac,
What’s the problem of Apes? Better than frogs for French.
If you don’t watch South Park, I hate you, seriously.
Here we go again. “Racism doesn’t exist in China, because I say so. Only a foreigner could be so stupid to think that there is racism in China. Only in countries with foreigners can there be racism.”
If someone tells you that your country has a problem with racism and if the person delivering the message is not of your own nationality, it is always a good thing to shut up, listen and think for a while. There just might be a possibility that you, belonging to the majority group, do not see things that outsiders see very clearly.
A lot of people here seem to be arguing that since Chinese society is homogeneous and there are very few foreigners in China, it is a question of ignorance, not racism. That is an argument that would work very well in European countries like Finland, Hungary or the Czech republic. But I can’t see how any Chinese would accept being stared at, refused service or yelled at in any of these countries on account of these countries being “homogeneous”. So if this discussion is to move forward, we can’t have one standard for China and one for the rest of the world.
I don’t understand why some white people in China are so sensitive to “racism.” You are in a different culture, please leave your baggage home.
The concept of racism is a Western invention, because some white Western nations committed crimes against other races in the past. And later “racial equality” became a Western value when the Western civilization got a little more civilized. The common mistake some white Westerners make when they are in China is that they try to use a Western concept and a Western value to measure how the Chinese interact with other races. The problem is, many Chinese don’t even know what racism is and they don’t see other races the way you Westerners do.
The major difference between Chinese and whites on the question of race is that, non-white races are perceived vulnerable by many whites, while non-white races are not perceived vulnerable by the Chinese. And you know why? Because we Chinese never committed any crimes against a group of people because of their race, and we never conducted any study to prove other races are subhuman. Therefore we don’t feel guilty toward blacks and we don’t see being black is vulnerable. We never treated blacks (or any other race for that matter) wrongly before, why should we treat them specially now? Why should we be so sensitive toward blacks? Some ethnic groups in China are Caucasians, they get the same preferential treatment as other minority groups (they get special treatment because of their population, not their race). You see, we don’t see white is better than black or vice versa. So for example if a Chinese girl calls a black guy ugly, to her, it’s the same thing as calling a Chinese guy or a white guy ugly. You can say she is rude or even an asshole, but she is not a racist.
If you think blacks are vulnerable, then subconsciously you are still a racist, because you still can’t see a black guy is just another person. For example, in America, Obama is called “African” American. I mean WTF, he is half white! If you have a drop of nonwhite blood in you, you can’t be called white, as if white is something pure. Therefore many white Americans are still racists, they are very sensitive when they are around blacks, it’s called “political correctness.” Correctness my ass, it’s just something that can be used to hide the racist in them. As far as racial relations, America still has a long way to go to catch up with other civilizations.
As another commenter points out, there is another hidden form of racism that people are usually not aware of. It’s sowing discord between other races. For example, the “Free Tibet” movement in the West reeks the stench of this kind of racism. Well, Tibetans are not any more repressed politically than the Han Chinese, why “freedom to Tibetan” not “freedom to Chinese”?
Some Han Chinese think the Han are superior to everyone. You can see this in their responses on social forums such as Youtube especially, which generally attracts the dregs of the world. Whether these Han supremacists are the dregs of China, or they represent the majority, I do not know. But I do know they are violently supremacist. Even their claims that they are not racist smack of this supremacism.
And as Gao, above, ominously points out “It is a non-issue as long as the yellow skinned people (me too, so don’t throw titles at me) are donimant in numbers”… as long as they are dominant in numbers it doesn’t matter, because these “curiosities” will never be a part of Chinese society and never compete with the true Chinese for resources.
I swear to God you apologists are so full of shit it isn’t even funny. You’re not talking to average foreigners who you can tell whatever you want. You’re talking to people who know the Chinese language, so don’t think you can bullshit us with laughable claims about how Chinese see black people the same as white people. We might not be Chinese (and we all know that Chinese people are naturally smarter than everyone else, right? Except maybe the Jews, look how much money they have, they are the smartest!) but we’re not stupid.
Hey but thats true, ha ha, face the reality!
YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH!
Somebody mentioned Chinese police profiles Africans and call it racism. I would argue it really depends. If they profile other ethnic groups in other crimes (which they do all the time) then it’s not racism. Whether the way the do their business is legal or whether profiling infringes people’s rights, that’s another question.
What, the truth is that Chinese believe themselves to be superior? I know that part very well. But frankly, I see Chinese people doing and saying too many stupid things to believe the idea that Chinese are particularly smarter than anybody else.
Racism does not simply equate to slavery. Read the following definitions：
Prejudice: a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of people, based soley on their membership in that group
stereotype: a generalization about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members
Racism: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race。
There is racism everywhere. My friends (Chinese) living in Africa have stated that they’ve experienced prejudice, stereotypes, and racism there.
The problem with the cartoon is that it stereotypes a group of people, which in turn creates prejudice and racist thoughts. Accepting that it’s racist, apologizing and moving on is the correct choice.
There is racism everywhere. If you don’t think there’s any racism in whichever country which you live in, you’re part of the problem. People who tend to get offended and deny racism exists tend to be collectivist in nature. Which is a normal reaction for people wanting to defend their ingroup.
@asdfdsf #63
Sorry, but that is more BS than I can handle.
The concept of racism is a Western invention, because some white Western nations committed crimes against other races in the past.
What you are saying here is that only “white” people can be racist because some white people have committed crimes against other races in the past. Well, that is quite a racist point of view, because the moment you pass collective judgment on a group of people on the basis of their skin color, you’re a racist. Simple as that. Why should a “fair-skinned” Pole be considered more guilty of Western colonialism than a “dark-skinned” Briton? Poland never colonized the third world, but Britain did.
Because we Chinese never committed any crimes against a group of people because of their race
Not that I think that you care, but I know of a lot of Chinese citizens of non-Han extraction that would disagree with that statement. Just to take one example, a lot of atrocities against ethnic minorities in the past have been covered up as “pacifying rebellious tribes”. Think Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan or Xinjiang.
Some ethnic groups in China are Caucasians, they get the same preferential treatment as other minority groups
I’d like to hear that from an Uighur before I hear it from you.
As another commenter points out, there is another hidden form of racism that people are usually not aware of. It’s sowing discord between other races.
One way of sowing discord between races is to portray the culture of one ethnic group (Tibetan) as inferior to another culture (Han). Another way of sowing discord is criminalize cultural expression. If you are seen as promoting Tibetan nationalism in China, you will get yourself a ten year prison sentence. Just to say “Tibetan brother and sisters” at a Tibetan music gig can be considered separatist. Can you give us a single example of a Han Chinese who has been imprisoned for Han Chauvinism recently?
For example, the “Free Tibet” movement in the West reeks the stench of this kind of racism.
If your argument is supposed to work, then we need to go back and look at China’s own history and ask if Chinese resistance against foreign imperialism did not also have strong xenophobic elements. What was the Boxer Rebellion all about? What happened to all the Japanese in “Manchukuo” after 1945? Why did the entire foreign population in Shanghai disappear after 1949? You may want to think about how the supposed homogeneity of China has been achieved in the first place.
Well, Tibetans are not any more repressed politically than the Han Chinese
Ludicrous statement given the fact that the Chinese government has put the entire Tibetan area under military rule the last month or so.
Question No. 1: Does racism exists in China?
Answer: Of course it does, going by the definition of “racism” in the English language:
(1) : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
(2) : racial prejudice or discrimination.
I’d argue though the case of racism in China is more of a (2) than (1) as I don’t think there are many Chinese out there who genuinely believe that (a) Africans are inferior to everyone else and/or (b) caucasians are superior to everyone else and/or (c) the Chinese are superior to everyone else. It is more of a ignorance issue that is associated with China’s lack of exposure to a racially diverse society and racial stereotyping influenced by age-old perceptions and media.
Question No.2: Should the Chinese readers, commenters etc be outraged by the depiction of Africans in this image?
Answer: In a perfect world, yes. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. After all the Chinese themselves are not the target here. Tom has a good point, ” if you posted a racist cartoon on an African website, do you think you’d get much more than indifference?” I would think no. You always see the blacks getting upset when the blacks are the target; the Jews getting upset when the Jews are attacked; the Muslims getting upset when the Muslims are ridiculed; the Chinese getting upset when the Chinese are mocked. At this point I think it is a bit too much to ask EVERYONE ELSE to get upset when YOU are the target. Again in the ideal world that should be happening, but again we don’t live in the ideal world. Also, who is to say those Chinese who did not comment at all were not offended?
By the way MAC, you are one angry fenwai.
Hemulen,
“Can you give us a single example of a Han Chinese who has been imprisoned for Han Chauvinism recently?”
Actually my impression seems to be that more Han “nationalist” websites have been shut down by the Chinese governments than those non-Han ethnic minority “nationalist” websites. Also it was reported that the massive Han-Hui brawl a couple of years ago in Henan saw more Han Chinese jailed than Hui Chinese (cannot be confirmed though). I wouldn’t be suprised if that was true.
Dale,
There is no doubt China has its own fair share of lunatics and retards (aka “supremacists”). I don’t know how “violent” they are though. So far the Han lunatics have not been that violent, compared to their western counterparts:
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/
Hemulen,
“But I can’t see how any Chinese would accept being stared at, refused service or yelled at in any of these countries on account of these countries being “homogeneous”. ”
This is terrible. Foreigners were actually refused service and yelled at in China?? Sources?
China obviously has prejudice – against the Japanese, the Koreans, the Tibetans, the Taiwanese, etc. They make fun of the Shanghainese, the Sichuanese, and even themselves.
Perhaps the difference is that such “racism” is it’s not based on color like in America. So while some on this forum are arguing that there is no “racism” as most Americans would think of it – white vs non-white, others are arguing that there is definitely “racism” as it really is. The African American experience in the US is unique, and it caused a racism that’s based on color – anyone not white is inferior. On the other hand, most Chinese discrimination is against specific groups.
One of the reasons why it’s not often spoken of in China (other than censorship) is that it doesn’t affect Chinese society as a whole. Whites in America pretty much live along-side none-whites and thus must deal with the issue of discrimination. On the other hand, most groups that the Chinese discriminate against are far from the discriminatee and won’t really affect everyday Chinese life.
And for whoever earlier talked about Uyghurs- Chinese pop media tends to portray Uyghurs as exotic beauties like the Fragrant Princess, not dirty. As a Han child growing up in China, I wanted to be either Uyghur or Tibetan.
@Pfeffer
@Pfeffer
Sources? What do you call this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKgo8m1OV1M
Inst,
“I agree with other posters that most Chinese racism is just naivete, but what about the 1987 anti-African riots, or the current anti-Japanese sentiment?”
The 1987 incident was absolutely a case of racism, no question about it. However the “current anti-Japanese sentiment” is not. For starters the Japanese are not from a different race. Hostility triggered by international politics and geopolitical competitions is not the same as racism. Unless you consider the anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea and the US a product of racism too?
Hemulen,
I call it ugly display of nationalistic fervor. Again (see my last comment), anti-Japanese sentiment is not racism.
You got anything on foreigners being refused service and yelled at? Just because he or she is a foreigner?
@Pfeffer #72
Hmm. If we are to believe the blog “High Peaks Pure Earth” large parts of the Tibetan blogosphere has been shut down recently. We’re not talking about individual sites here. Similar things happen to Uigur sites.
http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2009/03/disappearing-tibetan-cyberspace.html
I don’t doubt that Han Chinese have been imprisoned for being involved in a brawl with Huis, but I have yet to hear about a case of a Han Chinese being given a ten year prison sentence for having written a short story that can be interpreted as Han chauvinist. But if you are an Uighur even metaphors can be dangerous…
http://www.ir2008.org/12/about.php
@Pfeffer #79
Yeah, I have been refused accommodation on the basis on me looking foreign.
@Pfeffer #72
Hmm. If we are to believe the blog “High Peaks Pure Earth” large parts of the Tibetan blogosphere has been shut down recently. We’re not talking about individual sites here. Similar things happen to Uighur sites.
I don’t doubt that Han Chinese have been imprisoned for being involved in a brawl with Huis, but I have yet to hear about a case of a Han Chinese being given a ten year prison sentence for having written a short story that can be interpreted as Han chauvinist. But if you are an Uighur, like the writer Nurmuhemmet Yasin, even metaphors can be dangerous. He is now serving ten years for having written a novella about a freedom-loving bird.
@Pfeffer #78
You are playing with words. The moment you lash out against a Japanese because of his or her origin, you’re in effect a racist.
@Pfeffer #79
Yeah, I have been refused accommodation on the basis on me looking foreign.
Hemulen,
We all know how paranoid the CCP is and how likely you are about to be river-crabbed when you are treading something along the line of what is perceived “counter-revolutionary”, “separatistism” and “splittism”. I don’t think race or ethnicity is the driving factor here. The CCP has jailed many Han Chinese dissenters too, is it not true? Yes, I will give it to you that if you are an ethnic minority your dissent or discontent has a much greater chance of being considered embracing “separatism” than say if you were a Han Chinese person.
I am not play words here, anti-Japanese sentiment is not racism unless you refine “racism” as “ethnicism” or something like that. To me the Japanese are Mongoloids just like the majority of the Chinese are.
You were refused service because you looked foreign? Unbelievable. What happened?
To measure racism in a country, you shouldn’t judge by whether people use racial slurs or how politically correct people are, rather, you should look at the income and life expectancy disparity between racial groups. There is a clear disparity between black and white in those measurements in America while there is no such thing in China between ethnic groups. So I have to say, generally speaking, compare to America, there is no racism in China. :-)
I agree with asdfdsf. Just look in any large mainland corporation. 1 of 5 CEOs are Xinjiangren. There are many success stories of small business owners of ethnic groups. For example, this morning I just saw a Tibetan women selling bracelets on a blanket on the sidewalk. Last night, I saw another Xinjiang man with his very own yangrou bbq stand. From what I understand it was franchised to him by KFY.
I suggest Westerners (especially white Westerners) stop preaching political correctness to the Chinese, it ain’t worth shit. Do something about the disparity I talked about.
Political correctness is the sign of guilt. We Chinese don’t feel and are not guilty.
Zhou,
You should compare people in the same area, in China ethnic populations are not mixed like black and white in America. I am sure you know that?
Zhou,
Blacks and Hispanics account for 20%+ of the US population. What’s the percentage for Uighurs and Tibetans in China? 1.23%.
Yes, Pfeffer, I am an angry fenwai. Why? Well, funny you mention Stormfront, because you can routinely see things at least as vile as you typically see on this DEDICATED WHITE SUPREMACIST WEBSITE on China’s most popular, mainstream bulletin boards (really, check any Tianya post involving black people, especially when it involves dating Chinese women, and see what you find) and yet some Chinese have the unbelievable gall to insist that there’s no racism in China because slavery and segregation apparently set the bar for what constitutes racism for all time, and the only real racism is documented, institutionalized racism. Yeah, that frustrates me a little.
I’m really curious about the origin of this image, so I did a little search on Internet.
Using keyword “evolution” and “evolution country” in their native languages (viv la google translate!) in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean search engine’s image search. In google china and baidu’s image search, I can’t find. In both Japanese and Korean, they showed in first and second pages. The earliest dates back to 2006. I guess this African line is added, along with Japan’s and Koreans, in a Korean computer games forum.
http://linn.jugem.cc/?eid=1107
http://magicbook.e-maga.jp/topic/1720
http://cafe.naver.com/kinraidcafe.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=1656
http://blog.livedoor.jp/decobocobo/archives/51214114.html
http://33497230.at.webry.info/200806/article_32.html
For those lazy to find korean and japanese search engine, here they are:
http://image.search.naver.com/search.naver?sm=tab_hty&where=image&query=%C1%F8%C8%AD+%B1%B9%B0%A1&x=31&y=17
http://image-search.yahoo.co.jp/search?p=%E9%80%B2%E5%8C%96&ei=
http://images.google.co.jp/images?gbv=2&hl=ja&q=%E9%80%B2%E5%8C%96&btnG=%E7%94%BB%E5%83%8F%E6%A4%9C%E7%B4%A2
u misunderstood this image.
it’s only self-mockery of we chinese.
well, u do not know “hexie”
we chinese never hate african and other reces
Uighurs and Tibetans are overrepresented in the NPC and central committee in China. What about Blacks and Hispanics in the US congress?
And I’d like to pose a challenge to Mr. Custer and all of non-Chinese commenters in this blog: Did you say any bad words towards Arabs?
I bet $100 that at least half of you did!
the focul point of this image is the crab with golden watches.
this may means we are richer and, more “hexie”
you know chinese, is not it?
so ,you know what “hexie” means.
“And I’d like to pose a challenge to Mr. Custer and all of non-Chinese commenters in this blog: Did you say any bad words towards Arabs?
I bet $100 that at least half of you did!”
No, I have never used the word “raghead” or anything of the sort, not on 9/11, not ever. But nice try!
@asdfdsf
A black man is president of the US. Don’t know if you read the news, but I’d say that’s pretty strong representation. And for those that might say that he’s not really black because he’s half white, I believe he’s said in interviews that he strongly contests the idea that he is multi-racial and considers himself black.
@Wu
No, I didn’t. I’m a Jew and I still didn’t.
@wonsore
Yes, we (or I do anyway, and it seems the writers of the site do as well) speak Chinese. And whether the focus of the image in the eyes of the Chinese is the crab, that doesn’t account for the fact that by including a row that implies that Africans are sub-human and ape like, it is propagating racism.
But okay. Fine, we’ll stop calling it racism. Let’s call it racial discrimination instead. And there absolutely, 100% is racial discrimination in China and it’s openly accepted. I know because I’ve felt this as well.
As far as discrimination of Chinese against other Chinese, I agree that’s a problem as well. As an example, my girlfriend (who is Chinese) once told me how she didn’t like Shanghai people because in Shanghai, they call people from other cities “waidiren (外地人).” I told her that she shouldn’t generalize about everyone there and that when I was in Shanghai, I was met with nothing but courtesy, and maybe a little bit of giggling because of my northern accent. She said that it’s just because I’m a foreigner, but that she would surely be met with rudeness and distaste at being from somewhere outside of Shanghai. Finally, she agreed that maybe it wasn’t true that Shanghai people are all bad when I told her how I’ve always heard from people in Hebei that everyone in Henan (where she’s from) are liars and cheats and thieves, and everyone in Sichuan uses tweezers to pickpocket people, and everyone in the south are drunks and liars and cheats who beat their wives; and how when I was in the south last summer, how everyone told me that everyone in the north was a bunch of liars and drunks and wifebeaters and womanizers.
@Zhou
I agree with asdfdsf. Just look in any large mainland corporation. 1 of 5 CEOs are Xinjiangren.
Interesting. Could you give us an example of an Uighur or Tibetan CEO of a major Chinese corporation.
@asdfdsf
You should compare people in the same area, in China ethnic populations are not mixed like black and white in America.
So why are Han Chinese dominating the CCP in Tibet, although they are the minority? Why has not a single Tibetan ever been appointed party secretary in TAR?
You know as well as anyone else that no Tibetans and Uighur has ever been promoted further than to the Central Committee of the CCP. And in the current politburo of the CCP there is only one woman and one minority (Hui). Some diversity.
The timing of this is quite ironic, for in Taiwan, an employee of the Government Information Office (GIO) in Canada, Kuo Kuan-ying, was recently outed for being a raving mainlander bigot. His alter ago, Fan Lan-ching, had posted in blogs and in mainstream newspapers all sorts of slanderous, racist, patronizing crap about Taiwanese. He was fired yesterday for his remarks. Such attitudes are widespread among mainlanders in Taiwan, and an outgrowth of Han Chauvinism, the Chinese version of White Power. Very scary.
As for the remarks on slavery and China, there’s an academic discourse on it, though not a well developed one. It was finally banned by the foreign Manchus in 1906 (?), years after almost everyone else in the world (except the Arabs, who were still schlepping slaves out of East Africa in the 1930s). Of course, slavery has not been eradicated — as any woman kidnapped for sexual purposes can say.
Michael Turton
in chinese pronunciation, “crabs”=”harmonious”
@ Michael Turton,
well, as far as I know, at least 98% of the population in Taiwan is of the Han ethinicity.
@Hemulan: Tons of Uighur CEOs are heading yangrou chuan corporations. hehe :D I don’t know of one to be honest.
In conclusion, from what I can read through these postings, it seems that people are trying to state that racial discrimination exists everywhere. It’s normal, but unfortunate. On the opposing side, we have a group of individuals who also agree that racial discrimination exists everywhere in the world, except it doesn’t exist in China.
according to update 2, are you expecting him to apologize? since you can understand Chinese, read the comments of these posts, you don’t know what the picture means, and i will not apologize too if i were him.
I admit that there is indeed racial/regional discrimation existing in China, but my question is: so what? what’s so fuzzy about it?
the fact that we do make “racist” (in terms of the American standard) jokes publicly exactly demostrates that our racial barriers are not as impassable as those for the U.S.
the real racial equality is not avoiding offending each other carefully, but making fun of each other while still being good friends.
see? that’s why if an African friend of mine call me the “sick man of Asia” is totally fine, but absolutely intolerable if it was come out from a Jap.
@Linda
This isn’t about America vs. China or the West vs. China. If it turned out someone in the US created the original image then I find it just as offensive as if someone in China or anywhere else did. If the New York Post created this then I find the New York Post offensive (that’s a tabloid magazine by the way, not a serious one). Don’t go looking for a east vs. west fight where there is none.
You seem to think that Westerners don’t criticize each other for being racist. We do. All the time. Much more often than we talk about anyone else being racist. Nor do I think China is any more racist than many other places and is much less so than others.
If you can tell me another (reasonable) interpretation of the African part of the image I want to hear it.
[...] Geeks have created quite a stir, not to say a gush of feelings, with this post, “Racism in China”, proving once again that there are things you just can’t [...]
This is discrimination, not racism. Discrimination happens everywhere in China, rich to the poor, beijingers to outsiders, southerners to northerners, locals to non-locals, bosses to employees, just to name a few.
So I wouldn’t, and I recommend you don’t, take it seriously. This is like westerners abusing their politicians for fun which some Chinese find insulting. CULTURE CULTURE CULTURE.
[...] Custer posted an article named ?Racism in China?. It seems that I have made a big trouble in my article ?Evolution?. Mr.Custer said: So is it [...]
While the liberal outrage of this white (largely American) pool of people is interesting, as a BLACK person who has lived both in the US and China respectively for long periods of time, I must say that I don’t feel offended at all by the cartoons. On a regular basis in the US I have felt discriminated against. In five years of living in China, I never experienced a moment where I felt discriminated against. Although I largely avoided most foreigners while living in China, I did have some black friends. Never did any of them mention feeling discriminated against in their equally long stays in China. In the experience of both me and my friends, there has been some curiosity and even a funny question or two (which white people may interpret as racism). None of that has ever offended us. On the contrary all of us have found Chinese to be very open and I have more than a few very close Chinese friends.
Those who are not familiar with China or Asia often interpret certain things as racism that positively aren’t. For example Japanese, while very polite, are not very accepting of outsiders. What doesn’t seem fully understood is that Japanese will even reject other ethnic Japanese if they weren’t born/raised in Japan or (apparently) have been abroad for too long. This is more akin to xenophobia than racism. Korea is also another example of a fairly xenophobic society. Now, I have heard Chinese say some things that may be interpreted as insensitive (some racially insensitive). My feeling is that these are simply the result of ignorance and has nothing to do with some perceived racial superiority.
一个白人，不远万里，到中国来找种族主义者，这是一种什么样的精神啊？
i just want to say, you don’t know chinese culture very well.
@ Baozi, that’s interesting. Where in China do you live, because the black people I know here would virtually all suggest they’ve been the victims of racial discrimination at one time or another, mostly when looking for English teaching jobs and being told the parents don’t want black teachers. And I can’t tell you how many times I have heard Chinese people say, with little or no prompting, “I don’t like black people.” Even some of my best Chinese friends are guilty of this.
@ all the various fenqing: I do know what the picture means, as does everyone else posting here: 和谐＝河蟹，三个代表=带三个表, ha ha ha. I even linked to an explanation of that, but I assume none of you actually read my post, you just read Hecaitou’s response, right? All of you assume that I’m just trying to “attack” China, but that really isn’t it at all. I don’t mind your disagreement with me, but I wish you would read my actual post, or you end up making comments that don’t make much sense.
Also, as a sidenote to everyone: If your comment has links it may be held up in moderation or even caught as spam. I’m not deleting anyone’s comments but our system does that automatically.
@Custer: “That Chinese people, as a whole, aren’t racist is as much of a joke as a River Crab wearing three watches.” is the exact sentense from this blog. And in #49 your comment “I agree that this debate has turned ugly, but I fear you’ve misunderstood (or perhaps I’ve been unclear) if you think I’m accusing all Chinese people of being racist. I have no intention of making such an accusation…”. How do I expect to understand? Is it straw-man argument as you said?
@MAC and Josh: you two deserve my respect! In US given my experience in my company’s hallway talk and CNN radio, I can easily raise the percentage of anti-Arab people to 3/4 or even higher.
and a sidenote to Mr. Custer’s sidenote in #49: A couple years ago a Chinese American generalized the typical westerners who visited China: they stayed in China for a period of time, learned Chinese, listened to Chinese, but only talked to westerners, thinking all Chinese are brain-washed. Therefore what Chinese told them became totally different meaning. The conclusion coming out is therefore similar: one problem in one area at one time becomes whole China’s problem. I must say this three years I see far better media coverage on China though.
This debate may very well be a cultural difference. To Chinese the word “racism” usually means Nazi, KKK. If you change the word “racism” to racial insensitivity or even racial discrimination, I think a lot more Chinese will agree with you.
Sure,there is racism everywhere.
you stupid, u even don’t know what ’s going on with such blogs and background.
@ Wu: you’re right, that is perhaps a bit unclear. What I mean is, to say that there is NO racism in China is ridiculous. There are racist people everywhere. That said, the intention of this post wasn’t to call Chinese people as a group racist. Some are, some aren’t. The point of the post was really just exploring how sensitive some Chinese netizens are to it and speculating as to whether that could be an issue as the number of Africans living in China rises.
And I agree many foreigners come to China and then only hang out with foreigners, but that isn’t me. I live with a Chinese friend, most of my coworkers are Chinese, etc. etc.
You make an interesting point on the semantics, though. Racial insensitivity is probably a better way to phrase it, but I can’t really change it here, now. I’m planning on writing another piece once this whole mess has cooled down, though, so that will certainly be a part of it.
[...] from Chinayouren joins in the discussion among China Geeks, wangxiaofeng and heicaitou over a picture on evolution and its racist implication. Cancel [...]
@Custer: Glad you clarify your meanings. Just read around comments on related blogs, and further enhanced my impression that the word “racism” has different understanding among westerners and Chinese. In English “racism” equals to racial discrimination, a very broad meaning, while in Chinese “racism” almost equals to genocide.
In general raising China’s racial sensitivity is a valuable thing, as China is more and more open to the world. I look forward to your next blog on this issue.
bullshit!
说的好
it was yesterday when i show wangxiaofeng’s blog to an American student who is learning Chinese… i was trying to show him some good stuff among cyber spaces in China… and suddenly we both saw this picture… he happened to be BLACK!!! I immediately closed the browser and changed the conversation to his textbooks… he said nothing and we both pretended we just didn’t see it (but i bet he did) !!! this is really chinese way of treating topics related to racism.. just keep silence
I have to reminder the author here that picture’s biggest meaning point is the part of China.Yes ,maybe Africa in Chinese people’s eyes is so poor,but we Chinese really don’t look down upon them,not to mention racism!
haha，i hate two kinds of men.
1、racist
2、black man
3、men who can not count number.
———
A famous people named WU ZHONGXIAN from taiwan said.
you can google it。
but there·s no racism at all.
I’m surprised no one has delved into the different norms that racism implies in various cultures. The American side seems to hold a very broad definition to racism, equating many of it’s construct to various forms of discrimination, xenophobia, ignorance, not retaining the standard of being politically correct and ethnic violence. While the Chinese side seems to have a extremely narrow definition of racism as something akin to the KKK or Nazis. Basically centered around ethnic violence.
看了您的英文信(三表www.wangxiaofeng.net那里登了), 想必您是懂中文的，讨论是很好的，但我，以及广大不明真相的猩猩们更偏向于认为中国人的种族歧视倾向并不严重，您大可不必以为三表兄是“一点儿都不尊重我”，他就是那个鸟德性，而我们也很喜欢这个鸟人，呢，留下这个也是给慕名而来的猩猩做参照，免得更多不明真相的黑猩猩们使着劲骂bullshit了.最后恭喜您，这两天来自中国的流量会急剧上涨。
(我鸟语不好，哪个英文好的猩猩帮忙翻译给老外们看看，这段就不必了)
@Wu
Just as fengbian just said, it seems that the debate can be settled upon then in a difference in definitions. However, if truth be told, in light of the fact that I as well as someone else pasted the definition of racism from dictionary.com early on, it probably shouldn’t have been carried this far.
As far as anti-Arab sentiment on American radio, I’d really like to know where it is that people are publicly making anti-Arab comments on public radio. Just as Chris Hearne said earlier: it’s not as if white Americans never criticize other white Americans for being racist/intolerant. We do it very often and very loudly.
This morning, since so many of the Americans replying here are white, I decided to ask one of my friends from Ghana to look at the picture and tell me what he thinks. I told him it was on a Chinese blog but no one knows who made it. He told me he didn’t really care — that he was no longer surprised to see anything like this. I asked him, “Do you think it’s racist?” And he said, “Of course it’s racist! Look at the picture! All of the other places featured have evolved into something greater and larger then apes, but in Africa, we’ve only grown from chimpanzees to gorillas? What the fuck do they know about Africa? Have they ever been to Africa? No!” Maybe a bit of paraphrasing, but I think you get the gist. And I have to empathize with Custer on my experiences that many Chinese I know have stated to me with no prompting at all, and no shame whatsoever, that they don’t like blacks. When I ask why, answers range from “There’s no blacks in China.” to “They’re not good people.”
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/ratm1966/g-a-f_meter.gif
Dear Custer, do you know how many kind of races in China Mainlan? May be you cannot distinguish, maybe you never heard about it.
Actually, we have no time to be a racism people, we only have time to marry with them! Haha….
I only want you know, in china, we will look down on people who lazy, stupid, and hubris, decided the guy’s diathesis but no race, Chinese culture has jump over the procedure before the racism breeding.
It’s seems that you’re familiar with chinese, and you understand chinese word. but i think you still stay in the surface. If you could empty more western chronic thinking way, I think chinese people will more nice to the world after they needn’t to wash the aboundant color paint by people all over the world, such like you.
You know, if you live or educated in different place, you will own some opinion related to the position and culture. So sometime you maybe do a mistake, to use blinkers watching people who absolutly different from you. But actually, this ‘racism’ is exsited in your heart and your brain, but not at ‘不许联想’ and ‘槽边往事’.
I really hope you can understand chinese culture more deeply through this time, good luck! Mr. Custer
Correct one sentence:decided the guy’s diathesis but no race
should be: decided by the guy’s diathesis but no race’
as hecaitou said in his blog, americans are the inventor and practiser of racism, but now they are yelling all over the world and saying you cant do this you cant do that or you will be racist. he is not with a very friendly tone, but i agree with his point.
westerners are unneededly too over sensetive about this, that picture doesnt intend to be of any racialism, it’s just for fun(chinese making fun of our own country). korean line end with alien, japan line end with gundam robot, is that also racialism too? i bet you will all say no.
if there really no racilism there should be no taboo or sth like that, because if you are not racilist you wont even think about it. i am not saying how good china is, it’s just when it comes to racilism, for china and for most other parts of the whole world ppl dont even have the concept of the word racilism, let alone to say being racilist.
[...] 今天貌似这件事儿却被另一个洋人Custer看到了，在他自己的Blog里他写了他对这件事儿的看法。然后和菜头和王晓峰都分别跳出来做回应，和菜头最近几篇都在说这事儿，貌似很愤青的样子；王晓峰倒是继续戏谑着说了一些讽刺的话。 [...]
“if there really no racilism there should be no taboo or sth like that, because if you are not racilist you wont even think about it.”
“What a stupid chink-ass way to think. I guess that’s what happens when your brain is nourished by nothing but noodles and dog.” Look, I’ve broken free of all taboos, I’m the ultimate non-racist! Right?
There’re some chinese guy laugh at themselves by add the last line in this illustrate.
This is illustrate that some people express their un-satisfacion to present chinese domestic condition.
ok, give you more clue, pls. to know about the two word ‘三个代表’ and’戴三个表’.
no matter ‘Europe’ or ‘Afica’ or ‘China’, this illustrate is expressed the same ending, embarrassed conditon. So It’s a sardonic work.
whatever… china is going to take over the world in few years anyway
From what I observe from my mainland Chinese relatives, I believe the average mainland Chinese people do not recognise western racist references mainly because they don’t know enough about the related cultural contexts. But I am pretty sure that we have our own discriminatory ways. Here in Hong Kong there is indeed discrimination against African people, and even more so against south Asians.
ab says: “americans are the inventor and practiser of racism”…
While it is the dominant way the US media talks about race is larely framed by the history of race relations in the USA, it is quite difficult to make a statement like that. Every society has a different history of races, a different way of constructing racial identity and a different aesthetic to judge people by their outside apperance, all of which can lead to racist (as in discriminatory) feelings and actions in the populations. USA wasn’t the only country to have slaves, to claim that slaves were historically ONLY african is also wrong, so say that USA is the only racist country limits the definition of racism too narrowly.
Even considering that, it is within the USA-brand of racism to call blacks “monkeys”, whereas in other countries the racist slurs might be dog or pig or cow or leech or whatever, (what if the joke was for the European line, but the Chinese line ended with a dog or a man smoking opium with his 3 concubines, wouldn’t that then be racist against Chinese?) but in the American historical context “monkey” has a very hurtful history, so I hope people can understand that cultural sensitivity aspect. But if your best defence is “china never had slaves” or “china isn’t racist”, or that calling Japanese robots is just as true and non-racist as calling Africans monkeys, that will just make pepole think you’re even lower on the chain than a monkey.
@MAC
haha, that’s funny. your comment is even more funny that the humor of that pic.
you are all driven crazy by a picture that has not a single intention to be of racism, that truely means something.
@ ab: Some people would argue that intention is irrelevant. In English we have a saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The fact is that, by American standards, the picture is racist, period. By Chinese standards, it may not be, but that’s not what’s being discussed here. I will get into the Chinese standards thing in a later post.
@ everyone else: I don’t have time to respond to everyone’s points right now, but if you’re really curious about my thoughts (which I think no one is anyway), you’re all more than welcome to email me.
@Chris Hearne
Obviously, you are not so smart as you claimed to be.
My point was not about the America vs China.
I told you to MIND YOUR BUSINESS, get it?!
You are way “out of my league”! ha ha…
英语很烂，没法表达。只留中文吧。
我不能代表国人向CUSTER表示道歉，因为我无法代表国人，尤其自以为幽默的那拨子。
幸亏是私人的BLOG，如果是公开在中国杂志上刊登的，如果流传出去，真不知道会酿成如何的后果。你如何对那些第三世界的兄弟解释你所谓的玩笑？
我们中国人对西方的侮辱敏感，但是对自己侮辱别人却不敏感；
我们不能承受别人所谓的“幽默”，而对自己的“幽默”又那么容易宽宥。
看看评论上的那些国人，我只有表示惭愧。
中国还不是一个真正国际性很强的国家，所以对种族主义的理解也容易停留在表面上。
我想这是原因所在。
不想说中国人有种族主义的倾向，因为种族主义对中国人还是比较陌生的东西。
我们对此的道德判断力非常之薄弱。
在实在不知道“种族主义”的含义的情况下，即便真的是歧视了，自己也不知。
我唯一能对自己解释的就是：
学习如何正确对待“种族主义”问题上，即便是经常被歧视着的中国人也不是免疫的，同样需要发展和历史来实践。
我相信，漫画反映出的事实是，中国人更多的是认识上的误区，而非真正种族上的判断。
希望您能理解这一点。
也是我对这里的中国人的意见。
I didn’t know that this cartoon could cause such a big discussion, I’ve been following up this news for a while, some people actually found out that this cartoon was probably made by some young people in a Korean or Japanese online game site(at least that’s what google can tell us), i guess at first it was just some “cold jokes” about different life style or culture and stuff in different countries/areas,i guess the person who made it was NOT thinking about anything racism but some irony of life…
Personally, when i saw this cartoon, i didn’t find anything racist about it (maybe I am just dumb…),i actually thought the empty space in the “Africa” part represents something that is missing in Africa,like “peace” or “food” or “technology” or something…
but last night when i asked my boyfriend’s opinion( he is Swedish),he also thinks this cartoon is kind of offensive and racist, i guess different people have different interpretation of this cartoon…
anyway,speaking of racism in China, i guess it exists…but maybe it is more an issue in big cities since in the small towns and countryside ordinary Chinese people can seldom even SEE any foreigners…not to mention to have any “racist opinions” about them…
maybe that’s why some Chinese think it is funny to bring up that topic, a majority of Chinese might have never thought about it…
we have some discrimination among Chinese people from different provinces though…and i think that is much more evident…wonder if it could be called as “racism”…
at Custer ….
‘@ Baozi, that’s interesting. Where in China do you live, because the black people I know here would virtually all suggest they’ve been the victims of racial discrimination at one time or another, mostly when looking for English teaching jobs and being told the parents don’t want black teachers.’
I suppose that racism is, on occasion, the reason for the hiring of white teachers over blacks. However, the overwhelming majority of cases are decided in favor of whites due to their market value. In today’s English market in China, white teachers attract a bigger base of cash customers. Of course, to those seeking a quality education, qualifications are more important than skin color.
@ Riace, right, but why are white teachers more valuable than black? Let’s say an African-American and I apply for the same English teaching job, he speaks the exact same language I do, so what is it that makes ME more likely to be hired? I’m white, and the parents want white teachers, not black. Sure you can say the school is just hiring to fit the demand from the market, but if the market’s demands are thusly racist, what’s the difference, really?
Wow! Seems I missed lots of fun! What a shame! From night to day, when the representatives from all corners of the world were carrying such a heated discuss on the serious topic “racism” while I’d have to earn the bread! Thanks God even though there’s financial crisis, even though Obama’s throwing out more rubbish cash, there’s still enough to eat — Mr. Custer no needs to worry too much that this could be a sound reason for potential racial discrimination against Africans in China. — Reading between lines is not an ability limited to certain skin color by the way.
Well, since the Tower of Babel is getting higher and higher, I couldn’t resist the temptation of leaving my footprints here—just to have a word with so many Gods.
@Chris Hearne #34
“The African monkey is a joke about how Africans are stupid and animal-like….”—so that how YOU interpret it, urh? Please use your mind before trying to define something. Both Africans and animal protectionists might accuse you for discrimination.
@Josh #33
Mr. President may not like you address him as “a black man”, Josh. As to the reasons, you should have known that better than me, though personally I think his skin color contributed accordingly to his presidency. Also he is not African, he is American.—But why his skin color still catches so many people’s eyeballs in his own country? With such an idol on stage, does the situation get better in reality for common African Americans and Africans in the country? You could still check this out with your African students. Oh yeah, forgot to mention I did read the news, and I also know another significant figure called Michael Jackson who successfully bleached himself. But have you noticed the recent news that the sweet president just took some measures to save his ass—by sacrificing the whole world, including Africa.
I believe what you said is true, that your African students feel racially discriminated in Tangshan. I never deny there’s no racial discrimination in China, neither in US or any other so called well developed or more civilized countries. But have you ever asked them have they racially discriminated the locals there? Because I have noticed over the past two and a half years how an African British treats the local Chinese even though they have been friendly to him in general. Things don’t improve even after he married a local Chinese girl he dated for years. — how do you like this?
Last but not least, I would suggest you use your common sense before using a metaphor. When you are enjoying a battle of words, hope you know when to hold your tongue.
I didn’t read through all the comments because they are just really boring to read. As for an interesting comment from myself, there are researches showing babies almost always preferred a lighter skin toned doll over a dark skin toned doll. How do you explain this result? A baby doesn’t have any racial prejudices at all. Also, there are racism even within the blacks. Lighter skinned blacks discriminate against darker skinned blacks. How do you explain this logic?
The bottom line is people are generally stupid, ignorant and selfish. You can’t change how others perceive you, so why spend so much time thinking about it. who the fuck cares… only you.
have to say im greatly disturbed by hecaitou’s recent entries.
@ Lin
So what do u want by saying it here: sympathy?
在中国没有种族歧视，是因为中国暂时没有这样的环境和相关产生的问题，但中国存在的民族内部歧视还不严重吗？
C. Custer，几十岁了，为了学习中国历史文化，受他内心的招唤，不远千里，来到中国。昨天浏览了你的博客，好意的提醒这幅图片中出现的种族歧视问题。一个外国人，毫无利己的动机，把对中国人民的交流当作他的事业。这是什么精神？这是国际共产主义的精神，这是共产主义的精神，每一个网络愤青都要学习这种精神。
@沙鸥
That is how I interpreted it because of my cultural standpoint. There are actually people in my culture that, unfortunately, might say or think something like that, so I view the picture in that context. I’m totally open to the idea that there might be another interpretation but I personally cannot think of one on my own (admittedly because of my cultural background), and so far I haven’t seen anyone else give one (I asked one and didn’t get a response). It’s possible that someone listed in the comments I didn’t see it so please point me in that direction.
@Linda
Couple things:
1) I never claimed to be smart. There are a lot of comments in this thread but I think you can keep track of who says what before you reply.
2) “I told you to MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, get it?!”
Actually I don’t get it. I’m replying to a post on a blog that I regularly read and write on, which I think still counts as minding my own business.
3) You’re trying to imply that it somehow matters or “would be funny” if the original author was from my own people (not that you actually know who my people are, by the way). That’s not the point. I would find the picture equally offensive no matter who created it — if you are Chinese, try not to be so sensitive, I’m not singling out your country.
People! People! (or humanbeings…maybe) Being CORRECT is the most stupid and boring thing in the world (If you don’t agree, it means you’re lack of philosophy knowledge and you ARE stupid). And I think, anybody who’s interested in this topic, no matter on which side he/she is, is just hypocritical. Yes, you never hurt anyone by words. Go and be a politician, I’m begging you.
Wow it’s this long already?
To Jay (143rd): Can you please show me the source of the article about babies choosing lighter skin colors? I’m quite interested (no I’m not a pedophile).
One of the most interesting articles I’ve ever read is how babies instinctively reject pictures with snakes on them. I guess when human beings were monkeys (religious nuts please stay away from me) one of their most evil enemies was the snake.
If babies do choose lighter skin, I don’t think one can explain that with the simple logic that human beings are just stupid. If it has something to do with human nature and your genetic codes, you cannot dismiss it as racism that easily.
@ Dennis
haha! Agree! Everyone can be Obama!
@ Chris Hearne
Persuaded by Dennis, I am gonna read “Laozi” instead. I recommend it to you too. Or you may prefer “The Art of War”.
@沙鸥
Thanks for the suggestion. I have the updated 2009 edition where he applies his tactics to the blogosphere.
Thank you for your support 沙鸥!
Incorrect is the source of fun and happiness (I don’t agree but its TRUE, remember we’re just goddamned humanbeings, face the reality). We live for fun and happiness, not for CORRECT.
Let’s beat each other, see some blood, sit back, relax and have a cup of tea / coffee.
@Chris Hearne
u are welcome. Are u sure u got the gist this time? I hope the interpretation doesn’t cause any misunderstanding this time.
@李
I think you nailed it. Too bad that no one has responded your thoughts.
Seconded. I appreciate 李’s thoughtful explanation of the Chinese side.
和菜头那个帖子真的没什么，看你们吵吵的一股劲…
Custer失控了，菜头也失控了，两个之间的讨论由于语境的差异越辩越乱
同志们洗洗睡吧，别吵了，真的没啥意思
Yeah, 李’s post is good, it will probably find its way, at least in part, into another post I’m working on.
@沙鸥
The next time you want to respond to me, you should make sure you read the rest of what’s been said. I said in another comment that Obama has said before in an interview that he strongly contests the idea that he is multi-racial. But you’re right — I’ll email him and ask him if he would be offended by my referring to him as black. I think the answer to the rest of your questions are pretty obvious and I’m not really sure why you’re asking them. No, he’s not African, but you said blacks in China get better treatment than those in America, which is why I brought up Obama. People are all watching him because he’s the first black president — quite an achievement considering that 45 years ago, blacks didn’t have the right to vote. I don’t know if the situation for Africans or African Americans has gotten better in America. I haven’t been back to America since he came in office. Though considering he’s been in office for 2 months, I think you should give him a chance to show whether things will or won’t get better. But I don’t know why you think I should ask the African students at my university (who are not my students). They’ve never been to America, though they always tell me that they plan to write the USMLE and go to America. Maybe I’ve been reading too many blogs as of late, but yes, I did miss the article where Obama sacrificed the world, even Africa, to save Michael Jackson. As for the last of your questions, this is the definition of a strawman argument — you trying to deflect the argument to the possibility of my friends’ racism rather than answering the issue I posed to you initially. But no, I don’t like what you mentioned about the African guy who is dating a Chinese girl racially discriminating against the Chinese. I don’t like it when it happens to anyone because it’s happened to me and it doesn’t feel good.
Dear C. Custer, as a Chinese, I just want to say think you :)
@Riace
Forgot to mention this in my previous post, but if you type ctrl+F, then search my name, I believe it’s on the second or third post I made, I’ve provided a link to an article about racially discriminatory hiring practices in China. The author also provides a few related links to what he says.
还是不够了解中国呀。中国哪有什么racism呀。这里只有崇拜强者，歧视弱者，崇拜成功者，歧视失败者。尊崇和歧视给你的肤色和种族没有关系，如果你是个乔丹，那能把你捧到天上，如果是个白垃圾，那照样要鄙视你。所以，这就是个玩笑，里面还有china呢，也不光只有africa。而且呢，中国的“歧视”顶多也就是“看不起”，跟你们西方老祖先的“种族歧视”比起来那不是一个数量级，
I think a key point here is the interpretation of the word “racism”. The term implies unfair treatments and discrimination, which is explicit in its corresponding Chinese translation “种族歧视”. Strictly speaking, from my own experiences, Chinese people DO exhibit some characteristics of racism like stereotypes, yet at the same time still maintained very friendly attitudes towards immigrants of other races, historically. I, for one, would like to argue that there are different levels of racism and some may not lead to discrimination or racial conflicts. Would there be tensions when significantly more immigrants come to China? Perhaps, but I’d like to remain optimistic.
to Josh:
not sure if anyone else has posted this here. Below is a response from an African regarding the cartoon. It’s found from Hecaitou’s blog, linked here:
http://www.hecaitou.net/?p=5086&cpage=2#comment-61938
# Daniel hakizimana Says:
三月 24th, 2009 at 12:04 上午
As an African who have been living in China for long time (7 years), I want to thank you for this discussion, please stop insulting each other. If you think Custer is wrong by saying the image you posted on the site has a racism connotation, so explain it.
I m not blaming you to have done so but I can tell you that while you think the image is funny, it is 100% offending to Africans. So don’t send it to an African expecting him to laugh.
I understand you didn t have the intention to offend Africans (and u didn t offend them).
However it’s a good idea talking about such sensitive issues like racism.
Thank and I invite you to visit :
http://www.africansinchina.com . It ’s About Africans In China and China Africa cooperation.
Thanks
Daniel ( my chinese name is 丹尼尔)
@李：
幸亏你还有点自知之明，知道代表不了国人。
@C. CUSTER：
告诉你为啥中国没有种族主义。因为几千年来，大部分中国人从生到死，就接触过汉人，脑子里除了汉人，就不知道也没接触过其他民族的，就这种环境请问怎么产生种族主义？又不是南非或者北美这种种族成分复杂的地方。
当然没有种族主义迫害和歧视，不代表没有种族偏见。偏见和歧视迫害程度上的差距你学汉语这么久应该懂吧。说来也可气，明明科学家从各方面都证明了种族间的差异，却因为个种族主义的大帽子而不被承认，只能说西方人死脑筋。
中国人2000多年前就有“帝王将相宁有种乎”的观点。你们那点种族平权的思想，每个中国人骨子里都有。但是你们这种新创了个名词，就产生了道德优越感，从而俯视、“怜悯”其他人的态度SMUG，实在让人恶心。
同样让人恶心的，是些像李一样的自命清醒派。
I’ve been browsing this whole thread and I think it is quite astounding that some netizens seem to be claiming that the cartoon is just an innocent joke that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Frankly speaking, I don’t think anyone really thinks that the makers of this cartoon simply forgot about the age-old “monkey=African” trope and its insulting implications. Sure, a lot of other jokes are made in the cartoon, but it is one thing to make fun of yourself and a different one to make fun of others. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that, yes, a lot of Chinese are aware of the fact that Africans are sensitive to these kind of jokes, but, no, they are not going to stop joking like this because they don’t really care what Africans think. (But they do care if “white Americans” accuse them of being racist.)
Now, how do the same people react when the shoe is on other foot?
In the past year or two, I don’t know how many times we have seen flame wars about “the feelings of the Chinese people” being “hurt” by this or that statement and apologies being demanded. Does anyone remember the Chinese reactions to the car ad in El País last year, where Mao was made fun of? Or the furious demonstrations against the report in Der Spiegel about “yellow spies”? Or the flame war against Jack Cafferty or the coverage of the protests in Tibet?
In those cases you never really got anywhere by saying that you didn’t mean to insult, or that you were not addressing a Chinese audience, or anything for that matter. Apologies are demanded. Protests staged. Gone is the assumption that we should pay attention to the subjective intentions of the person that actually enunciated the purported insult. Instead we asked to understand the feelings and the background of the person who feels insulted, because this time we are talking about Chinese being insulted and then different rules apply.
A blonde want to buy a TV
A blonde walks into an appliance store and says I would like to buy that T.V. please. The store clerk replies I’m sorry, we don’t do business with blondes. So she stormed off back to her house and dyed her hair black. The next day, she went back to the same store and said I would like to buy that T.V. please. The store clerk, once again, replies Sorry, we don’t do business with blondes. The blonde replied How did you know I was blonde? The clerk says Because thats a microwave.
The swimming of the English channel
A blonde, brunette and redhead all decide to participate in the swimming of the English channel.
They all decided to do the same stroke as it would be fair and they should all finish at the same time. Not wanting to lose energy quickly, they chose breast stroke.
They all started and a few hours later, the brunette arrives on land, tired.
The next one to complete it, was the redhead, a couple of hours behind the brunette.
Lastly, 6 hours after the brunette had arrived, the blonde clambers on shore, absolutely exhausted.
When the TV crew arrived, they asked her why she took so long, she replied: “Not to be a sore loser or anything but I’m pretty sure I saw the other two using their arms.”
The shortest blonde joke
A Blonde climbs over a glass wall to see whats on the other side.
Swimming Head
Three guys enter a disabled swimming contest. The first has no arms. The second no legs and the third has no body, just a head. They all line up, the whistle blows and “splash” they’re all in the pool.
The guy with no arms takes the lead instantly but the guy with no legs is closing fast. The head of course sank straight to the bottom.
Ten lengths later and the guy with no legs finishes first. He can still see bubbles coming from the bottom of the pool,so he decides he had better dive down to rescue him.
He picks up the head, swims back up to the surface and places the head at the side of the pool, where-upon the head starts coughing and spluttering.
Eventually the head catches his breath and shouts: “Three years I’ve spent learning to swim with my fucking ears, then two minutes before the whistle, some asshole puts a swimming cap on me!”
—- My last post, byebye, correct humanbeings, enjoy your caring, universal love, mania of correct and your debates. I never trust you. Au revoir.
Hemulen,
all your examples are belong to us. None of those examples, (with the qualified exception of the Mao ad) are not examples of ‘jokes’/'potentially racially ‘un hexie’ jokes’. What they are is examples of ‘feelings being hurt’/'assaults on pride’. The Mao case is interesting because Mao is sometimes a Mohammed-like figure where no one can do the wrong thing or else, and something kids just climb up on his statues and put bunny ears on him, sometimes even in the same sentence.
The issue in the Mao case was always ‘national pride’ or ‘the man (colonialism, imperialsm, post-coloniams, the west, whatever) totally maybe screwing us over in the foreign press which our own country does not allow us to watch! How dare they! If someone is going to treat us like crap you damn right it better be our own people! Only we’re allowed to insult other nations pride and mess up news stories!
Sometimes you think a post generating a lot of comments is a good thing. And then you have the chinese internet. I’m sure everyone has truly ‘evolved’ from this discussion. And no, I don’t think it was useful to at least at see all this down in print (this same conversation has gone on all over the internet times eternal whenever there is some flap), or even to see Hecaitou come out and essentially call ‘racism’ calls stupid once (twice?) in response. Unless someone is truly new to this line of thinking and of argument, thinking, culture, etc, etc, (are there still such people?)…
@Dennis:
“Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused”
I am so with you on this!
There were too many CORRECT comments here, which made me miss yours.
I bet you are French…
Love frogs! ha ha…
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention why I wrote the post in the first place. Your examples were all off. You should have been looking at the examples like the spanish basketball team example which elicited no calls for a boycott. American ideas of racism don’t even extent to Spain, why imagine they would make it to China?
@Josh #124: “racism” from dictionary.com is still western context, I already checked webster, “1 a belief … 2 racial prejudice or discrimination”. The thing is: to a lot of Chinese, discrimination itself isn’t such an evil thing, but “-ism”, the discrimination with bad intention and severe consequence, is very evil. A lot of Chinese agree China has racial discrimination. Even hecaitou, you folks considered so bad, agreed in comments in one of his own blogs. He is against “-ism”, which is discrimination with bad intentions and severe consequence in our context. With so widespread sex discrimination, age discrimination, region discrimination, industry discrimination, discrimination against disabled, sick, pregnant…, a lot of Chinese consider discrimination not necessary a bad thing — a natural thing in a society where job is extremely over-supply and under-demand. (disclaimer: I consider them hurdles to China’s future and should be corrected). Bear this in mind and I think westerners may hear less “mind your own business” phrase.
Is it so surprising that American radio has racial sentiment? This is where PC meets freedom of speech, and anti-Arab one is just the most common and least rejected one. I stopped listening to CNN radio after i had heard enough rhetorics during 2004 elections. Now I only listen to NPR and BBC, which is so much better. But even so, it happens from time to time. It happens even in my most favorite program, On point with Tom Ashbrook. (I consider it the best radio program partly because it has the least such sentiment) You mentioned you’re Jew, so I’m sorry if following makes you sad. It’s several months ago, should be around presidential election. The host is a backup of Tom Ashbrook (forgot his name), they are talking about current wall street crisis. One caller called in and said something like “To solve this crisis we should get rid of the greedy xxxx Jewish bankers who controlled American economy….” The host moved quickly to the next caller, without a word, so are the analysts, until one caller called in to protest. One analyst, I believe is Jack Beety, described 1st caller’s comment as crap, and others agreed. They didn’t describe it as racism/racist, if my memory is correct. I have to say most hosts won’t offend directly because of norm, although based on their handle, I seriously suspect a lot of them will be quite rhetoric in private. Most of time, the scenario is like this, a caller called in with hatred comments, then the host cut short with a joke or generic comment, and then business as usual, citing freedom of speech.
Back to this thread, Frankly I disagree with both American PC and common Chinese thought. Pretending black has no dark skin or pretending black won’t be angry are both hypocritical. If most wall street banks have huge bonus after huge losses, I generalize they’re greedy. If most Shanghainese I met are mean, why can’t I generalize it? As uln chinayouren said in his blog “Is China racist? or new PC colonialism”: “…there is a reasonable middle way between Anglo-PC and the Chinese laissez-faire…” (by the way, just revisited his blog and found he posed an excellent reply comment under his blog). China and Africa has no conflict before, IF BOTH CAN ACCEPT IT, why can’t you poke me yellow monkey and I poke you ape looking?
You guys are spending so much time debating on something this trivial. Get a job I’d say.
Again no matter what I, Custer, Hemulen, asdfs, Zhou, various Chinese, foreigners, fenqing, fenwai are saying here, of course racism exists in China as it does in any other part of the world. To say there is no racism in China or there are no Chinese racists is like saying the Chinese are not human.
However, isn’t it a bit too much for you foreigners (fenwai or not) to be so harsh on the Chinese for not displaying ENOUGH outrage about an image that depicts Africans as monkeys??? When was the last time YOU people displayed ENOUGH outrage when SOMEONE ELSE was the target of racism or mockery?
How much outrage is ENOUGH??
Why can’t we just say “fuck you” to the thought police and say whatever we like? Who gives a shit seriously?
Obama’s a half-nigger freak of nature!
Wen Jiaobao is a slant-eyed dog-eating Chink son-of-a-bitch!
And Clinton is a pasty shrivelled-ugly-ass Betty Crocker whore.
“Thank God almighty, we’re free at last”
@hsknotes
I accept your point that there are no exact equivalents between the incidents I took up and this cartoon. My point is that China has its own version of PC and it’s disingenuous to make this thread into a discussion about the “West” imposing PC on China.
@Pffefer
I agree with the first part of your post, completely. As for the second part, I don’t really see anyone demanding that Chinese should be appropriately outraged by a cartoon, really. What I do see, however, is a lot of commenters that strenuously deny that racism exists in China.
Which country have enslaved the Africans? Not China. It’s the U.S. And who is most sensitive when seeing the pictures? You Americans. Chinese see it as purely a joke. But you just can’t help but carry your political correctness around your shoulder…
I thought defaulting to the “You’re attacking China” is the standard defense when the pointing fingers back is lost. (see #173 Racism in America’s amusing post when it has nothing to do with anything).
*This is a summary of what actually happened yesterday*
Guy on Facebook: “Japan beat Korea to win the WBC 2009! Congrats to Japan!”
Girl: “How could you give them congratulations, did you not see what happened in WW2? Do you not know what they did to your grandparents? What is wrong with you!?”
Guy on Facebook: “What the hell? This is baseball not WW2!”
Girl: “You and your twisted logic, why don’t you root for individuals instead of the team, why not Korea, and not Japan”
Guy on Facebook: “I like the Japanese team, they’ve got better players. This is baseball, people root for teams not individuals”
Girl: “You’re brainwashed and you hate China!”
As an Asian living in the usa, I am constantly amazed by how popular racism still is in this nation despite all the political correctness awareness. And the fact how well racism is always carefully covered up or made up for. Movie stars get drunk and caught saying racial slurs, and then issue formal apologies; anthropologists publish IQ study results and get fired; a cartoonist gets protests for a piece mocking the new president (mind you that bush and monkeys had always been simultaneously shown in pictures). To think it positively, Americans dramatically reduced the amount of racism-related incidents, one way or another. However, can I ask that, since Americans so stubbornly cling to racism despite the whole life of anti-racism education, maybe Caucasians are just genetically inferior in terms of senses for manners, morals, and shame? (You know I am just kidding. I am an American after all and Americans are no racists. )
Hemulen,
“What I do see, however, is a lot of commenters that strenuously deny that racism exists in China.”
So? Maybe some of them genuinely believe that racism doesn’t exist in China. Maybe “racism” means different things to different people. Is the goal to get everyone to agree that racism exists in China? If so that’s not going to happen as people rarely have a consensus on anything.
Got here from 不许联想。
The thing that I don’t think Mr Custer understands is that Chinese people are generally discriminatory and judge people by looks, clothing, expensive accessories, cars, ethnicity, family background etc. So racial insensitivity is really one of the least of our problems. Chinese people have grown up in a judgmental and discriminatory environment where one is constantly being judged by superficial factors and in turn judge others in the same way. It doesn’t really matter if you are a Han Chinese or a foreigner. There is so much more other things that we need to work on before we can even get to the point of addressing racial issues. I am aware that this sounds very insensitive, but if a person is dying of thirst in a desert and starts drinking his own urine, it really doesn’t help the person if you start giving him/her a lecture about the chemical composition of urine, how it is produced in the body and how unhygienic and unhealthy urine-drinking can be. True, it is absolutely correct that urine-drinking is unhealthy and unhygienic behavior, but it is just not the worst of his/her problems.
@Wu
To your first paragraph, I completely agree with you. As to your second paragraph, unfortunately, that kind of behavior was not surprising to me growing up in America. However, the reason it was not described as racism is because in America, it would be described as anti-semitism.
Related to that, and your third paragraph, and what the other posters here are saying, I believe the Chinese posters here are missing the point in that no one in America is pretending black people do not have dark skin. We all know that. But what we see the Chinese doing is pretending that they’ve never heard of the African=monkey quip. And even if they never did hear of it, they’re pretending that because they’re Chinese, when they use it, it’s okay. A previous poster mentioned that her Swedish boyfriend found the picture offensive. Upon asking my Ghanean friend, he said that he found it offensive. I can’t imagine how any African, or any African American would NOT find it offensive to be equated to a monkey, regardless of who is doing the saying. The idea that the rules are different once the Chinese say it because of history is completely bunk and it’s what makes me absolutely and 100% agree with Hemulen in post 164.
Again, no one is saying that everyone in China is racist. No one is saying that no one in America is racist. But what the Americans here -are- saying is that equating Africans with monkeys -is- racist and that, in my view, the honorable and respectable thing to do would be for Hecaitou to apologize for using it. It’s not as if the joke about Africans and monkeys never made it to China — we can see from the comments section that people in China know what it means.
However, after living in China, I’ve come to believe that Hecaitou’s response can be explained, at least partially, by a cultural oddity that I’ve noticed in China whereby the Chinese people find it difficult to admit any wrongdoing and to do so is to lose face, as well as an inability to handle criticism. Because after all, saving face is more important than respecting any faceless internet-Africans who probably don’t read a blog in Chinese anyway.
@ Josh #158
It brings to mind of this: “In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. –Mark Twain”
You’d better read carefully what I replied to you rather suggesting me study all ur comments above in addition to the one for me—to be honest, it is very unbearable.
Yeah you can check with Obama, or you are more capable to check with Harry Truman, and he might praise your hard work here, well done–“If you cannot convince them, confuse them.”
Well, being so keen and so mentally challenged, why not take Mark Twain’s advice: “When you cannot get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.” BTW, no need to bother getting back to me: you have too much energy while I do not want to waste my time anymore.
just want to say— please~ those who speaking in chinese and english said 中国人没有种族歧视是因为没见过其他人种 cut it off. you will cause nothing but another misleading impression of chinese culture. There were more than black and white races records long time before Tang, ok?
“这里只有崇拜强者，歧视弱者，崇拜成功者，歧视失败者。” makes sense. Chinese mind about the difference between cultures or advantage or disadvantage more than the skin color or langue or race or gender.
告诉你，你不懂中国。
the words up mean: tell you, you don’t understand china.
okay? no more stupid.
We can not neglect the fact that Chinese culture style is so different from that of the Anglo-saxon. In China, they believe “有教无类“，which means that education or cultrual influence could wipe out racial difference. In ancient China, there were slaves, who were not enslaved because of their oringinality or color of their skin, but maybe just because they were defeated in a battle or someting. Slaves were looked down upon just as the people from lower rank people were. It’s just based on socail stratum. And discrimination of the poor and those from the lower rank is a “discrimination” understood by Chinese people and still practised in present China. Chinese people are really insensitive to the term of “racial discrimination” in the western style meaning. Discrimination towards people of some certain originalty is just beyound their knowledege and thanks to modernization and the propaganda by the mass media, the average Chinese people are acquired of the concept of “racial discrimination”, which is still a unfalimiar and blur term beyound their daily life.
很仔细地看了这篇文章，感觉下面的人都是只看了个标题就开始评论了。
你说的ignorance rather than racism，我很同意。作为中国，要学的要去注意确实太多太多。只是太多时候，人们都只是急于去评价，而不是去思考。
I have a strong feeling that we are so self centered that we always say “oh my god, why are you doing this!” or “You are so wrong..” rather than “what do you really think of it?” or “Why you think this way while I may think that way.”
也许全世界最和谐的日子就是我们完全封闭的很久以前，和完全沟通的很久以后。而在这之间的日子，总会有数不清的争吵和不理解。
Maybe the best day ever would be very long time ago when we are totally blocked in a small circle, and the day we have done trillions of communication that we totally get each other and know how other thinks. In between of them, we will argue a lot.
@Josh #177 and Hemulen #164
Talking about foot on other shoe, you two make the same mistake some Chinese made when charging America hypocritical: Some Americans are very liberal, some are extremely right wing. They simply don’t mix. About the easily hurt “chinese feeling”, do you two know that, the two chinese blogs this blog cited, are actually two of sharpest critics blogs to these fenqing?
About the maker of this cartoon, please check my comment #89. I don’t think Chinese created it, and I don’t see any Chinese post the image to make fun of African.
About “no one in America is pretending black people do not have dark skin”, well, I’ve been in US for a while, and it seems the opposite. And from comments of this blog it seems more than just Chinese consider American political correctness overkill.
About the cartoon, yes I think the best thing for them is to withdraw the image. No I don’t seriously think hecaitou needs to apologize. He isn’t the creator of the cartoon, he didn’t intend to make fun of African line in the image. Maybe he is willing to apologize for the insensitivity for the self-fulfilled hurt feeling, just like some chinese fenqing’s “feeling-hurt”.
About your Ghanean friend’s answer. In the example of Spanish basketball team’s picture, if you tell a chinese that in the west this means something negative, then ask him if he feels offended, what do you think his answer would be?
About the chinese cultural oddity of denying wrongdoing and about-face, yes you made a good observation, quite a number of chinese do regularly, I find it hard to acknowledge my own mistake during fight with my wife. And I guess some comments here may belong to this category. But I’m pretty sure I’m not in this mode right now.
And finally a Bernard Russell quote for everyone:” I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong”
（我的英语不是很好。我能看懂这里的讨论，但用英语来表达自己的观点有点困难。既然在这里发言的老外大都懂汉语，那么楼主对我用汉语回帖想必能够理解。顺便提一句：我是一个汉族人）
毋庸讳言，与世界上任何一个国家一样，中国当然存在种族歧视，而且与任何一个国家一样，中国有种族歧视倾向的只是一部分人。在中国因为肤色而受到歧视的，现在主要是黑人。这是有原因的。首先，黑人在长相上与中国人差别非常大；按中国人的审美观，黑人（尤其是西非裔黑人）的相貌很不好看。其次，非洲许多国家现在仍处于欠发达状态，媒体上关于非洲的报道往往与饥荒、瘟疫、战乱和可怕的习俗（比如对女性实施的割礼）联系在一起。而在欧洲和美洲国家（尤其是后者），由于众所周知的原因，黑人有过一段不堪回首的血泪史，长期奴役和压迫的后遗症直到现在依旧存在。平均而言，欧美黑人群体的文化程度和收入相对较低，而犯罪率却相对较高。正如楼主所言：“one possible reason for Chinese prejudices against dark-skinned people is the negative roles they’re often seen playing in films. For the average Chinese, whose only exposure to dark-skinned people ever might be through the silver screen, it’s probably easy to get the wrong idea, and that’s Hollywood’s fault”。因此在许多中国人眼中，黑人往往与丑陋、贫穷、愚昧、暴力联系在一起。这就是有一些中国人歧视黑人的根本原因（反过来说，欧美发达国家的一些人歧视中国人不也是出于类似的原因吗？）但白人和中国人对黑人的歧视有一个重大区别，那就是白人对黑人的歧视还多了奴隶主对奴隶的蔑视这样一层心态。中国不存在这样的问题。
一个有趣的现象是，在那些老牌的欧美殖民主义国家，对黑人的歧视现在正在逐渐弱化，在此背景下，东欧国家和中国对黑人的歧视反而显得突出起来。我认为其原因在于老牌的欧美殖民主义国家的白人已经习惯于与黑人朝夕相处，而东欧国家和中国的黑人还比较少，大家还不习惯。不过现在情况正向好的方面发展，许多黑皮肤的成功人士的出现大大改变了中国人对黑人的印象。乔丹、奥尼尔、布莱恩特等NBA球星在中国有着众多的支持者。曼德拉在中国普遍受到尊敬。奥巴马、科林·鲍威尔、赖斯未必受中国人欢迎，但他们让中国人认识到有许多黑人不靠运动天赋也能步入上流社会。
其实在历史上，中国人不但因为长相歧视黑人，还歧视白人。不过对后者的歧视不算严重，因为白人的长相不符合中国人的传统审美观的地方不多。鼻子高点、眼窝深点算不得多大的缺点。 中国人不喜欢的主要是白人浓密的体毛和浓重的体味。只是由于自晚清以来，中国相对于欧美发达国家长期处于一种弱势地位，对白人的歧视才逐渐变成了欣赏（不包括体味:b ）。
我看到王小峰的那篇文章是在楼主的文章发表之前。那张图片的主题明显是中国人的一种自嘲。是对政府整天吹嘘的“和谐”和“三个代表”的讽刺（提醒一下外籍人士：之所以选择”河蟹“这种动物，不仅仅是出于谐音的考虑。要知道，蟹行走时是横着爬的。你们学了那么久的汉语，应该知道“横行“都有些什么意思吧？）。当然，其中有关非洲那部分有点不妥。我第一眼就看出来了，只不过没有发言向王小峰指出来而已。相信他的读者绝大多数和我一样，没有种族歧视思想。但很少有人指出图片中的问题，这说明许多人都是抱着一种“无所谓”的心态，其原因就在于中国的种族问题不象美国等国家那样敏感。当然，中国人自己应该注意一下这种问题，这在日益开放的今天尤为重要。
前面说的是因人种不同而产生的歧视。下面要说的是：中国国内是否存在因民族不同而产生的歧视？乍一看这个问题似乎用不着问，不少人（尤其是外国人）都相信中国存在民族歧视——主要是汉族对少数民族的歧视。不过我要告诉外籍人士的是：中国国内基本上不存在民族歧视。之所以要说“基本”而不是“绝对”，是因为也有极个别的家伙有这样的观点和行为。你们也知道，在中国，政府为了帮助少数民族发展，在教育、生育等许多方面都给予其优惠，以至于有时汉族人会开玩笑说在中国汉族才是受歧视的民族。总的来说，各民族之间都是比较友好的。以我个人的体会，A民族的某个人如果歧视B民族的另一个人的话，其原因与其说是族别上的，倒不如说是经济上的（尽管他口头上说的可能是一些具有民族歧视性的话）。中国有几十个民族，其发展水平参差不齐。纳西族、朝鲜族和回族等少数民族就比较发达，其中前面两个民族的平均受教育程度甚至高于汉族。相对来说，苗族、佤族等民族的发展程度则要差一点。一个少数民族的小伙子如果有一份正当的职业，并且家庭条件不算很差，那么他娶一个汉族姑娘基本是不会受到女方父母的反对的。如果他虽然有正当职业，但家庭条件比较差的话，那么女方父母可能会因为担心女儿婚后受穷而提出反对。这与反对他们的女儿嫁给一个家境贫寒的汉族小伙子没什么不同。一个汉族人与少数民族的人吵架时可能会骂对方为“蛮子”，这并不必然意味着他歧视对方的民族。这仅仅是根据对方的特点而选择的一个骂人的词而已，就象男人骂女人为“臭婊子”并不意味着他歧视女人一样。前面有个人说汉族人认为维吾尔族人“lazy, dirty, and dangerous”。其实事情不是这样的。汉族人对维吾尔人的印象一般是：能歌善舞、乐观开朗。现在产生前述负面印象的原因主要有两个。一是部分维吾尔族分裂主义分子大搞恐怖活动，引起了大家的强烈反感。二是最近十几年来在内地搞贩毒、盗窃等不法活动的维吾尔人有所增多。尽管这些不法分子在维吾尔族人中所占的比例未必高于汉族不法分子在汉族人中所占的比例，但是他们与众不同的相貌会给人留下更深的印象。
THE CLASSICAL ORIGINS OF RACISM
‘A more recent historical analogy might be presented by the Chinese. Around 1900 the Confucian state was collapsing under the weight of its dead tradition and custom, and new ideas, from Christianity to Darwinism, were percolating through the intelligensia. This resulted in the formulation of a Chinese racialist ideology that borrowed most of its essential features from European racialism. Though Chinese mandarins were prejudiced about other peoples (and if you read the annals of their visits to the ancient Khmer kingdom you will note that they find the “naked blacks” exceedingly repulsive in a way that implies some racial aversion) they strongly resisted the rise of scientific racial theories, in large part because it undercut their somewhat tabula rasa biases about human nature. Confucians might be xenophobic, with biases against dark-skinned and “red haired” (Caucasian) peoples littering their literature, but they were not systematic about it.’
the classical origins of racism
‘A more recent historical analogy might be presented by the Chinese. Around 1900 the Confucian state was collapsing under the weight of its dead tradition and custom, and new ideas, from Christianity to Darwinism, were percolating
the classical origins of racism through the intelligensia. This resulted in the formulation of a Chinese racialist ideology that borrowed most of its essential features from European racialism. Though Chinese mandarins were prejudiced about other peoples (and if you read the annals of their visits to the ancient Khmer kingdom you will note that they find the “naked blacks” exceedingly repulsive in a way that implies some racial aversion) they strongly resisted the rise of scientific racial theories, in large part because it undercut their somewhat tabula rasa biases about human nature. Confucians might be xenophobic, with biases against dark-skinned and “red haired” (Caucasian) peoples littering their literature, but they were not systematic about it.’
@Wu
I don’t really read Hecaitou or 不许联想, though I probably should if only to practice my Chinese reading skills, but I saw that someone had mentioned that they’re very critical. I agree that it probably wasn’t a Chinese who created the image, or meant any specific malice with it, but related to that, my meaning was that he should apologize not for any specific malice, but rather for not considering the effect. Though maybe that is my American political correctness talking. As to the issue of American color blindedness, I suppose this may depend on where you live. I imagine people who live in rural areas or suburbs, or really any area without many blacks may try to overcompensate so as not to appear racially inclined. As to the question about whether a Chinese would be offended because of the Spanish basketball team, I’d like to say they would be offended, but this is just me thinking how I would feel if it were me. But I honestly don’t know. It’s a good question and I’ll ask a friend today. Finally, when I mentioned saving face, I was referring to Hecaitou, not you. I’m glad we can begin to understand each other through discourse, though, and I appreciate your more constructive comments.
告诉你为啥中国没有种族主义。因为几千年来，大部分中国人从生到死，就接触过汉人，脑子里除了汉人，就不知道也没接触过其他民族的，就这种环境请问怎么产生种族主义？又不是南非或者北美这种种族成分复杂的地方。
当然没有种族主义迫害和歧视，不代表没有种族偏见。偏见和歧视迫害程度上的差距你学汉语这么久应该懂吧。说来也可气，明明科学家从各方面都证明了种族间的差异，却因为个种族主义的大帽子而不被承认，只能说西方人死脑筋。
中国人2000多年前就有“帝王将相宁有种乎”的观点。你们那点种族平权的思想，每个中国人骨子里都有。但是你们这种新创了个名词，就产生了道德优越感，从而俯视、“怜悯”其他人的态度SMUG，实在让人恶心。
同样让人恶心的，是些像李一样的自命清醒派。
—————————
扯淡。
去过西安没？我去过，半个城市都是回民，清真饭馆里不让喝酒，沾酒就挨揍，打了白打，警察根本不管，最多赔俩钱。回民欺负汉民的事多了，30个打1个，警察围观，屁都不敢放，完事后收尸，一群人扬长而去。那边的地方政府可以不鸟汉人，但必须拿回民当爷供着。所以我支持美国消灭伊斯兰教，地球的毒瘤，不彻底铲除将后患无穷，现在他们折腾西方，明天就折腾中国。
别跟我说中国有民族平等，平等个屁，政策里白纸黑字写着少数民族能生二胎、考试能加分，这是明摆着的。中国是唯一故意贬低主体民族的国家，也不知道哪个SB想出来的，现在惯的这帮人个个以为自己是神仙，胡作非为。对这个事有意见的人多了。
另外，我还用说蒙族和满足统治汉人的历史么？？？翻翻初中历史教材就知道了！
@C.Custer
可参考一下Ariel写的，Ta写的是比较客观的描述
@Wu
“About the cartoon, yes I think the best thing for them is to withdraw the image.”
I think you are ridiculous!
Will you ask the New York Post withdraw this image as well?!
http://press.idoican.com.cn/filedata/088/2009-02-20/cnmlfiles/nt.D150100bfxb_20090220_1-5-14.resbrief.jpg
Is it possible to ask every the American not to call American-born-Chinese “banana”? Is it possible to ask the US to change their immigration policy so that those Chinese living in the States can invite their parents over for a visit whenever they want? Won’t anyone think it is cruel to see someone can’t get a visa to the States to see their new-born grandkid?!
Talking about Racism in China? !
I just find it so hilarious that there are shits everywhere in the US, and someone from there came here to take a cartoon so seriously!
@C Custer:
You are welcome to comment on anything you see in China.
BUT, next time, learn to choose words carefully, BE SENSITVE,
If you expect respect from other people, respect them first!
Personally I found your article so irritating because I lived in the States much longer than you lived in China, I saw how many African Americans are in the maintream; I saw how many White who married African Americans; the fact is there to see. Words are not as effective as facts!
I think it would be much helpful if you try to help solve those racism problems in the US. And for the starters, dating an African American girl is good enough, ha ha!
PS: Just a reminder, last sentense was a joke, if you don’t get it.
我简单浏览下中国网友的意见，应该说不少人是善意的，但是糊涂的。
说中国人的认知糊涂，起因，我觉得并不在“种族主义”上。
虽然整件事因“种族主义”而起，大家议论的热点也集中在那上面，但潜台词，我认为还是“中国人如何看待来自外国人的批评”，或者说得更深远点：中国式的民族自尊是否遮蔽了认识世界的眼光。
很多中国网友，在听到这件事情的第一反应上是维护中国。
我说过我不能代表“中国人”，但是不知为什么这里很多人给我的感觉是,他们能够代表中国人，能够代表中国，开口就是“我们中国人如何如何”，这一判断到底从何而来呢？为什么你们那么肯定中国不会有种族主义思想？
当我们讨论这件事，一上来的焦点就应当集中在“判断那幅画是不是种族主义”上，而不是先拿出“中国没有种族主义”这一结论，然后从结论反过头来阐述：“因为我们中国是没有种族主义的，所以那幅画不管如何也不可能是种族主义的”。这种颠倒的逻辑思维，难道不是糊涂的么？假设最后认定那幅图画本身是有种族主义，岂不是可以很轻松地推翻“中国没有种族主义”的论调？
我知道这里多数中国网友的内心是宽厚的，但就跟无数次网络上的遭遇一样。宽厚的中国人总是从自己的宽厚出发，天真地去想象中国，想象所有的中国人。你们所想象中的中国，是没有种族主义的，不自私自利的，不损人利己的，不尚武好斗的，渊博的，仁爱的，请问这是人间还是天国？
那么究竟是谁在中国的土地上制造出来那么多骇人听闻的自私自利、损人利己、残暴无良、疯狂愚昧的事呢？是外国人么？是外星人么？难道那些无知的、卑鄙的、贪婪的人竟然不是我们的同胞么？
有外国朋友在文章里已经涉及到这点，且认为这是中国人的面子问题。
我想了想，不是。从我遭遇到的一些事实看，国人毕竟是进步了，在面子问题上和我们的祖先相比不那么敏感，但是遇到一个新问题——就是合群地保卫“国家面子”，作为单个的中国人他可能可以接受批评，但是在涉及国家问题上是千万不能批评的。有句老话，“天下无不是之父母”，这叫愚孝是不是？现在呢，千错万错，中国是不会错的，尤其批评的人是外国人。
如果一个外国人说中国错，先不看事实，就用上一个蛮横的逻辑：：“1、他是外国人、2、他是批评中国的、3、中国是不可能错的。所以，结论=他是个无知、充满偏见的外国人。”如果这个外国人对中国了解少，用词不妥当,那下场就更可怕了，他就不仅仅无知，简直是该下地狱了。
由此看来，CUSTER毕竟还是了解中国人的，他选择言辞谨慎是对的，所以他目前的遭遇还算好，至少咱们中国人说“做人不能太CNN”，还没有人说“做人不能太CUSTER”。
我是这么想，每个国家都有民族优越感，但咱们中国人是不是有时候走过了头。
如果这种民族优越感被用来先入为主地解释一切和民族相关的问题的时候，是不是容易导致选择性的失明。就好象一个昏庸的君主，他往往以为自己是圣明的，但是真正听得进耳朵的最后只有谗言？
说了爱国主义，我们再说说种族主义。
中国网友辩白自己没有种族主义的时候，往往说因为中国没有种族主义的传统，所以不可能有种族主义。
更多的人则从中国独特的历史文化上去解释中国人对种族主义的定义是如何的和外国人不同。
其实我也一度有类似的想法。
这些出自于我前面说的维护“国面”的天真爱国主义心态。
其实，昨天我谈的时候，也有点“国面”心理在里面: 我是这么觉得的，现在的中国人在国际上已经制造了很多口角，咱们多一事不如少一事。维护下中国的面子吧。
但是，回头想，维护中国的面子，其实很多时候大家是在说谎。
用美丽的谎言代替——我们不说是真实吧——至少是还没有区分清楚就下结论了。
所以这回，连“国面”也不给了。讲真话！
我先提一则新闻，说姚明在美国打球，科比接受采访说姚是CHINAMAN。结果华人社区震动了，抗议，然后说错话的人道歉。
我英语不行，过去不知道CHINAMAN（中国佬）是有歧视性的词汇。听了这个新闻以后知道了。这样的例子有很多，英国人叫“CHINK”，日本人叫“支那”，都是类似的问题。这叫什么，就叫“种族主义”。
很多中国人拿“不知不为罪”作为借口，试问，你真的不知道上面那些新闻么？我们暂且不说那些大字不识的中国农民，识文断字、上网看报、英语流利的你们，真的从来没有看到过这样的新闻么？如果你们不能够容忍这样的“种族主义”，古话说“己所不欲，勿施于人”，那么我们怎么能够将同样的“种族主义”施加于别人。
好吧。假设你真的是不看报，那么画你能看得懂吧。假设说某个国家出了一张画，“进化论”，其中，日本人进化成高达战士，韩国人进化成虫族战士，只有一幅图片上的人进化到一半不进化了，仍是猴子，后面写着大大的“CHINA”。请问，你是什么感受？你能够体会到创作者的幽默么，对方可能是美国、欧洲人啊，他也自嘲了啊？你能够因此原谅他么？
都说没有种族主义的传统，所以不敏感。狗屁。种族歧视需要很高深的学问么？识别种族歧视需要反复的练习么？没有种族歧视的传统，难道还没有被歧视的传统么？历史教训还不够丰富么？就算你大字不识，至少知道什么叫将心比心。站到人家的角度上，用别人的视角去想象下别人的感受，很困难么？站在非洲人的角度上去，替他们想象一下，您不害臊么？
中国未来是不是会有更多的外国人，遇到更多的种族问题，这个我不能判断。
至少我们现在就碰到了问题。就这里，就现在。
大家就不要装做没看见。谈么，我们也索性借CUSTER的宝地，大家敞开地交流。
CUSTER毕竟是外国人，他在批评的时候已经很掌握分寸，但是，作为中国人，我觉得我们不能宽宥我们的这种错误，不妨把话讲得更直率点。虽然真理未必越辩越明，但也算是交流的一种，至少中国人在回帖之前，先自己把问题想清楚了，别跟小孩子一样，以祖国的名义怄气。
I agree about the Innocent Ignorance part. As a chinese, my experience is that most people have little thought about other races, which might also easily lead them to make a prejudice conclusion when they have to make one. when Africa is mentioned, it’s most likely to be linked with the image of war-torn,less-developed continent. Because they never really think, but the stereo-type thinking is just there waiting to be picked.
The real prejudice chinese have, is against its own people. I.E, all the bad jokes about Central Henan people, or mocking at Cantonese people’s mandarian. This may attributed to chinese people’s lack of respect, awareness for other people’s rights and feelings. In other word, the alert in a chinese mind can’t sensor prejudice/hurting other’s feeling language, but it’ll beep when political sensitive words come up.
Maybe it’s not wise to mix this issue with human rights condition in the country. But I’m fully confident since more and more chinese become aware of their own dignity and rights, they’ll care more about other’s feeling. It takes some time.
UPDATE 3: There is a new post about this post and further discussion with Hecaitou and Wang Xiaofeng here: “Race and China: Touching a Nerve”. It includes some correspondence between Hecaitou and me, as well as additional analysis.
扯淡。
去过西安没？我去过，半个城市都是回民，清真饭馆里不让喝酒，沾酒就挨揍，打了白打，警察根本不管，最多赔俩钱。回民欺负汉民的事多了，30个打1个，警察围观，屁都不敢放，完事后收尸，一群人扬长而去。那边的地方政府可以不鸟汉人，但必须拿回民当爷供着。所以我支持美国消灭伊斯兰教，地球的毒瘤，不彻底铲除将后患无穷，现在他们折腾西方，明天就折腾中国。
别跟我说中国有民族平等，平等个屁，政策里白纸黑字写着少数民族能生二胎、考试能加分，这是明摆着的。中国是唯一故意贬低主体民族的国家，也不知道哪个SB想出来的，现在惯的这帮人个个以为自己是神仙，胡作非为。对这个事有意见的人多了。
另外，我还用说蒙族和满足统治汉人的历史么？？？翻翻初中历史教材就知道了！
———————————————————————————————
I just came across this comment about Hui people in china. The place this guy mentioned is my hometown of Xi’an. I have several friends and classmates who’re muslim, and it’s not that hard to be friend with them like this guy said, all you need is to have same RESPECT when you’re making friends with any other people. Maybe ignorance is not that innocent in some circumstance, taking this guy’s comment as example, such ignorance is so typical, and you can meet such people any where in the world. It’s such ignorance that might led to horrbile consequences.
@Linda
You keep on bringing up the cartoon from the New York Post so I finally decided to do a google search by way of writing “racist cartoon new york post.” Here’s what I got:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/18/new-york-post-cartoon-race
Looks like Al Sharpton is, in fact, asking for clarification on the issue, or a reprimanding of their cartoonist. Apparently, at first glance, it looks like a play on the chimpanzee that was shot in the zoo earlier this year. But the caption makes it confusing, which is why Sharpton isn’t staging a political rally over it. Question answered, please stop trying to deflect the issue.
@xi 193
Now that you mentioned that, I’m actually reminded of a story that makes me think, like others have said, it extends beyond race, but also to things about people’s bodies, etc. For example, one time I was at the gym here and I was talking to this Taiwanese guy who, to my surprise, happened to speak English (I was surprised because it’s very, very rare that I run into someone here that knows any English beyond “ok” and “hello.”) I said something in reference to someone else and he said, “Who?” I pointed and say, “Uh… that guy.” “You mean the fat guy?” “Er, yeah.” Something like that may have been frowned upon in America where it’s not nice to talk about people’s bodies, but this guy saw nothing strange about it at all. Though another guy I know once time asked one of my friends, who is overweight, why he was so full since he’s fat and then immediately apologized profusely without prompting. Now I’m confused on the issue. Thoughts?
@Xi
funny you mentioned respect, I did try to exercise respect in socializing with these people, however I received nothing in return, they seemed to hate me before I even showed up and nothing I did could change it. you and your friends there might have some uniquely enjoyable situations that made you preceive otherwise but from my experiences, nope sorry.
and no execuse could justify the privileges offered to them in the laws, and do you not find it ironic that the government touts racial harmony from time to time yet they still insist on maintaining these regulations??? I MEAN DO YOU??????? for jesus’s sake RACIAL EQUALITY IS NOT ACHIEVED BY FAVOURING THE MINORITY LIKE SAYING HEY I AM HUMBLE ENOUGH TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING SO I THINK YOU SHOULD BE COOL, IT JUST DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.
To 李：To echo some blogger above – could you please just refrain from making blanket criticism? Why do you have to drag the concept of 中国人 into this? Bloggers here can only represent themselves. You don’t have to have 1.3 billion people 浸猪笼 (I suggest foreigners look this up in the dictionary – it’s quite eye-opening) every time you feel to need to criticize young, privileged, English-savvy urban Chinese with access to the Internet, whose world cannot be more distant from the majority of the 800 million people in our countryside.
This is the most frustrating thing about some of the Chinese bloggers here: condescension and sweeping generalization.
Many Chinese bloggers here do think the picture is bad, but apparently they don’t exist in your eyes. The only Chinese you can see are jingoistic, ultra-nationalistic, egotistic, insecure shxt youth with a crippling inferiority complex. Well, you’re wrong.
@Josh 197
Correct me if I’m wrong, I feel american is much less sensitive about people’s over-weight problem, if more sensitive than chinese do. My american colleague said to me all the time about why chinese are so slim while there’re so many fat people in US. Eddie Murphy’s movie also seems not very nice to overweights.
at the end of the day we have to admit, that human kind are far from being perfect, that we’re too damn senstive to notice the differnce between “us” and “them”. And ignorance, prejudice, discrimination will follow us, maybe till the final judgement come. I also have some friends whom I sometimes make joke about their weight, and it never occur to me that I should stop making such not-nice remarks. In my opinion these things are just too minor,and I don’t want to deny it’s part of the instinct. But sometimes I also wonder aren’t any other worse discrimination or hatred,like Hitler hating Jewish people, derived from the same mind-set, from the emphasize of “difference”? Sorry I myself have no clue. and excuse me about my bad English, hope you can get me.
And nobody else is interested in the babies choosing lighter skinned dolls story given by Jay (143rd)?
@xi
It’s true that we have movies like Eddie Murphy’s, though now that you mention it, I remember thinking about 10 years later that that movie was probably really offensive to people who are overweight. I suppose in that regard America is not so sensitive about it, but what I meant is that it’s really impolite in most American situations to call someone fat — even among friends. I ran into this exact situation with my girlfriend after she was on the phone and referred to one of her friends as “tou.” I asked why she calls her friend that and she said it’s because her friend is fat. (I guess maybe 葱头, that’s the only comparison I could think of) I told her that I understand that among friends, in China, that’s ok, but that if she should ever travel to America, she shouldn’t comment on people’s bodies in a negative way. I suppose, though, that if my thinking is any sort of representation of Americans in general, that me thinking that the Nutty Professor was hilarious when I first saw it to possibly offensive about 10 years later may be an example of the progression of American PC culture. However, I also think that many people in America probably think that if someone is that fat that it’s almost always their own fault.
@196 Josh:
Your answer was not convincing at all unfortunately!
“Apparently, at first glance, it looks like a play on the chimpanzee that was shot in the zoo earlier this year. But the caption makes it confusing, which is why Sharpton isn’t staging a political rally over it.”
This is what Al Sharpton said: “Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama … and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder: are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?” And so obviously that is what the cartoon implied. Maybe it is only you can’t understand the caption!
Apparently also you didn’t finish reading the story.
Did you see how New York Post responded back to Al Sharpton?
“It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. ”
That was it! I can’t think of any other person who doesn’t understand what this means, though it was put in a very smart way.
Lastly, Col Allen’s response made me think that maybe C Custer is doing the same thing here — publicity opportunist. Ha ha, I never thought that way.
These two Chinese blogs are well-known in China.
@ Linda. This is hardly a publicity stunt, and I rather resent the implication. Yes, these two blogs are well-known in China, given that, I didn’t expect them to even noticed I’d linked to them (I imagine they get hundreds of trackbacks a day), let alone bother to respond to an English-language post.
I’m not really sure what you think I get out of this “publicity” anyway. Did I do it for the pleasure of seeing my name dragged through the mud in front of thousands of Chinese readers who will never bother to come to this site and even read my side of the story? Did I do it for the massive revenue intake from this site’s one Google ad, which, at last count, has netted us a whopping $0.70? Maybe I did it for the pleasure of seeing commenters who’ve never met me or have any idea who I am accuse me of exploiting racial tensions for a publicity stunt!
致wooddoo：
很多人的评论已经把这一简单的判断题目拉扯到了复杂的民族情绪当中，这并非是我的帖子刻意想去做到的，恰恰是我的帖子试图指出的问题。
我和您的分歧在于，您认为我描述的是一小撮中国人，即所谓的“愤青”；而我实际并不针对愤青，我针对的是无知，不管这种无知表现的是愤怒的，还是天真，天真的无知一样是致命的。很可惜，我见到的中国人的帖子多有天真和无知的看法。所以我用第二个帖子做进一步的批评。
某种程度上，我认为您也有些天真——假设您认为当一个人对错误没有认识而犯下错误，他的错误就可以被宽宥的话。
@Peteryang 198
In U.S there’s also controversial about the Affirmative Action, which I think in some ways are similar to the minority policy of china.Sorry I have little knowlege about it so have little to say about the issue you raise. But I personally believe the government’s policy to protect, or like you said, over-protect the minority might not be a good choice, as it emphasize the difference, or even weak position of the group compare with the majority.It’s just my own thoughts, so anybody have better thoughts please enlighten me on this issue.
@Josh
I totally agree that calling someone fat is kind of insult, but it’s also the most minor kind of discrimination which we might not need to overstate it. Like I said it’s people’s instinct to notice “difference”, therefore you can never root-out such thing from people’s daily lives, even in U.S. But I do admit people should bear in mind about respect, a joke is funny only when both of you’re laughing. But I think that’s not the case for your girlfriend, as she and her friends(close friend maybe?) might make such joke all the time, as friend can accept such joke. ( All of us have something to be laughed about, aren’t we) And I believe she would never make such remark about any stranger. So let me put it this way, what can be seen as ok between friends is ok in both china and U.S, while what can be seen as not ok, e.g openly remark about people’s weight is not ok anywhere.
And I think we’re off the topic a little bit. The real bad discrimination, or racism, is the ignorance, or prejudice against a group as a whole, instead of a individule.
To 李: No, I never said innocent ignorance is guilty-free. But just as manslaugher and murder are hugely different, intention plays a crucial part. And some Chinese bloggers are furious precisely because they believe the foreigners here are accusing them of intentionally being racists.
And you need to be aware who did the wrong thing. The picture wasn’t created by the bloggers here. In fact, some here pointed out that perhaps some Chinese blogger found that picture and added the river crab wearing watches. If it was indeed created by someone in say Korea then most of the racist charges here should be at least partially redirected.
Custer admitted that he shouldn’t have used racism in the title and perhaps racial insensitivity would’ve been more appropriate because racism is such a serious offense. Yes, some of the Chinese bloggers overreacted or were abusive or whatever, but some foreigners here are not without blame either for wrongly accusing the Chinese of intentional racism when they didn’t know in China we had a different definition of that word. But I guess what set me off is your 100% compliance with one side and that’s just not constructive.
@李
You are a rare voice of reflective thought in this shouting match.
@C. Custer:
Well, I just borrowed Col Allen’s line, plus I added “maybe”.
In addition, I didn’t know what your profession was.
A politician or a journalist would do anything to increase their publicity.
We have seen these a lot before in our lives.
You see, you reacted with “resent”.
Now you get a chance to put your feet in a Chinese shoes.
How would you feel being put on a label by someone who jumped into assumption simply based on limited information?
The best way to learn is through your own experience.
I guess this is what I really want to see out of this whole incident or whatever you would like to call it.
Still, no hard feelings, enjoy your stay here in China.
@ wooddoo: “some foreigners here are not without blame either for wrongly accusing the Chinese of intentional racism when they didn’t know in China we had a different definition of that word.”
Let’s be fair here. To begin with, I never accused anyone of intentional racism; in fact, I specifically noted it likely wasn’t intentional. And yes, Chinese people have a slightly different definition of the word racism, but this is an English blog whose audience is overwhelmingly not Chinese. It would have been better if I had foreseen the misunderstanding, but it is simply that: Chinese people misunderstanding the meaning and connotation of an English word.
[...] fact is, the image we’re all discussing is racially insensitive. As one commenter on our site pointed out, its presence on a Chinese website offended one African enough to comment [...]
I am with Stuart. Chinese do not know their real history, just the harmonized -antiseptic version, where all are heroes and nothing bad was ever done to any one by the han people, just promoting harmony and culture all over their surroundings… until you ask the vietnamese, burmese, turkish peoples… then you will discover that China’s history is not far from the rest of the world. They just fell behind after the Ming dynasty… If Zheng He had succeeded in showing the Ming empire the importance of an overseas maritime empire… probably today’s world would have been quite a different one.
首先表明自己的立场：我是中国政治坐标系（北大版），自由经济芝加哥学派，加政治右倾。
政治立场坐标
0.8
文化立场坐标
1.4
经济立场坐标
1.2
不把自己当成一位公众人物或者政治人物。但我希望以后我有机会选举的政治人物是这样。
关于外国人的议题：限制外国人的进出权，所有国家的外国人，进入中国，必须按照日本对外国人的标准来审核。
对于跨国婚姻：在媒体上不推荐不鼓励，私底网络（例如：香港高登，台湾ptt）下，对嫁给老外的中国女人，增以含洋屌，哈黑屌。哈韩屌，哈倭屌之美誉。
对于经济权，尽量把握。扬爱私民族货，千万不用国有企业货，次之欧美(不要东欧和南欧），学历承认同样。
我是汉人，皮肤也不会比白人黑，不喜欢白人喊我们黄种人，这个定义你们自己吞下去。我不喜欢NBA,不喜欢奥巴马和民主党，不喜欢北京人和棒子，我支持共和党和龚小夏。我尊敬宗教，但不包括伊斯兰教。我人在法国读书，不喜欢智力低下没有常识的人。这里的白人垃圾黑人垃圾温州垃圾高干垃圾都很多。
如果 c.custer有兴趣，我们可以skype聊。对了，上次王小峰和和菜头都被我留言骂过。这两个人是懦夫，整天风花雪月，只会捡软的捏。
我的问题是：为什么要一定要喜欢外国人和外人？跟我不一样的人，我第一个反应不能是不喜欢吗？？？而后，如果发现了其人好的地方才喜欢起来的。
对了，你是什么颜色的人？支持共和还是民主派？
“How would you feel being put on a label by someone who jumped into assumption simply based on limited information?”
!!!!!!!!TREMENDOUS, UNIVERSE-IMPLODING IRONY ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!
Custer- don’t worry about the “publicity” accusations, you have to remember that Chinese people are utterly cynical even when their suspicions defy all logic. After all, Bai Ling was widely accused of “publicity-seeking” for shoplifting batteries.
Yue- I despise you, die.
MAC,
“you have to remember that Chinese people are utterly cynical even when their suspicions defy all logic.”
Funny that you are accusing the Chinese of being/doing something that you are (doing).
I think people have to draw a distinction between “institutionalized racism” and ordinary bigotry which is its ordinary prejudice / fear of the unknown and unfamiliar
In America, we have a long history of institutionalized racism. This means that race was used as a distinguishing characteristic and embedded in the laws, policies and institutional practices. The laws involving slavery were most extreme, but also others like the miscegenation laws (preventing intermarriage), exclusion of certain races from access to jobs, rights to own property, and even Chinese from immigrating to the U.S. Both governmental and private organizations (employers, clubs, residential neighborhoods, schools) excluded certain races. One’s race (or others’ perception of it) was an all-defining characteristic that had enormous consequences for one’s material and social well-being.
In the aftermath of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 (for which we have to thank largely African Americans for their brave struggle but also many Americans of all colors), the U.S. took a huge step forward in dismantling the institutionalized racism. This was the first step and it has taken years. This struggle is not yet done.
The institutionalized racism in the U.S. is now reflected in things like the disproportionate number of racial minorities in prisons. There are many factors for this, but race is certainly one of them, although these are very hard to change.
The exclusion of many racial minorities from mainstream cultural life is gradually being corrected. As more racial minorities entered these formerly “exclusive” institutions, conflicts arose as people started to encounter unfamiliar racial situations. Some reacted by falling upon racial epithets and stereotyping. Others reacted by urging the purging of all racial references in speech to avoid unnecessary conflict and misunderstanding. This explains the focus on “political correctness” in the U.S. People who have been sensitized to this are always on the watch for breaches of this in U.S. media and in daily speech.
The focus on “politically correct speech” in the U.S. is to correct centuries of wrongs and also to ease daily interpersonal conflicts as more racial minorities enter once-white-exclusive zones of life. Americans must take this medicine to correct a sick condition in American society.
Looking out into the world, this is not necessarily the case for many other places. The infection of “white supremacy” does not necessarily find its parallel in places like China, which does not have an equivalent form of institutionalized “yellow supremacy”.
Because China’s history is so different, it approaches issues of race very differently.
(One of the interesting points to consider is that China’s encounter with the West (meaning the full-blown interaction from the Opium War (1840’s) to the founding of the PRC) was the heyday of Darwinian-influenced racial ideas coming from Western academic, scientific and cultural institutions. So any Western learning that China picked up during this period would naturally reflect the racialist ideas coming from the West. So there is an element of this embedded in the intellectual and cultural sphere. I would suggest that (like Marxism) is a Western import and not homegrown, but this is a topic worthy of exploration by historians.)
When Americans go out into the world, they (out of ignorance) assume that everyone else should think the way they do, and when other people do not, Americans like to comment about it. Unfortunately, the assumption of American superiority (“We’re No. 1!) often results in these Americans saying how bad these other places are compared to us.
In China’s case, what you call “racism” is more ordinary prejudice, stereotyping and ignorance. Chinese will respond to what they see in the news and in media imports. However, there isn’t the same kind of preoccupation with “correcting past injustices by changing the way we speak and look at things” because China never had the same kind of race-based issues that the U.S. had. And also, China’s relations with Africans is very different.
Others may point to the aid offered by China towards African economic development. There is a large infrastructure and close institutional relationship dedicated to this dating from the 1960’s.
China had and has other deep problems which their own writers acknowledge, but racism is not at the top of the list. There is insensitivity towards other people that are different (Shanghainese vs Beijingers, city vs country, etc.) and consciousness-raising is generally a good thing.
But for Americans to see China through the lens of American history and preoccupation with race is a pretty ignorant way of looking at it. Americans have to fix their own problems of institutionalized racism (think of the disproportionate number of African Americans in prison) and not take attention away from the problem by pretending that because Obama has been elected that this “proves” America has largely solved its problems with racism.
Pointing the “racism” finger at places like China allows Americans to feel better about themselves, but is a kind of projection which does little good for anyone. It only upsets people in China (because the foreigner is again acting superior about things the foreigner knows nothing about) and does nothing for solving America’s problems of race, which still deeply affects American political life. A big chunk of Sarah Palin’s campaign was spent using white racialist code words and anger to rally the “angry white man and woman” base that seems to vote Republican. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” is still at work although it commands a smaller majority of the country than before.
So really for Americans the “racism” finger is much better pointed at our own institutions than at China.
Maybe you noticed that I’m deliberately skirting the lines of offensiveness to see how they like it? Not that I particularly disbelieve what I said, I’ve seen more examples in my personal life and online than I could possibly enumerate.
MAC,
Therefore you are not that different from those you despise so much.
On reflection, a good comparison case is to examine how Chinese Mainlanders felt when living in Hong Kong pre-1997. At that time, there was a widely prevalent negative view among Hong Kong Chinese towards people from the Mainland. They were treated badly by immigration officials, people in stores, taxi drivers, and just generally in daily life one would come across negative stereotypes and stories about mainlanders. This was also reflected in movies, especially the character “Ah Chan”, which was a kind of country bumpkin.
This article “In Search of Heunggongyan:
The Construction of a Metropolitan Identity” has a good discussion on this phenomenon.
http://www.hku.hk/hkcsp/ccex/ehkcss01/a_pdf8.htm
****BEGIN QUOTE*****
“With this gap in economic performance and culture between Hong Kong and Mainland China, the recognition and representation of these differences led to an emergence of a self-conscious heunggongyan [HongKongers] community vis-à-vis daailukyan (mainlanders). Hong Kong began to be viewed as much more prosperous and sophisticated than Mainland China by Hongkongers. The difference between Hong Kong and Mainland China also became manifested in terms of social practices. One informant complained,
“I do not like some of the habits of the Mainlanders. For example, when they spit, I find that a very impolite and disgusting habit.”
Differences between heunggongyan and daailukyan in terms of economic status became etched in experience when Hongkongers visit the Mainland. Chan Kin-leung recalled,
“The first time I visited the Mainland (in the 1980s) was when we crossed the border into Shenzhen. The first thing that impressed me was the number of beggars that approached us. I was glad I lived on the other side of the border.”
Another informant, Ah Ha, recollected,
“My mother and I visited my brother in Guangzhou in the 1970s. We brought in a lot of daily necessities such as oil and clothes for him. He was in such a rag-tag condition that he looked like a beggar to us.”
******END QUOTE******
Fast forward to 2009, and the situation between Mainlanders and Heonggongyan have become partly reversed, as Hong Kong’s wealth now relies heavily on the Chinese economy, on the arrival of Chinese tourists, and many mainlanders are better educated and more sophisticated than Hongkongers. Prejudices remain, but these do not function as significant barriers to social interaction or economic opportunities.
I think that Chinese view Africans in the same way. Chinese culture places a high value on education, sophistication and wealth, and makes judgment about people according to such criteria. If Africans were to achieve the same kind of success (in Chinese eyes) as other groups, Chinese would give them the same kind of respect.
Of course, one can complain that Chinese should not be so judgmental, and that Chinese should not be so materialistic in outlook. One can argue that there is more than one standard of success, and wealth does not necessarily correlate with goodness or morality. I think this is where you will find individual disagreements, and room for changing views and enlightening people to become more sensitive and considerate.
I don’t think you will find any Chinese who disagree with the charge that “being judgmental and critical” is a big characteristic of Chinese culture. Most Chinese, as individuals, dislike being part of a cultural system that is so judgmental (that is, they don’t like being the target of others’ harsh critical judgments).
What Custer calls “racism” is just a tag used to convey deeper Chinese attitudes towards success and achievement. To focus on the “racist” angle is to miss the point, I think.
In U.S there’s also controversial about the Affirmative Action, which I think in some ways are similar to the minority policy of china.Sorry I have little knowlege about it so have little to say about the issue you raise. But I personally believe the government’s policy to protect, or like you said, over-protect the minority might not be a good choice, as it emphasize the difference, or even weak position of the group compare with the majority.It’s just my own thoughts, so anybody have better thoughts please enlighten me on this issue.
——————
Yeah thats all I was talking about, equality means equality, simple as that, people need to truly feel “equal” in their hearts and minds, not by elevating their status to patch up their weak position, which does the EXACT opposite. Some idiots in the gov don’t seem to understand this very ordinary concept god knows why.
[...] a post of some kind so as to keep to our unofficial one post per day quota. Finding an image I interpreted as racist on several Chinese blogs, I decided to write about the picture and the larger issue behind it. I [...]
I’d say that many Chinese are snobs rather than racists. The prevailing materialism in our community makes people worship money and success,despise poverty. Were African countries wealthy while the Europeans and the U.S poor,trust me, the attitude towards the Caucasians and the dark-skinned people would reverse.
@perspectivehere 216:
That was very well writen and argued, which deserves my applause!
It could qualify as an essay on this subject.
As to perspectivehere 219, I think there is still some misunderstanding in it.
Most Chinese know Africans only through media – movies, TV, newspaper. And unfortunately in those media, they were not portraited the same as White people. If there were any prejudice against Africans from Chinese, it would have been caused by this kind of misconception through the media.
Following is my own personal experience:
20 years ago I was a college student here in Shanghai, I was surprised to see one of my English teacher – a white woman from Australia, was dating an African. In 1998 I went to the US. Through the years living in the States, I had the opportunity to get closer to African Americans in my daily life, and finally learned that they are no different than me except their skin.
从图片来看，其他的起码都进化过了，就非洲没有，我个人一眼看上去就是作者从骨子里的歧视而且一点也不好笑。
和菜头的回帖更有代表型的体现了当今中国人的脆弱，说不得，打死不认错。
it’s not racism…… it’s a sarcasm to the goverment’s “和谐社会” and “三个代表” policy.
[...] It: -Roland Soong of ESWN has translated some more stuff and offered his own take on our own little race war. -ChinaSMACK translated a post about Famen temple monks closing the temple to outsiders in [...]
replay 196 and 214:
草泥马！
196楼和214楼，你们可以不喜欢回族人，讨厌伊斯兰教，但是你们的话题是否跑题了？人家都在这拿那幅漫画说事，你们偏要拿中国回汗民族矛盾说事，貌似有点借题发挥，哪壶不开提哪壶，要么就是大脑进水，看不懂别人说的什么，智商有问题。回族人并没在这里抨击汉族人，是你们先故意找茬的吧。其实多少年来的回汉两族的根本矛盾就在于汉族人比较好事，好斗，总喜欢抵触那些跟他们不一样的人，不一样的文化。没有对立，制造对立也要对立，这就是你们汉族人。你不喜欢伊斯兰教，我还不喜欢佛教呢，那如果我说应该消灭佛教的话，那会不会又惹来一大群佛教徒的抨击？
196楼的，你如此讨厌回族，是不是你就是那个被打的汉族人？要是这样的话，活该你！支持美国消灭伊斯兰？其实你这种人才是最应该被消灭掉的，懒得搭理你。
至于214楼，原来你就是那个骂过王小峰的，原来你就是王小峰提到的那个傻逼阿！跟你一样，我也不喜欢智力低下没有常识的人，谁喜欢跟傻逼废话阿。所以对于你，我就不再多说什么了，你好自为之吧。
214楼，恕我直言，我不认为你人在法国读书，就是个智商高有知识的人，你也不见得不是垃圾。不就是用父母的钱去留洋吗？得意什么？不觉得可耻吗？你充其量是个站着说话不腰疼的新一代粪青而已。傻（斜你妈逼杠）逼！
我刚才那番话其实是想针对190楼和214楼的，并不是196楼。一时生气看错了。对不起了196。
This is seriously over analyzed. I hope you’re getting paid for writing all these junk.
Cry me a river! It’s fucking funny; including the Africa one. Maybe you feel bad because your ancestors put Africans into slavery?
You poor moron? 99% Chinese consider this pic as a funny thing for the impression from some TV show, NBA, books and magzine, I don’t care what you think, but everybody has been China knows racism exist between chinese people and official , poor and rich, residents in city and villiage. Blacks means foreigner to our govement, so he can kick everyone’s ass. You can see blacks hooking up Chinese pretty girl while most Chiese youth won’t have sex experience until 25. Blacks F our pretty girls and you complain for your black people about his served racism in China? How dare you white people push all these debt to ours? I know you just lost campaign,please save your miserable description and face the truth: If black people feel racism atmosphere the only country is impossible because chinese people just hate the cruel killer and stupid.
I’m so tired of hearing all these ridiculous comments comparing America to China. America has a hugely complex racial history and is travelling on its own path. Chinese people need to stop comparing themselves to America in every debate; analysing whether they have achieved something in a particular social area that is better or worse than the Americans. For goodness sake, they are two separate nations on two separate paths. It is time for China to stop trying to match the lowest common denominator of other countries and start to establish its own standards by which to judge itself. This obsession with America is pointless and useless and serves no good.
Most of the comments from Chinese on this website are based on debating the demerits of other countries as regards racism. Why can’t we establish our own high standards and stop comparing ourselves to other countries, none of which have shared our particular path to this time in history, and likewise we have not experienced theirs. No country has a clear conscience but also, no individual can only be judged by their nationality. Every person must demonstrate their own commitment to a more equitable and equal world.
I wish you bloggers would stop saying ‘after the jump’, it’s so irritatingly stupid.
Hi Everyone,
I’m sorry, I just hide to chime in. It looks like there was a minor detail that nobody is discussing. Chiefly the “American” chronology of evolution. When you blow the picture up it becomes increasingly clear what they portrayed the American as. They copied the third stage evolution (cro-magnon I’m assuming) and colored it black, then placed basketball shoes, shorts and an athletic band on the figures head.
Two instances of the supposed black man (again, notice the cro-magnon was intentionally colored black) not being “evolved” makes it to be more than just a coincidence. I believe this implies whoever created the picture intentionally linked the skin color black with being less evolved.
I am not making any judgments about chinese racism in any way, but this does imply that the creator of the picture (which I believe someone may have shown was either korean or japanese) knew he was drawing some racists conclusions.
[...] ChinaGeeks and Fool’s Mountain have recently posted their frustrations, as foreigners, with how many [...]
[...] Custer, the founder, sparred with the notable but wily Chinese blogger Hecaitou over the issue of Racism in China. I’ve been subscribed to their RSS feed ever since, impressed with the excellent writing and [...]
by the the wey did the chines sty thinking that he is a man or human
The original jpeg, before Chinese modifying them:
http://img.moronail.net/img/7/2/172.jpg
[...] discussed the question of racism before here, most memorably last spring, when we accidentally touched off a bit of controversy and [...]
[...] some interest that we read this story in the New York Times last week. It seems South Korea, like China, has some issues with racism. And South Korea, like China, is a country where the number of [...]
[...] up, many Chinese think of the preferential treatment foreigners sometimes receive, rather than anything else. (including famous lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, who told us “Chinese law gives foreigners all [...]
[...] blog has, perhaps, earned its name in some small part due to our coverage of racism in China (even though we’re told it doesn’t exist). On that front, I point you in the [...]
I am personally offended that the president of the United States of America is a racist bastard.
USA – race sensitive? or insensitive? or overly sensitive? and is always an issue!!!
Looking at the ‘Chart’, All I see is everyone has been evolved or not (what’s wrong staying naturally beautiful), and the EUROPEAN end up with THEIR BRAIN SITTING UNDER THEIR ASS.
[...] a response from him because the two of us had a bit of a misunderstanding last year after I wrote this post, which he and fellow Chinese author and blogger Wang Xiaofeng took as an accusation that they [...]
The american kept the knife as it evolved LOL
Chocobo: “My opinion as a Chinese:
No spontaneous reaction of racism and as mentioned in the post I believe nor do most Chinese audience. This is actually a good thing for Chinese because people here are actually able to read the wittiness in this pic beyond those historical chains you Americans can’t live without.
Do you guys know the notion of racism doesn’t even exist in China before you guys invented (and well… practised )it? Imposing it to this part of the world does’t justify its universal correctness or your great American values. You guys cannot even mention “black” in public, what in the world can be more racist than that?”
But I want to go beyond those chains, as I believe we should have a unified world, and one humanity ultimately where all the humans are so unified as to be like “the waves of one sea” (quoted perhaps not entirely to the letter from a religious text the name of which I don’t know. I don’t know if you believe in any religion, but I grew up with this one, that was based around world peace, world unity, etc. and even though I didn’t actually become a committed follower of it or any other religion for that matter, I hung on to those things as that’s what this World seems to need so much and there isn’t anything logical to really say otherwise). If they obstruct or interfere with that in any way, they are a problem. I want to NOT practice racism since it is not conducive to those goals. If “racism” doesn’t exist in China, though, then what is the thing that does exist that people are reporting? I don’t doubt that it may not be the same as in America, yet I really want to know as to me it seems China demonstrates a step closer toward accomplishing those goals I want to see accomplished for humanity.
To 沙鸥:“So I have to say, good efforts sir, but you think too much. The Americans, if I could venture to say, in lots of cases, they are far too good at nothing but stirring up shit. BTW, here it’s just a picture, but unfortunately from your points of view, it’s shit. SHIT!!”
How can I get a better point of view? Does this mean that I, being “American”, can’t ever do anything truly good for the world no matter how much I want to in my heart? If not, can you tell me how I should?
reply to: mike4ty4@yahoo.com