You know what? I laughed when I read about the “lady chinky eyes” Papa John’s controversy. I laughed my ass off because it seemed like such a farce, a goofy approximation of what counts as overt racism in 2011. After reading how upset other people were getting, including some of my Asian friends, I felt kind of bad, because for sure fuck the employee making that ignorant snap identification. But the supercilious cloud of fake indignation blowing from the more precious hemispheres of the Internet bothered me just as much, because if there’s one thing that doesn’t cure racism (or any societal evil, take your pick), it’s talking about the what rather than the why.
As a somewhat obvious half-Asian, I’ve been called a chink a number of times in my life, as early as like 8 and recently as a few years ago. I know, I know, the oppression! I’m crying my pale ass off. But every time it happened, it did unroot some deep-seated “Is this motherfucker kidding me?” before natural selection took its course. When I was 8, I told the fatty fat fat in question to stuff his face and get out of mine because fighting is the only available lexicon when you’re 8; when I was 20, I just walked out of the room, deciding it wasn’t worth my time to quarrel with drunk girls.
I wouldn’t suggest that these words don’t hurt; they do, even if they shouldn’t, and I can’t speak for any other Asian’s personal reaction to getting called a chink or what have you. Obviously, plenty have dealt with far worse, and that I’ve gotten it light is a tribute to my ancestors getting jawed at on the railroads or in post-internment WWII or the laundromat. There are larger systemic issues with any type of racism, too; Asians aren’t precluded from that, for reasons pretty obvious and too pedantic to get into.
On an individual level, though, I think you have to firm up and respond with some kind of steel, not meekness, at least if it isn’t likely to garner you an assbeating in response (some moral issues are best left to the karmic gods, at least from my wimpy can’t-bench-more-than-negative-pounds perspective). By broadcasting the receipt to the world rather than feeling fucked up by it, that’s certainly what Ms. Minhee Cho is doing, in a sense. But dogpiling on isn’t solidarity, or racial understanding: it’s the mob, and the ooey gooey validation of feeling you’re in the right without really having done anything to get there.
We can certainly talk hypotheticals all day and point to specific incidents, but let’s not. We’re talking about this. And collective “how dare he!?” hysteria doesn’t mean shit, especially when it undercuts dialogue from the POV of offense rather than outright dismissal. Deep idiots will always exist, even when post-racial black Jesus descends from the clouds and says “Hey, cut that shit out.” If some jackassed anonymous receipt really offends you, that’s fine — everyone’s triggered by different things, and reading an anecdote about racism can certainly dislodge a mess of ugly feelings if you’ve ever been called the same.
But I have a hard time believing it’s an issue that needs attention beyond whatever deeply felt personal response (and think really hard about the deepness, really do), unless you think Papa John’s needs to amend its employment forms to ask applicants whether or not they intend or could ever intend to call someone a gooky gook slopey fishhead chang chong. If you think the employee in question should be fired, call the Papa John’s and do your best to deprive some poor schmoe of his job because of a transient moment of stupidity. Hell, if you want to go further and have some rational real talk about how hurtful words like chink get coded into our casual dictionary, then go ahead — I’ll read on, even if you get longwinded at times (we all do!). But if you’re going to do nothing but cry “DAS RACCESS,” please brush off the feeling and move on. White knighting for enlightenment isn’t really much of anything at all.
