Tag: Slurs

Delaware State Representative Who Used Anti-Asian, Misogynistic Slurs in Email Won’t Seek Re-election

State House Representative Gerald Brady at a press conference. Screenshot of footage by NBC10.

Content warning: Racist and sexist slurs

In late June, Delaware State Representative Gerald Brady (D) sparked backlash after an email he wrote was published by Delaware Online / The News Journal. In the email (which Brady sent from his official government email address to the email sender rather than to its intended recipient), Brady criticized efforts to protect sex workers using racist and sexist slurs referring to Asian women.

The email sender had forwarded to Brady a Princeton study that had found that decriminalization of sex work in New York City had led to a reduction in sex crimes, and had called on Brady to support efforts to decriminalize sex work in Delaware. Neither the original email nor the attached study made any mention of Asian or Asian American women.

Continue reading “Delaware State Representative Who Used Anti-Asian, Misogynistic Slurs in Email Won’t Seek Re-election”

Teens Spray Anti-Asian Slurs in Vandalism Attack on NYC Cemetery

Three unidentified teenagers are caught on surveillance footage at the Cypress Hill Cemetery in NYC moments before a vandalism attack. (Photo credit: NYPD / YouTube)

Three unidentified teenagers were caught on surveillance camera this past week vandalizing headstones in a predominantly Asian and Asian American section of the Cypress Hill Cemetery, a 225-acre cemetery in Queens and Brooklyn, reports DNAinfo.

The teens spray-painted anti-Asian and Islamophobic slurs — including the phrases “ching chong” and “fuck Jackie Chan” — and approximately 70 headstones were knocked down and 15 mausoleum memorial plaques destroyed in the attack. According to DNAinfo, the cemetery houses several notable graves, including that of NYPD officer Wenjian Liu, who was killed in his patrol car along with his partner in 2014 in an apparently targeted attack against the NYPD.

Continue reading “Teens Spray Anti-Asian Slurs in Vandalism Attack on NYC Cemetery”

Ann Coulter Calls Asian Americans “Mandarins” — and Insists It’s the Correct Term

Ann Coulter on Hardball with Chris Matthews on 5/27/2016. (Photo credit: Hardball / MSNBC)
Ann Coulter on Hardball with Chris Matthews on 5/27/2016. (Photo credit: Hardball / MSNBC)

(H/T: EQ)

Ann Coulter may be the Cornell alum of whom my school is most embarrassed.

The Far Right commentator deploys few facts to defend any mainstream conservative viewpoints, preferring instead to go full-tilt racist and intolerant. She routinely is found stoking the fires of Islamophobia, calling for a return to literacy tests at the ballot box, lamenting women’s suffrage, and using all manner of slurs.

And yet, Coulter routinely remains — despite her bigoted and inane commentary — a fixture of mainstream media’s political talk shows.

Last night, Coulter appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews in a segment with the host and fellow guest Joy Reid (video after the jump). In discussing protests at Trump rallies, Coulter veered once more into the bizarre and racist when she first referred to Asian Americans as “Mandarins”, and then she insisted for the next minute and a half that this is the most correct term for our community.

Continue reading “Ann Coulter Calls Asian Americans “Mandarins” — and Insists It’s the Correct Term”

USC Student Endures Anti-Asian and Homophobic Slurs in Egging Episode

A cellphone image with the balcony of Cardinal Gardens, Rm F552 circled in red. (Photo Credit: Ivan Tsang / Facebook).
A cellphone image with the balcony of Cardinal Gardens, Rm F552 circled in red. (Photo Credit: Ivan Tsang / Facebook).

Just six months after University of Southern California’s student body president — who is Asian American — was victimized by a racial epithet, another incident of anti-Asian racism has rocked the campus. Yesterday, USC sophomore Ivan Tsang posted to his Facebook describing an ugly incident of racism he endured early Sunday morning. Tsang writes that while he was sitting by the outdoor fireplace of Cardinal Gardens — an on-campus townhouse-style housing complex — someone yelled a racist and homophobic phrase at him from an upper-level balcony, and tried to hit him repeatedly with eggs.

USC has already made headlines for being a potentially unsafe environment for international students from China. Last year, USC graduate student Xinran Ji was targeted for a brutal robbery because he was Chinese, and beaten to death. A year earlier, Chinese graduate students Ming Qu and Ying Wu were shot and killed in their parked car, sparking an outcry from the Chinese community. Against this context, the incident of racism described by Tsang is chilling.

Continue reading “USC Student Endures Anti-Asian and Homophobic Slurs in Egging Episode”

AAPI Civil Rights Groups File Amicus Brief Opposing Asian American Band “The Slants”

Asian American rock band, The Slants.
Asian American rock band, The Slants.

It’s Asian vs. Asian, once again.

Earlier this year, I profiled the Oregon-based Asian American rock band, “The Slants“, whose fight to trademark their name had gone all the way to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. According to their website, The Slants has been making music together since their 2007 debut album “Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts“.

Recently, however, The Slants have found themselves embroiled in a legal battle with the US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO), which denied them registration for the trademark of their band name on the grounds that it is derogatory towards Asian Americans. The 1946 Lanham Act prohibits registered trademarks from “consisting of or comprising of immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”

It is on this basis that opponents of the Washington Redskins and other racist sports mascots have demanded that the NFL #ChangeTheName. And indeed, when the federal government allows an entity to register a racist, sexist, or otherwise derogatory trademark, they in so doing condone the language by granting it institutional recognition and legal protection.

But, should all uses of all historically derogatory slurs simply become — in essence — blacklisted — prohibited regardless of context?

Continue reading “AAPI Civil Rights Groups File Amicus Brief Opposing Asian American Band “The Slants””