Two weeks ago, the Asian American Association here at Washington University sent an e-mail to all its members informing them of a statement made by Shaquille O’Neal, center for the Los Angeles Lakers, towards Yao Ming, the Chinese center for the Houston Rockets. When asked on Fox Television about Yao, the No. 1 pick in the 2002 NBA draft, “Shaq” said, “Tell Yao Ming, ‘ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh,'” and proceeded to act out his statement with a series of “kung-fu” moves. No, Shaq was not speaking a new Chinese dialect. Instead, he was degrading Yao in one of the most vicious ways possible, by insulting his race.
What makes Shaq’s comments so disturbing is that he received the NAACP Young Leaders Award only a few days before his comment was aired to thousands of NBA fans. Shaq’s remark broadcasts the message that it is acceptable to bash Asians. When questioned about his comment, Shaq replied, “I said it jokingly, so this guy was just trying to stir something up that’s not there. He’s just somebody who doesn’t have a sense of humor, like I do.” Unfortunately, I did not find him so comical.
As part of the Asian American community, I am outraged. Just last year, Abercrombie and Fitch started retailing t-shirts that read “Two Wongs Can Make It White,” referring to the stereotype that Asians work in Laundromats. After thousands of Asian American students rallied against the retail chain and its racist shirt, Abercrombie and Fitch pulled the shirt off its shelves.
Media at both the local and the national levels have purposely ignored Shaq’s comments. The general public was unaware of the incident until a recording of the interview was re-aired on Fox Sports Radio’s Tony Bruno Morning Extravaganza. The day after it was aired, Bruno not only said that Shaq’s comments and actions were not racist, but he even invited listeners and sports commentators to call in and mock the Chinese language and the Chinese people. One of the callers suggested, “offering free bike parking to increase Chinese attendance at basketball games.” If the situation had been reversed and another player had commented on Shaq’s ethnicity, the American public would have responded with absolute outrage. After making racially insensitive comments toward African Americans, Congressman Trent Lott soon resigned as House Majority Leader. However, America has a double standard with regard to race. In one NBA game, over 8,000 fortune cookies were passed out to spectators in “honor” of Yao’s first game in Miami. Yet this was not considered stereotyping Asians, even though fortune cookies are an American invention.
Many Americans refuse to see Asians as real “minorities” because of the stereotype that all Asians are “over-represented” in colleges and affluent economically and socially. The concept of racial tensions is seen today as existing primarily between blacks and whites. The over-generalizations assigned to Asians in America are detrimental and damaging. For example, Asians are regarded as “brainy,” “good at math and science,” and “diligent,” which many see as positive stereotypes when, in fact, they are harmful. The characteristics can be misinterpreted to connote negative traits, such as submissiveness, deceitfulness, and lack of imagination. These conceptions become stereotypical caricatures of “conniving ninjas,” “exotic geisha women,” and “hyper-intelligent anti-social nerds.”
Classifying Asian Americans as one homogeneous group betrays reality. The 1993 Census refutes the conception that all Asians are academically gifted. There is a rather large range, from 65.7 percent of Indian American males who had bachelor’s degrees to 3 percent of American women of Hmong descent. The 1997 Census statistics also contradict the stereotype that all Asian Americans are affluent. The census shows that based on the per capita income, whites earned on average over $2,000 more than Asian Americans. The poverty rate was also higher among Asians (14 percent) than among whites (11 percent).
Yao has been tolerant of the attack by Shaq, saying, “Chinese is hard to learn. I had trouble with it when I was little.” We, however, can act. My friend Sophia Lai, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association, said, “We must draw the line before playful banter tumbles down the slippery slope into outright racism.” As students of Washington University and as Americans, we have a duty to fight discrimination in all forms. If allowed to continue, racial “jokes” will lead to more blatant expression of prejudices.