It is an unwritten rule that everyone can make jokes about their own race, to others in their race... but you're a bigot if you make fun of someone outside of your race... except if your talking shit about ASIANS that is.
After watching several politically incorrect cartoons and seeing people crack up when Clint Eastwood called a kid a "slope" in Gran Torino... I have finally noticed something, Asians are an easy go-to for a laugh, but why?
I have several humble opinions on the matter.
1) I was the funny token black guy in an Asian clique back home in SF. I was co-signed by one of this one dude I went to school with, and there by allowed to make jokes about all of them when we all hung out. Plus I'm mixed, so I could joke about black folks... or whites... even latinos... BUT NOT MIDDLE-EASTERNS, cause I'm not one, and they're kinda scarier than white folks in the south at this point... But I digress, during this time I learned that not a lot of people know about Chinese, Japanese, or Korean culture (not to mention some people don't even know what the fuck a Laotian even is). This leads to stereotyping based on glances at the culture. So you get classics like people slanting their eyes or simply saying CHING CHONG CHING CHING...
2) Part of the reason people don't know a lot about Asian cultures is the fact that they are very "clique-ish". Either they are a Banana (yellow on the outside, White on the inside) that only hangs out with whites and don't "own" their culture. F.O.B. (fresh of the boat) and only hang out with other people from their homeland. Or worse yet Azian, so anti-F.O.B. that they are an eclectic mix of the annoyingly generic aspects of hip-hop culture, and hang out with other douches that do the same. Yes, they're always exceptions to this, but the fact that several variations of these stereotypes exist makes it hard for other Americans to learn about these people.
3) Not a lot of people grow up with people of Asian decent. I was lucky enough, but most other people don't take the time to leave their little comfortable box and talk to Asian kids. So if you hang around people who aren't Asian and you make fun of them everyone can laugh at the expense of the someone who isn't in the room. NO HARM NO FOUL, in most peoples opinions.
4) Lastly, they talk funny, look different, but most of all THEY ARE UN-INTIMIDATING... you make fun of Blacks (in a large enough forum) and Sharpton and Jackson could knock on your door... or (in a smaller forum) you get your ass kicked. If it gets around that you make fun of Jews, you don't get work. If you make fun of Latinos, you can very easily get stabbed to death in an alley. WHAT THE FUCK IS A CAMBODIAN GONNA DO? Name 1 great civil rights activist that was Asian? Asians are generally seen as more docile, so they get the shit piled on.
5) But is the shit always bad? OH WOW, you are good at math, that's way better than people thinking you're going to rob them or that you're cheap. Oh, and the language thing, I did a Thai accent during a stand-up gig for a bunch of Jamaican people once, and it killed... and the whole time I thought, "MOTHA FUCKAS YOU CAN BARELY SPEAK ENGLISH YOURSELVES!" Chalk it up to the double-standard of society, I guess. Oh, but I know what your thinking right now... "what about the stereotype that Asians can't drive, that's negative!?!" No... no it's not a negative stereotype... it is actually a statistically proven occurrence and therefore not stereotypical at all. THANKS FOR READING!
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