I was snickering over the insane interview Park gave to Salon, and TBOGG gives it its due.
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I was snickering over the insane interview Park gave to Salon, and TBOGG gives it its due.
Comments are closed.
Spankyslappybottom
In the words of the often-but-not-always great Keith Olbermann:
“That woman…is an IDIOT.”
She reads like what you’d get if you put ADHD, tech-famewhoring, and just a dash of pomo-speak into a blender–and then drove the blender off a fucking cliff.
different-church-lady
Sounds like she just said we shouldn’t take her seriously. I’m on it!
JPL
Imagine Suzy Park and Sarah Palin having a conversation. Okay maybe not a conversation, but a talk fest.
Epicurus
@JPL: More like ‘When Worlds Collide.” Not to be pedantic, but this lovely thing’s name is apparently “Suey,” not “Suzy.” I am planning on forgetting about her existence in about 13 minutes, so not so important…
jl
Good time to recall that this all got started with a tweet that was not sent by Colbert or his show, but by a corporate PR department that the show did not control.
And that the nutcases wanted the show cancelled for that tweet.
The nonsensical fuss about the segment was an add on, which was a resort taken after the absurdity of the initial pretext for the demand to cancel the show became apparent.
Strong work! (Edit: worthy of Breitbart Inc.)
JPL
@Epicurus: Thanks, I should have double checked her name.
SatanicPanic
I can kind of sympathize with Suey- she’s young and probably had to deal with some racism. If someone had interviewed me at 23, even after having been to college I would have said some stupid shit too. She seems to want attention (be honest, who doesn’t?) and her friendship with Michelle Malkin isn’t doing her credibility any favors, but I don’t really feel compelled to pile on.
RedKitten
The whole damn thing is just sad.
Suey makes a couple of good points, but I do disagree with her on some things as well. (And I also shake my head at her utter lack of clarity and over-reliance on progressive psycho-babble.)
What upsets ME is the fact that by challenging a left-wing hero, she’s been receiving death and rape threats not only on social media, but on her home phone. Her home address was leaked.
I naively thought “our side” was better than that.
Frankly, it creates an atmosphere where no woman will dare speak out against a public figure. Disagree with her all you like (and many do), but even if she’s completely wrong and a total crank, NOBODY deserves the kind of shit she’s been getting.
And what bothers me too is that this is being completely glossed over. I can’t help but think that if it were right-wing Rush Limbaugh fans treating her that way, we’d hear less about her flaws in logic and a lot more about the threats she’s getting.
Do I think Colbert was racist? Well…I don’t think he’s a racist person. Far from it. But we all make mistakes and sometimes we say or do racist things without meaning to. If that bit and that tweet had been about black people, would it be as vociferously defended by his fans? Somehow, I doubt it.
I think Colbert screwed up. And that’s okay. We all make mistakes. What’s dangerous is that his fans can’t abide the thought of him being in the wrong, and can’t abide any criticism of him. Especially by a woman. And they went on the extreme offense.
At this point in the game, it’s not even ABOUT Suey anymore. It’s about us, and what we’ve become.
Elizabelle
#AttentionWhore
#LatestShinyObject(although-personally-dimwitted)
TRex
You know, I never got to work with TBogg at Firedoglake. I left right before he came on, so it is a huge treat to have him with us at Raw Story. He’s the best.
JPL
@RedKitten: It’s unfortunate that her address was leaked and I agree that death threats are never okay. If she didn’t feel prepared for the interview, she should have canceled the appointment She’s not an innocent victim.
Hunter Gathers
Revolution in the 21st century evidently means fighting with people on The Twitter. Sure beats getting up off your ass and actually revolting, but hey, YOLO!
c u n d gulag
A rebel without a clue!
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
The tweet and the skit are two different things, IMO.
And since the point of the skit is that it’s just as racist to have a football team called the Washington Redskins as it is to call your foundation the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation, I think it probably would have worked just as well if black people had been put in the second position. Colbert was basically doing the same thing that this Native American group did by creating “team hats” similar to the ones the Cleveland Indians team wears.
Weirdly, I’m almost starting to wonder if this is some kind of Oppression Olympics gambit — Let’s not talk about American Indians being oppressed, let’s talk about mmmmeeeee!
RedKitten
@JPL: She was getting those threats well before the interview.
different-church-lady
@RedKitten:
The big mistake is always trying to make it about one thing to the exclusion of others. The world is large, and it has plenty of capacity to be about many things at once.
Perhaps it’s only the thinking spaces that are too small to contain more than one about at a time.
Betty Cracker
@RedKitten: No one deserves to be threatened, of course. But I don’t think it’s fair to tar all of Park’s critics with the actions of a few nutbags, which you come pretty close to with this statement:
No. It really isn’t.
Belafon
@RedKitten:
There an interesting question for African-Americans here: If Colbert had made the same statement but used a black institution, like the NAACP, as a reference, would it have been offensive, knowing what Colbert routine is?
The whole point I saw in the tweet was to point out just how ludicrous the Redskins owner was by creating a tax free organization to show that he “cares” about Native Americans.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
I believe this comment from yesterday also applies here.
kc
I’ve read some of Park’s Twitter feed – just some, because she seems to tweet nonstop. Anyway, one of the most striking things to me is the level of hostility and aggression she displays to Asian-Americans who don’t endorse her act 100%, as a group, and aimed at named individuals. She has a little army of sycophants that attack these people on Twitter. She really is an asshole.
Three-nineteen
@RedKitten: I don’t think Colbert screwed up. He made a very deliberate choice – whether or not you agree with that choice, it wasn’t a mistake and I don’t think he would characterize it that way, even if he decided to apologize for the bit.
I absolutely agree that no one should be subjected to threats of physical or sexual violence, be they male or female, public or private citizens. “Our” side is not all sweetness and light; we need to call out bad behavior wherever it comes from. IIRC, on his show Colbert asked people to stop threatening Park.
Hill Dweller
@Belafon: In Colbert’s rebuttal Monday, he pointed out his character had said thinks about other people of color, including African-Americans, without anyone taking offense.
Yatsuno
@RedKitten: This. All of it.
(Missed you!)
RedKitten
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure I agree. I was speaking more to the large picture about how over and over, when a woman dares to challenge the powerful man, the floodgates open and filth comes pouring forth. I guess I just wonder what the fuck happened to our humanity, that so goddamned many people are comfortable sending death threats and rape threats and torture threats to a young woman just for having the temerity to speak up.
kc
@Belafon:
Well, also the fact that he even put “Redskins” in the NAME of the foundation.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
A Salad Shooter.
Porco Rosso
Better liberalism via scolding = victory. Always a recipe for success.
jl
@RedKitten:
” What upsets ME is the fact that by challenging a left-wing hero, she’s been receiving death and rape threats not only on social media, but on her home phone. Her home address was leaked.
I naively thought “our side” was better than that. ”
Threatening her is wrong, I agree with that. And sadly, left right or center, when you are talking about the behavior of thousands of individuals, no group is better than that. It is silly and dangerous for lefties to pretend otherwise.
cokane
@RedKitten: are you new to the internet? sorry but this is just how it’s always going to be. we can sit and condemn it in blog comments, but these guys making threats are doing it anonymously — that’s why they’re doing it.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
I like to think our side hasn’t institutionalized and encouraged it like the right does, but… yes. We have crazies and assholes and horrible people on our side, and we should condemn them and this shit is NOT okay.
kc
@RedKitten:
That’s horrible, and shouldn’t happen to anyone. I hope she’s reported every threat.
I sadly realized years ago, just from reading blog comments, that some people on our side are just as malicious as the worst right wingers. It’s quite possible, though, that not all the harassment she says she’s getting has come from liberals.
kc
@SatanicPanic:
Thank the FSM that Facebook and Twitter weren’t around when I was that age.
Belafon
@RedKitten: It’s really sad that she’s receiving death or rape threats. Does anyone think that those accomplish much these days, other than gain the target sympathy? That might have worked when it didn’t take .25 seconds to publish it for everyone to see/hear.
ETA: Where’s the NSA when you need to root people out like this?
Frankensteinbeck
@Belafon:
They accomplish being mean and making the target feel scared. That is enough for the kind of people who make these threats.
? Martin
Mine! New band name. I call it.
kc
@RedKitten:
In fairness, men get death threats from trolls as well.
I feel we won’t have achieved true equality until men get as many rape threats as women do.
different-church-lady
@Belafon:
I doubt any logical forethought come into play ahead of a death or rape threat.
? Martin
@RedKitten:
Nope. Our 27% is fundamentally no different than their 27%. The only difference is that we disavow our 27%, call them idiots and assholes and reassert that they don’t represent our side at all. Their 27%, however, gets elected to Congress and given multi-million dollar deals to hatevomit out of your car radio.
different-church-lady
@kc:
And yet somehow the death threats managed to get through anyway.
? Martin
@kc:
And yet having men wear short skirts probably won’t change that even one little bit, contrary to the theories of the rape defenders.
ruemara
My problem with Park is that she seems vapid, yet has the power to set off such a big poutrage. The bullshit of not wanting white people on her “side”, infuriates me. She took over a very valid issue on a real racist situation and made it about her issues, then herself. Her supporters were OUTRAGED by her picture being used on the Colbert Report, yet conveniently forgot she was using it in her handle before and that she did an interview with HuffPo Live.
I could understand her feelings on be the default ok to use as a foil minority. I sorta get the sidekick thing (but seriously, Asians are the sidekick of choice? Have you seen an action flick?). But this whole “white people stay away from racial issues” & “whites can’t be on our side” is fucking nonsense. I feel strongly that the people threatening her deserve jail time. It’s not ok. The idea that it’s people on our side; I reject that. They have no side except bullying & stalking women. I’m also over this “tell your truth” thing many of her WOC supporters are saying. There’s no your truth, there’s only the truth. She can feel and think what she wants, but if it isn’t the truth, it’s not the truth.
Belafon
@Frankensteinbeck:
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, I was doing way more rationalizing than the people making the threats. No rational person would be making them in the first place.
Schlemizel
I saw the piece on TBogg but did not click over to read the actual interview, I m not that strong. It makes Colberts response where he highlights Malkins book about why it was a good thing to send the Japanese to concentration camps during WWII even more biting than it was on its own. This is obviously a moran with no understanding but a deep desire to support a larger cause (wingnuttia). As she realizes the hole she is in is deeper than her head she assumes more digging is the solution.
She is a bad parody of what assholes like Malkin and her flying monkeys believe a liberal says.
gwangung
@kc:
Most of them are folks who are older, who’d DONE boots on the ground activism, and have a good reputation as online Asian American activists. AND have done it far longer than she has.
raven
@ruemara: Forget it Jake. . .
Patricia Kayden
@SatanicPanic: Yes, I agree with you about the unnecessary piling on. To be honest, I’m glad to see her speaking out against racism — she just picked the wrong target. Colbert should invite her on his show.
SatanicPanic
@RedKitten: Jay Caspian King made some similar points in a much more coherent fashion at the New Yorker and after reading that I felt like I better understood where some of the people objecting to Colbert’s joke were coming from- why does it have to be Asian people as the go-to for ethnic jokes? I could kind of see that, (then again I’ve see Colbert make lots of sombrero jokes as well- someone will have to count them all up and see who is really the go-to minority). Then again, how do you lampoon racists without making that kind of joke?
These kind of questions are actually pretty interesting and I’d like to discuss that more than I want to point and laugh.
Schlemizel
@jl:
Remember they tried to pass this salad shooter off as a liberal activist originally. This was a rat fuck operation that was so badly done even Dimbart himself is rolling over in hell.
kc
@different-church-lady:
Um, huh? Yes, this is true. It isn’t what I was talking about, though.
I just meant that I’m glad I didn’t have access to social media to record and broadcast the many dumb things I would have said at 23.
different-church-lady
@? Martin:
My guess is they’d get far fewer rape threats and far more death threats.
kc
@different-church-lady:
Um, huh? Yes, this is true. It isn’t what I was talking about, though.
I just meant that I’m glad I didn’t have access to social media to record and broadcast the many dumb things I would have said at 23.
different-church-lady
@kc: Yes — I was attempting a corollary point, not a contradictory one. Sorry for the understandable confusion.
Schlemizel
@RedKitten:
See my comment above for my take on her position.
As for the threats. I’d like to believe they are part of the BS but probably some of them are not. Some might even come from our side. But I bet a lot of them come from dudebro Colbert fans of no discernible political opinion. That does not make it right, it does not make it better, it does not make me happy but it does put it into context.
Hell, I be some of those dudebros actually believe she is a liberal activist.
gwangung
@SatanicPanic: Given that I’m an old fart, I remember similar internal warfare when I was a young ‘un. There’s a worthy discussion on those topics (particularly when a majority of the artists in the Asian American community didn’t find anything wrong with Colbert), but, like then, it’s going to devolve to an internal shouting match.
And the mainstream media isn’t helping by focussing only on Park and portraying her in the worst possible way.
Hunter Gathers
I honestly expected somebody to pitch a fit over Esteban Colberto a long time ago. I did love his interview with Lou Dobbs.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: My legs are quite nice, damn it.
kc
@ruemara:
Yes, indeed they were OUTRAGED by his flashing her Twitter profile pic for a few seconds (as part of a series of images) while at the same time demanding that he invite her on the show.
That was actually pretty comical.
gwangung
@Schlemizel: No, she is who she says she is.
But it doesn’t mean she won’t be used by the right wing.
Patricia Kayden
@ruemara: “The bullshit of not wanting white people on her ‘side’, infuriates me.”
At one point, didn’t Malcolm X tell a young White girl that he didn’t want White allies? He changed though and so can Park. She’s only 23.
Suffern ACE
@kc: And it sticks out even more because I am having trouble thinking of another professional team name that would just be so offensive and odd in a foundation like that. Even the Braves and Indians, say what you will about their mascots and chops, don’t sound so bad in the name. Maybe the if the old Houston Oilers had sponsored an enviornmental fund, or the Brewers would have sponsored a Drunk Driving prevention foundation.
raven
@Suffern ACE: They (we) aren’t pro but the University of Illinois had to retire Chief Illinwek.
different-church-lady
@gwangung: It reminds me that missing in all of this is Colbert’s petards hurled at Twitter and those that worship it. “A small group of people who get their news only from Twitter: news organizations.” And, “Who knew a communication medium restricted to 140 characters could lead to misunderstanding” (paraphrases, obviously…)
The only reason this got reported as news was because the concept of “trending” has been deemed newsworthy. It’s the empty calories of McNews.
kc
@different-church-lady:
Gotcha, thanks.
DougJ
@kc:
I thought her twitter feed was some kind of performance art joke for a while.
Bob In Portland
People who don’t understand parody probably shouldn’t go into comedy as a career.
Omnes Omnibus
@DougJ: Poe’s law.
Schlemizel
@gwangung:
You expect me to believe a liberal activist is friends with Malkin & she with her? As the saying goes, I may have been born at night . . .
@DougJ: THIS!
Three-nineteen
@SatanicPanic: Don’t forget Esteban Colberto, Stephen’s “colleague” who stars on the Hispanic show “Colberto Reporto Gigante”.
ETA: @HunterGatherers got there before me.
DougJ
This is the reason the word “poutrage” exists.
Someguy
I honestly don’t mind if Colbert gets fired. Sure, he can distance himself from the corporate PR machine but the stupidity happened on his watch. It’s not really about the racism. It’s about a guy who is running a show, who isn’t minding what the PR morons are doing.
Same reason you fire a CEO for letting some idiot in the corporate offices commit some major blunder. Of course Colbert is a money making machine, so even if he was a racist sexist dipshit like the Robertson family, they’d never fire him.
kc
@gwangung:
That was my impression from my limited reading. I also noticed that the people her followers were going after handled the attacks with considerable grace and patience.
ruemara
@gwangung: I’m sorry.
no. She’s made it about herself and those are her words. I read both of her interviews, twice. I’ve come away with a decreasing view of her and her supporters. Something is up there and it’s not consciousness raising.
Edited to add, people keep saying 23, like it’s the magic number of a free pass. Nope. You want to change the world, you want power, you better be up to snuff. Sound & fury. Are you reading what she’s had to say?
kc
@DougJ:
Yeah, she sounds for all the world like an overdone right wing parody of a progressive activist.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: [lets out respectful whistle] That’s some law, that Poe’s Law…
Mnemosyne
@RedKitten:
Possibly not. I’ve recently discovered Libby Anne’s blog at LoveJoyFeminism and she talks pretty frequently about the problems with misogyny in the atheist community and an atheist woman who got harassed into leaving the internet because she complained about sexual harassment at an atheist conference. Libby Anne now advocates what she calls “Atheism+,” which is basically atheism along with the rest of the liberal social agenda. So it is a big problem on the internet, but it’s not specifically a problem with Suey Park, if that makes sense. It’s happened to a LOT of women who were attacked by ostensibly liberal guys for stepping out of line.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: Wait wait wait… are you saying men who don’t believe in God can still be assholes? How is that possible? And the solution is to munge up all liberal beliefs into a single cheese-ball?
gwangung
@Schlemizel:
I just know the territory and the people involved. I happen to think that she has a mood disorder and would be better off if she got taken care of, but where she started out, she was working in the progressive end of the community.
@kc: Yeah, well those people exist and existed. I’m having unpleasant flashbacks to my college days where I let my dick size take the place of my IQ points.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
I know! It’s crazy talk!
Though it’s less munge all of the liberal beliefs into one big cheese-ball and more If you’re not on board with feminism, racial equality, and GLBT equality, why should I include you in my group?
My go-to atheist example is my mom: lifelong atheist, devoted Fox News watcher. So, yeah, “atheist” doesn’t say much more about where someone is on the political scale than “left-handed or right-handed?” does.
Belafon
@Someguy: So, who did he “let” do this? Do you think someone went to Colbert and said “here’s a great idea for a tweet” and Colbert said “Ok, let’s go with it”?
Sounds a bit like firing Obama for something Carney said.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
I went searching for this the other day but couldn’t find the answer: what are the terms for the split between those who want to lump a lot of species together into a single classification and those that want to classify every little variation as a separate species?
Seems like a good analogy for the kind of intra-liberal battles we see — the tension between viewing all the items on the liberal menu as a piece, and compartmentalizing the individual elements so they can be approached with more focus. Pros and cons to each approach.
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: Additionally, it also speaks to the deceptions built into tribalism: “You don’t believe in God. That makes you progressive like me. So, of course, you believe in all the other progressive things I believe in.”
The anger that accompanies that disillusionment is something people ought to grow out of early in life, but it still catches people out.
Mnemosyne
@Someguy:
You don’t work in entertainment, do you?
The PR guys don’t work for Colbert. They work for Comedy Central. He has very little power over what they do, other than to complain to their bosses after they get him in trouble.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Part of the problem comes when some people on the liberal side decide that other people’s issues are “social issues” that can be sacrificed for larger goals. Remember the whole discussion in 2004 about whether Democrats should drop their support for legal abortion so they could have a more economically populist message?
When large groups start talking about whose issues have to get sacrificed for the greater good, it’s always the minority’s issues that get sacrificed. YMMV, but I’m not willing to trade legal abortion for stronger unions.
Captain C
In that interview, Suey Park sounds like a precocious college kid (or newly minted Libertarian) who hasn’t quite figured out that other people may know things, too. That’s before you add in the fact that she sounds like a word salad parody of PoMo (which already verges on word salad parody a good percentage of the time, cf. the Sokol Affair).
Captain C
@JPL:
As Slater from Dazed and Confused said about a notional hour-long John Bonham drum solo, “you couldn’t handle that shit on strong acid.”
SatanicPanic
@gwangung: I don’t think she’s on the left, but if I didn’t know who her friends were and someone said “hey look at this leftist lady saying incoherent stuff” I would be like- well, we have people tend to do that. That doesn’t mean Suey or some random Occupy person doesn’t have a point worth considering buried under their nonsense. Not that we have to agree, just consider.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady:
True. And comically, this as at least partly the case because the old farts who run news orgs are afraid of appearing “unhip” if they give less credence to a Twitter trend than an AP report.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not been my experience as an atheist who has participated in online nonbeliever forums since Usenet. The chatter would invariably lapse into liberal-speak until a conservative would pipe up and say, “Um, guys? We’re not all libtards?” Could be that’s changed. I keep forgetting 1995 was a long time ago. WTF are you doing on my lawn?
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker:
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
Dave
@Patricia Kayden: I would almost agree but I’ve seen her interview; she’s not up to it. Beyond all the criticism that could be directed at her stance (and not the death, rape, racist, sexist threats which are not acceptable in any way) I think that at the end of the day she’s just not up to it. And it wouldn’t make a good show. I’ll be surprised if Colbert brings it up again barring something unexpected he doesn’t strike me as cruel or vindictive and while the one response was reasonable well done and pretty funny I think further segments would likely be cruel on his part.
kindness
Suey has worked this I’ll give her that.
A vapid 23 yo bullshits and the world pays momentary attention (you expect more from twitter????)
Frankly I think internet cat video’s are more rewarding.
btw – exactly how many death/rape threats has she gotten? (more than zero is awful but let us quantify), Also we don’t know it was liberals sending her hate. Not that we haven’t seen liberals hating. We have.
Dave
@SatanicPanic: I suspect because the perception, and perhaps the reality, is that Asian Americans are not as vulnerable as other groups or the prejudice directed at them isn’t as powerful or toxic as other groups particularly African and Native Americans (which isn’t to dismiss any given individuals experience but I think that’s what drove the use here). And it does lead to an interesting discussion about how and when it’s appropriate to use this to illustrate other points (hmmm not sure where that leaves the sombreros I suspect there is a long conversation that can be held about that and they don’t bother me in context but that doesn’t prove anything) and on top of that good comedy is often not overly appropriate to begin with. I think that’s a large part of what happened here is that she inserted herself so clumsily and poorly that it just seems to cry out for a response or an eyeroll.
Dave
@Betty Cracker: In America I would say atheists still trend left though there are a fair number of libertarian/objectivists in the mix and even a few straight out social conservatives. There are enough of the libertarianish types though that while in the minority I’m not surprised to meet a non left/liberal atheist.
ThalarctosMaritimus
@gwangung I thought “BD Wong’s got shit to do” got that point across brilliantly.
gwangung
@ThalarctosMaritimus: Well, I speak from an insder’s POV, so my take isn’t the usual–personal connections changes things.
@Captain C: Yeah, the libertarian aspect is kinda salient. All in on the ideology, and totally aghast when it doesn’t work and people don’t quite act that way in real life.
chopper
okay, let’s see some of this brilliant work. i’m willing to bet her attempts at satirizing white people pales in comparison to colbert’s, which is probably the point of her freakout.
John Weiss
@different-church-lady:
“I went searching for this the other day but couldn’t find the answer: what are the terms for the split between those who want to lump a lot of species together into a single classification and those that want to classify every little variation as a separate species?”
Heh. The ‘lumpers’ and the ‘splitters’. Never the twain shall meet.
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a couple of taxonomists come to blows.
gwangung
@chopper: Oh, I hope not. There’s a reason why I say “leave it to the professionals.”
different-church-lady
@John Weiss: Grazie, that was it.
Betty Cracker
@Dave: Yeah, we had a few objectivists visit back in the day. Gave them a nasty taunting, we did.
ellie
@RedKitten: I agree that the death threats are completely awful and need to stop immediately. That being said, I think she is just young and hasn’t really fleshed out her opinions. I used to think the most ridiculous things when I was her age but I grew out of them. Let’s hope she does too.
SatanicPanic
@Dave: Exactly- there are some interesting questions there, but Suey blew it.
dollared
@? Martin: you suck. Now I have to go back and read Town Hall every day until I get a name for my band.
dollared
@Someguy: And what would he get fired for? Did you watch the skit?
Geeno
@Belafon: No, that’s not equivalent. Colbert would have to had founded the “Sambo Fund” for black education. That would be an equivalent, and just as funny – as long as you get satire.
slag
Is Suey Park a babbling George W Bush wannabe? Apparently.
Are there misogynist, racist “liberals” in the world? You betcha.
The question here isn’t whether or not Suey Park is right that racism, gender, and income inequality exist. We don’t need people like Suey Park to show us the problem. And we certainly can’t afford to look to her for the solution.
We need better, smarter social justice advocates. Or at least those who don’t pal around with Michelle Malkin, who will happily criticize Colbert exactly because he makes fun of her racist attitudes. As for better, smarter liberals/people, in general–that’s a given. If you haven’t realized that by now, you don’t get out much.
gwangung
Dead thread, I guess, but let me put this up here:
That’s not from me (I’m part of the Movement-era that got clear-cut for the current group of activists that are getting the brunt of Park’s ire), but I think that has a lot of truth to it; some folks want their hands on the wheel and help steer the bus….
Andrew Pulrang
I admit that I found the interview to be very hard to read and understand. However, I had the feeling that all her jargon aside, Suey is making some real and uncomfortable points about who gets to define when something is satire and when it should be taken literally, whether “good guy” liberals should be immune to criticism, and especially when she said she doesn’t want allies. I don’t endorse that for all times and situations, but in any movement there comes a point when you stop trying to get approval from those in power, and say “fuck it”, we are who we are … why can’t WE be the ones to decide what’s “normal”. So, I’m afraid I found the linked article kind of an argument FOR Suey’s points. Basically, he’s saying, “She talks weird, so that makes her wrong and stupid.” That is at least as piss-poor a stance to take as Suey’s overly intellectualized, jargon-filled explanations.
parenthetical
@RedKitten: I agree with this 100%.
Biscuits
@JPL:
I believe that would be called a word salad bar.
parenthetical
@Mnemosyne: You wouldn’t wonder that if you were at all familiar with Suey’s issues, which include a LOT of tweeting about native rights and racist team names.
parenthetical
@Mnemosyne: You wouldn’t wonder that if you were at all familiar with Suey’s issues, which include a LOT of tweeting about native rights and racist team names.
parenthetical
@Mnemosyne: You wouldn’t wonder that if you were at all familiar with Suey’s issues, which include a LOT of tweeting about native rights and racist team names.
parenthetical
Whoopsie!
parenthetical
@RedKitten: This happens to black women (amongst ALL others) all the time on Twitter as well. And the “left” responds with “Toxic Twitter” bullshit.
Uncle Ebeneezer
I thought Park did a good thing by raising the subject of the offensive nature of the Colbert tweet. Unfortunately since then, her attention-seeking behavior, palling-around with Michelle Malkin and incoherency in the Salon interview have now moved all attention beyond the original focus.
Personally, I thought the Tweet was pretty funny and effective satire. But I’m a white/cis male so I had very little doubt that people from different backgrounds with a different outlook would be offended by the language. And I think their offense is valid and assuming they don’t understand satire or don’t get the joke or context is a pretty ungenerous assumption. A person can totally understand satire/get the joke and still be offended by it.
I always assumed that the goal was never to actually cancel Colbert but to start a conversation about the propriety and wisdom of using racially-charged language in satire, even when the goal is to mock racism. Which is an interesting and tricky topic.
What bothers me most about many of the comments I’ve read in the Liberal blogosphere (and Facebook etc.) is their ‘Splaining nature. Here’s a pretty good post on the topic that I (mostly) agree with:
parenthetical
@Patricia Kayden: Also, too a careful reading of her on Twitter over an extended period I think will show that she misspoke when she said she didn’t “want” white allies (and know, the issue of allyship is a minefiled for women of color on Twitter) and more truthfully holds the opinion that she doesn’t “need” them to validate her position. But that it a quote that will haunt her for a long time.
parenthetical
@Andrew Pulrang: This.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Andrew Pulrang: Well said. I’ve seen alot of people claiming that because it was intended to be satire that nobody should take offense it. As if they get to decide when people are allowed to be offended. That’s a very strange view especially to see in fairly liberal circles. I mean if I tell a joke and drop some N-words in there for effect, it doesn’t matter if my goal is to make an anti-racist point…some people are going to find it offensive. And when they make me aware of their offense I should probably: shut up and listen, try to understand their perspective, apologize and do better in the future. Lecturing them on comedy or about my anti-racist intentions, is just digging even deeper into my privilege.
Cain
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, because atheists want their side to appear “winning” and shit like this makes them look fallible when they are trying to show themselves better. So yeah, there is backlash.
Every community suffers through this. It will happen in any community I think especially if there is some goal to show they are better. Some atheists have a chip on their shoulders. (just like any other group) They can’t help themselves. “Atheism cannot fail, it can only be failed!”
Cain
@Belafon:
No, more like firing Obama for something I said.
parenthetical
@Uncle Ebeneezer: I agree with this entirely. She does herself no favors with the over-the-top nature of her rhetoric and behavior. But, the response from TBogg and, honestly, John Cole and a million other (mostly male often white but not always) liberals has been to scoff and essentially dismiss her via ad hominem without entertaining that there might be something a little tiny bit white privilege-y about being able to react to this kind of satire in the “appropriate” way. As others have pointed out, Colbert did not make his joke about black people and throw in the n-word because he knows full well that there are certain things that are off limits, even in satire. So his choice of target in his faux-racism tells us a little about who he thinks it is ok to lampoon (for satirical effect) and who it is not.
I have a lot of problems with the way Suey goes about her business. But the mean-spirited snickering of our liberal taste-makers is, well, part of the problem she’d probably like to address.
slag
@Andrew Pulrang: Oh please. I remember when Stephen Colbert joked about white men being the “default” and my jaw practically hit the floor. It was the first time I had seen a mainstream-ish person so astutely point out what is invisible to so many. And if he gets a few extra cookies for doing it, I don’t give a shit. What is this, high school?
So she doesn’t need allies. Fuck her. Redskins everywhere are getting their coats handed to them while she twits 140 characters at a time. That’s Charlie Sheen-style winning right there.
slag
@parenthetical:
Also, let’s cut this crap. Doesn’t anyone else remember the white supremacists v. aliens jag during black history month? He makes fun of all kinds of racism all the fucking time. In fact, I heard recently that MLK Jr. had an opium-laced dream. Imagine what that tweet would have looked like had it gone out without context.
ruemara
@Andrew Pulrang: he’s saying? For pete’s sake, it’s quotes from her. If you find them weird, that’s not the writer’s fault. Christ, agree if you, but don’t blame the flaws on the messenger.
parenthetical
@slag: I’d say that the content of the joke, Ching-Chong Ding-Dong, is dehumanizing and lazy in a way that makes it worse than simply having the topic of the joke revolve around Asians. A corollary would not be simply a joke about black people, but one that uses offensive language to describe them. That’s the specific objection many have with the joke. And I warrant that the Colbert Report would never go there for obvious reasons. Why they would for Asians is, perhaps, a blind spot. And holding a mirror up to that is fair game in my opinion. Again, I’m not defending tactics and hyperbole; I’m simply acknowledging that the grievance some have registered with this joke is not just an open and shut case of “this idiot doesn’t get it”. But that’s what TBogg and Cole and many, many others are dishing up.
In the end, one may argue that it’s no big deal. I kind of feel that way myself. But I also know enough to not tell a person of a different race how they should feel about a joke made at their own expense. I’d hope we’re all smart enough to know that.
moops
Look, some 23-year-olds have to be below average. Stats is like that. She has time to learn coping strategies.
Ruckus
@RedKitten:
I don’t think that people have gotten more violent, in fact I think that crime statistics show that violence is going down.
However.
People now have avenues to speak up. Their minds are still in the gutter but their fingers are on the keyboards. Twitter, FB, blogs and all the other social networks allow the haters to have their voices heard, just like ours are here. This is relatively new, like for a lot of people the last 5-8 yrs. The hate for women, blacks, browns, whomever/whatever is still there. You don’t have to think, just type. And half our political entities encourage/are the haters.
I don’t think this will end well.
Mnemosyne
@parenthetical:
Actually, I could completely see Colbert announcing that, in response to Snyder creating the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation (not a joke, that’s the actual name of the new foundation), he was founding the Spearchucker Foundation for African-Americans. Couldn’t you?
And, sorry, but it does seem a little weird to me that Park is spending so much time and energy to draw people’s attention away from the fact that Colbert was criticizing the owner of the Washington Redskins for creating a foundation that has the racial slur “Redskins” in its actual name. Why is she spending so much time drawing attention away from the slur against American Indians?
Another Holocene Human
@Patricia Kayden: Malcolm X also had a fully fleshed out political philosophy. I read his autobiography and I read the entire Park interview. As another commenter said elsewhere, it smacks of “I’ve read some Angela Davis” now let me remix this argle bargle and hope you groove on it. There’s no there there.
I mean you’re right in that Malcolm X turned to love and away from hate but the underlying intelligence and ideology is not at all comparable to this glib young adult narcissist word salad crap.
The only Malcolm you can compare her to is burglar Malcolm, before he was incarcerated. Not Nation of Islam Malcolm. No comparison.
Also, apparently she has backstabbed a lot of people on Twitter as she’s clawed her way to the top. This is about attention for Suey Park. She freely admitted she saw the actual bit and liked it before starting her hashtag. This was calculated.
Another Holocene Human
@gwangung: Is borderline personality disorder a mood disorder?
But to me, she is deep into narcissistic territory at this point. It’s possible to grow out of that kind of stuff but she seems to perceive herself as being rewarded for it. So nastier she gets.
Another Holocene Human
@Andrew Pulrang: I agree with this. Somebody had to say what she said and maybe it was inevitable that the person who did was a craven attention seeker and self-aggrandizer who fucked over Native American activists she pretended to be friends with. And for this I blame Colbert because when I saw the piece, while a brilliant satire, linking the vileness of yellowface to the vileness of “Redskins”, which goes so unremarked and unrecognized in its hurtful vileness, I also saw it as trolling, trolling intended to result in a round of interviews the following week. And I thought that it was an issue too serious to be trolling about. And yeah, they caught something on that hook. Sure did.
Another Holocene Human
@parenthetical: I read it as a social dominator trying to signal her indifference to others and thus her superiority over them.
She is a social dominator. Proceed with caution. Sadly, those that already got burned got burned bad….
gwangung
@Another Holocene Human: That’s pretty clear, given her treatment of more experienced activists who are online.
parenthetical
@Mnemosyne: I really couldn’t see it but maybe I’m wrong. Point me to an example if you see one. As for the native rights issues, she is extremely active on Twitter around these issues, so no one could really describe her as drawing attention away from these issues unless they are not familiar with what she does on twitter day in and day out.
A lot of people see this #cancelcolbert thing as a one-off thing. Those of us who were familiar with her before know that this is not her first trending hashtag and also not her last. Safe to say I don’t agree with a lot of what she says or focuses on, but the picture we’re getting of her from the people who just heard about her last week is lacking some important context.
parenthetical
@Another Holocene Human: I can see this argument, I think it has more to do with race theory and the desire for people of color to not require validation from white people to legitimate their movements. And that’s a perfectly fair point. She talks so much about issues with passive aggressive white allies and “centering” issues that it’s hard not to conclude that this is, at least in part, where she’s coming from.
Let’s not forget that these theoretical concepts can exist alongside narcissism, inexperience, etc. Also, on a final note, it is worth noting that a lot of her recent commentary (including the Salon interview) came in the midst of a deluge of sexist, racist attacks against her on a scale that she has certainly never experienced before (not even with #notyourasiansidekick) and that undoubtedly has an effect on how she’s reacting to just about everything that’s happening to her.
Jebediah, RBG
@parenthetical:
Ah, context. Which she herself claims is irrelevant.
parenthetical
@Jebediah, RBG: I don’t think either of us think context is irrelevant, though.