Guy Aoki: Difference between revisions

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Guy Aoki is the head and co-founder of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans in 1992.^[1][2][3] He is also a contributing columnist for the Rafu Shimpo, and debates publicly on Asian American issues.

Aoki became embroiled in a public controversy stemming from his objection to a joke told by comedienne Sarah Silverman, which involved her use of the ethnic slur "chink", in an interview on the July 11, 2001 episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien.^[4]

In the interview, Silverman explained that a friend had advised her on how to avoid jury duty by writing a racial slur on the selection form, "something really inappropriate, like, 'I hate chinks'." However, Silverman said that she ultimately decided that she did not want to be thought of as a racist and instead wrote, "I love chinks." The Associated Press quoted Aoki: "There is no excuse for something like this to have made the air. The term is the most offensive possible reference to a person of Chinese descent."^[5] NBC and Conan O'Brien issued an apology, but Silverman did not, insisting later on the July 26, 2001 episode of Politically Incorrect that she did not believe that Aoki was genuinely offended, but exploiting the opportunity for publicity.^[6]

Silverman and Aoki later appeared together on the August 22, 2001 episode of Politically Incorrect, along with panelists David Spade and Anne-Marie Johnson, chair of the Screen Actors Guild Ethnic Employment Opportunity Committee. After Silverman repeated the joke for exposition’s sake, she opined that it made an implicit statement about the wrongness of racism, rather than legitimizing it. Johnson, however, questioned the humor in the joke, and Aoki opined that such slurs should not be used in an off-the-cuff manner because it legitimized their use, and that use of the word “chink” was no better than the use of the word “nigger”. Aoki added that while satire was a legitimate practice, Silverman’s execution of it was not successful because it ran the risk that people would assume she actually subscribed to the racist viewpoint of the joke’s primary character. Aoki, Silverman, and Bill Maher then got into the following exchange:

Maher: Wait a minute. So you're telling me -- so you are telling me, sir, that there is some joke that could use the word "chink" done correctly, satirically, that would be okay.

Aoki: I think it would definitely be okay.

Maher: Wait a second, that's what you said. You said, "It just wasn't done correctly." So what --give me an example --

Aoki: No, I am just addressing one of the points she said, which was satire. I'm saying it wasn't good satire, anyway.

Silverman: That's objective, dude.

Maher: That's implying that some joke would be of such good satire that she could have said "chink."

Aoki: What she could have said -- what she could have said? She could have said, "I hate Chinese people. I love Chinese people." Would have gone, "Okay, funny joke, ha-ha." And that would have been over with.

Silverman: That's not the point of the joke.

Aoki: The point is you used a slur that you thought you could get away with on national television.

Silverman: That's actually not true. I used to say it was nigger, and I have said that on Conan the last time.

Johnson: And has it ever been edited out?

Silverman: No.

Silverman insisted that her joke pointed out racism, and Johnson insisted that the joke did not help to resolve it as a problem. Aoki objected to Silverman’s statement on the show weeks prior that the slur did not hurt him, and demanded an apology. Silverman did not respond to this demand, but continued to argue her point:

Silverman: That's true. Racism is so --exists, you know, and it's not gonna go away.

Aoki: It does?

Silverman: It's not gonna go away through censorship. Especially censorship with comics.

Aoki: So we should just keep bad jokes and offend people over and over again.

Silverman: You're a douchebag, man.

Aoki: [with mock surprise] Oh oh! Oh oh!^[7]

On May 12, 2009, Adam Carolla called Aoki "an extortionist" and questioned how he can "represent all Asian people," in reference to Aoki's complaints about a sketch by Dave Dameshek on The Adam Carolla Show.^[8]

• Rising Sun: Interview with activist Guy Aoki: Total eclipse of the Sun by Robert M. Payne from Jump Cut, no. 40, March 1996, pp. 29-37

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