UCSB comedy invasian. Racist language? Political Art?

Me and Davis Cho (aka. MC PhD) visited the multicultural center at UCSB to do a redux version of Chink-O-Rama plus some stand up comedy and a version of Mulan to open. We found out that the year before some kids had eggs thrown at them from a balcony because they were asian -- comments about them being chinks etc. Sad that, real sad. The kids were slapped on the wrist and everyone was pretty much just kind of bewildered about the incident.

Our audience was nice and mixed for this show and in the talk back the same question got asked: Do I get criticized for saying the word chink? Are people offended. I asked the student, were you offended? He said no. But he was wondering if anyone else was. Here is my pretty stock repsonse to this stock answer

When people see my shows, the response is overwhelmingly on the positive side. I know this for the following reasons: 1. Young asian americans shyly approach and say a version of thank you and invite me to speak at their functions. 2. we get asked back to most venues. 3. people sa things like we have never seen anything like this from an asian american point of view and we all collectively sigh about that. 4. I haven't been pelted with sago pearls.

There are two main schools of thought in the discussion of reoccupying racist language and stereotyping: The first is that by taking the word back into the community it targets (fags calling themselves fags, balck people calling themselves nigger) it removes the sting of the word because you now "own it." Secondly it changes the word and instills it with new meanings assigned by the new users. If you look at the word fag, originally a piece of wood to be burned, viciously then applied to gay men as if they were fit to be burned, and now in queer culture a noun with adjectival qualities apllied to not-so-butch gay guys who haven't quite graduated to queen (although if you place aural emphasis on fagGOT it can kinda mean that too)-- anyway if you look at that the gay community re transforms a word that was trasnformed from its original mundane defninition. They un-hated it if you will.
Now all isms are not created equally-- I am equally against them in terms of their hate and fear content but they do not share the same history and do not share the same tenets. Racism against black people is different from racism against Asian people because our history in this country is different. There are times when they intersect. But Vincent Chin is NOT the same as a balck slave hanging from a tree. Our outrage is similar. And the violence is an overlap. But the hatred and racism have different qualities. Which we may discuss at a later time.

My point is that in Chink-O-Rama I am addressing stereotypes and pictures of Asians in Western pop culture, and from an insider point of view. And I am choosing this first school of thought: the subversion of racist language by exploiting it, re-directing it and expsing it for its weaknesses.

The second school of thought says that any use of words which historically were used to punish and destroy groups of people based on their racial heritage, keeps us tied to those words and doesnt let us move along. Secondly, the use of these words in a "urban updated" way is irresponsible to the history of those words and the people who suffered because of the racist ideas they embodied. And thirdly that using these words is a false sense of power and keeps us out of the mainstream because we are still defining ourselves by the oppressor's language-- just in a contrary kind of way. I give credence to all of these positions and agree in part with some.

My final position then is this: as a creative artist, I choose subversion, parody and satire to discuss the subject of racial suspicion and disharmony. I choose to re-interpret words to spin and examine them, to sing and scream them so we can all look at them through my particular comedy filter. And when people disagree with my use of these words, and therefore my politics I am still gratified that discussion is open. I dont mind being called an asshole in the context of my shows because someone is now thinking about asian americans as members of our pop culture--even if they are hating on me as one of those asian americans.

One of the biggest weapoons leveled against us is invisibility. We are not on TV as regular people (grab a shirkin! do someone's nails! speak in pidgin english and teach ralph macchio martial arts!) We are not considered a separate demographic as the guys from Better Luck tomorrow pointed out, our dollars are lumped in with white dollars. If ever there was a call to arms/ spending dough on asian american product that was it people! We are dehumanized with the word chink which implies that all asians are chinese. And therefore the same. And therefore devoid of distinct histories and identities. And therefore less human, less individual, less equal participants in culture and life. We are identified by jobs: the martial artist, the delivery boy etc.

I want us all to have our names back. And for me the first step is to take the names we have been given, such as CHINK, and expose them as lies. And I am working in 2 directions: satirizing this old way of thought, as in Chink-O-Rama, while creating new art and new inroads to pop, through Slanty Eyed mama and other projects.