| So, just how specific does cultural satire have to get before you won't declare it racism? I ask, because "Chinese" includes about 56 recognized ethnic groups in mainland China. I don't think we can say whether this character is Han, Zhuang, Hui, or necessarily any specific race that happens to exist primarily within the borders of what we call the nation of China. Seems to me that character is more making fun of the culture of a nation than of a single ethnic group (or even some set of ethnic groups). If they had a character that made fun of, say, British culture, would that be OK with you? Or only if the character was white? (Which would seem awfully racist to me.) Or is it only safe to satirize culture if the subject of the satire has ethnic roots in the Caucuses? Or is it not about ethnicity, but appearance? Is it enough if they merely appear white? Because that opens the comedic landscape far beyond the Caucasus. Can we satirize Mexican culture, provided we limit it to Mexicans of European descent? (Again, how racist is that?) There are some real battles worth fighting, but this really seems like a cosmetic one to me, no matter how much you think it "smells like racism." It's like some people have a sense of indignation that's only tuned to detect a few things, and throw any sense of nuance or concept of false-positives out the window. |