A former student of mine, Nate Bae Kupel, has been hard at work on helping to create a new radio show devoted to Asian Americans and is happy to report that the show is finally ready. His announcement is below:

———————————————-

As I Am: Asians In America Radio Pilot

As I Am is an hour-long program, hosted by author-activist Helen Zia, that examines the American experience – present, past, and future - with an Asian American lens. Through politics, arts, popular culture, history, and everyday encounters with the famous and not so famous, As I Am offers listeners a unique opportunity to learn from and about the nation’s dynamic Asian American community. In the process, those who tune in from all backgrounds will gain fresh perspectives on their own lives and experiences.

The program is produced by the Institute for Asian American Studies and WUMB Public Radio at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

About the Pilot
The As I Am pilot features reports, analyses, and commentary on social, political, cultural and artistic topics seldom heard on traditional public radio broadcasts. Hosted by the award-winning journalist, author and scholar Helen Zia, public radio audiences will hear unique voices and perspectives on a variety of issues from across the country.

The Pilot features up and coming author Min Jin Lee as she discusses her new book Free Food for Millionaires with Boston College’s Professor Min Hyoung Song. As I Am’s Paul Niwa reveals the effects of gentrification on Boston’s Chinatown through one man’s battle against his landlord’s rent increase.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Angela Kim’s journey from California to the Midwest reminds us that no matter where we may move we are often searching for something, anything, to remind us of where we came from. Nationally recognized slam poet Regie Cabico performs a piece that challenges the notion that we can be easily defined by a census box. Known for his cookbooks and popular television show Yan Can Cook, Chef

Martin Yan steps out of the kitchen to talk with the award-winning broadcast journalist Sydnie Kohara. A group of UMass Boston students’ trip to the Gulf Coast is chronicled as they discuss rebuilding the Vietnamese American communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. And International Studies Professor at Trinity College Vijay Prashad comments on why his ideal home isn’t in the present, it is in the future. You can hear these stories and more, on As I Am: Asians In America.

The program will be distributed on the Public Radio Exchange and is expected to have national carriage on non-commercial radio stations across the country. The program will be available for listening and downloading on our website soon. For now, listeners may go to the Institute for Asian American Studies’ website to download or stream the program.

Musical consideration for the pilot has been provided by Boston Progress Radio a community-based online radio station and blog focusing on independent Asian American music and art.

For more information on As I Am, please visit our website: www.asiam.us

———————————————-

Kudos to Nate and his crew for putting this project together. As I’ve said many times in the past, we Asian Americans need to create more outlets like this where we can express ourselves however we want, instead of relying on others to do so however they want.

I’ve been given the opportunity to conduct the first (and hopefully not last) giveaway contest on this blog -- here’s your chance to win a free DVD of Blue State. Featuring Academy Award winner Anna Paquin, Blue State is an independent film about a disgruntled John Kerry campaign activist that vows to move to Canada if Bush is re-elected.

Here’s how to enter: send me an email at CN_Le@yahoo.com and in 20 words or less, tell me what you would do if the Democrats lost the 2008 Presidential election.

The deadline to email me your entry is Friday, March 21, 2008 at 11:59pm. I will pick the best, most creative answer as the winner. FYI, I am cross-promoting this contest on my other site, Asian-Nation.org, and therefore, you are allowed only one entry on either site.

Good luck!

I’ve posted before about the power of media images in influencing how Americans see people of color, since our society is so visually-oriented and media-centric these days. In that context, does the current television writers’ strike open up new opportunities for a more culturally diverse representation of television images for people of color? My Vietnamese American colleague and well-respected writer himself Andrew Lam thinks so in a recent article at New America Media:

With no writers, an onslaught of reality shows are being scheduled for January. Fox will offer The Moment of Truth, something that mirrors Guantanamo. In it contestants are strapped to a lie detector and asked about their most intimate secrets, without, mercifully, waterboarding.

American Gladiators are also back and that show is self explanatory. Then there’s Oprah’s Big Five, an ABC show sponsored by Oprah Winfrey in which contestants are to give away a lot of money for the greatest benefit of society.

Next season, it seems now certain, will be the beginning of the non-fiction era of Hollywood, where documentary and “real” personalities, rule the airwaves.

Thus minorities, in many ways, should rejoice. People of color gain strong foothold in term of representation in the New Media. Reality TV - American Idol and Survivor top among them – is the programming genre in which real demographic is more fairly integrated.

Consider too: Characters of colors don’t just get on reality TV shows, many actually win them. Jun Song won Big Brother, Vecepita Towery and Yul Kwon won Survivor, Harlemm Lee won Fame, Ruben Studdard and Fantasia Barrino won American Idol.

Asians, traditionally excluded in Hollywood, in fact, are winning quite a bit considering being a small population in the US. Vietnamese alone counted for four. Chloe Dao sewed her way to the top in Project Runway, there’s also Hung Huynh, who won on Top Chef, using fishsauce as the base ingredient. Last Comic Standing got Dat Phan, a Vietnamese American who made fun of, what else, his mother’s accent.

I think Andrew has a point and his listing of the successes of contestants of color on various reality TV shows certainly is undeniable. So on the one hand, I think it’s a very positive development that people of color are apparently becoming more popular and successful on reality TV shows.

On the other hand, I think we as a society still need to address the fundamental problem -- that “mainstream” TV dramas and sitcoms still systematically exclude or marginalize people of color, particularly Asian Americans. The writers’ strike will not last forever, and once it’s resolved, is it just going to be business as usual in terms of writing virtually all-White plots?

I applaud the success of contestants of color on reality TV shows, but I urge our communities not to lose sight of the real battle -- more substantive writing and acting roles for people of color on mainstream TV shows.

I recently got wind of some controversy surrounding Lincoln’s latest ad for their MKX luxury SUV that features Harry Connick Jr. driving through his hometown of New Orleans and talking about its rebuilding efforts. For those who haven’t seen the ad, click on the video clip below.

As expressed by a writer at Ad Age, the controversy centers on the question of whether Ford Motor Company (parent company of Lincoln) is exploiting the tragedy in New Orleans to sell cars and make some money:

[Ford] seems to have persuaded themselves somehow that they are doing something positive -- celebrating the spirit of a city, shedding light on its challenges, recognizing its heroes.

Bullshit. What they are doing is exploiting its victims to advertise luxury SUVs. It is vulgar. It is grotesque. It is disgusting.

And not even remotely surprising. With every catastrophe comes the inevitable sleazy marketing thinly disguised as sympathy, philanthropy, encouragement or public service. We’ve witnessed it in the wake of Oklahoma City, when Makita power tools took out newspaper ads ostensibly to honor the search-and-rescue volunteers but transparently to brag about donated merchandise.

After the Kosovo crisis, Philip Morris spent tens of millions of dollars to produce and air an elaborate spot recreating the refugee exodus, by way of patting itself on the back for airlifting about $150,000 worth of macaroni and cheese.

As an Asian American myself, I am certainly sensitive to cultural exploitation -- as I’ve written about before on my Asian-Nation site, in many cases where elements of traditional Asian culture are used to sell non-Asian products, almost always the traditional cultural meaning gets lost and the element almost always ends up being used as a caricature with little cultural meaning left.

But in other situations, it’s harder to draw the line between sincerity and exploitation. In the case of the Lincoln SUV/New Orleans commercial, my initial reaction was that generally, I did not find it exploitative. It certainly could have become quite exploitative if Lincoln had just shown their SUV driving around New Orleans without any mention or context of what the city has been through.

But in this case, Lincoln used a well-known resident of New Orleans (Harry Connick Jr.) and (I assume) pretty much let him speak freely and honestly about what the city is going through trying to rebuild. Sure, there were some “glamor” shots of its SUV, but I did not find them to be gratuitous or excessive. If anything, I found Visa’s commercial set in New Orleans to be much more blatantly opportunistic.

However, I am not African American nor a resident of New Orleans, so in the end, my personal opinion carries less weight than that of someone who was, and is, directly affected by the devastation that New Orleans endured.

With that in mind, the ultimate judgment about whether this Lincoln commercial is exploitative really belongs to those who are there in the city itself and who have been directly affected by its struggles. We need to hear more from them.

You might recall that next year, the Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China. Ever since Beijing was selected as the host city, there have been a storm of outcry and controversy regarding its appropriateness, given international criticism about internal human rights abuses and individual liberty restrictions, its continuing occupation of Tibet, accelerating environmental degradation, and implicit support of totalitarian regimes such as Sudan, to name the main issues.

Nonetheless, with the 2008 Olympics fast approaching, China’s critics are preparing to use the Games to amplify their criticisms against China. However, since the Olympic Games also represent a major corporate sponsorship opportunity for many U.S. companies, many of whom stand to be judged guilty by association if they have any involvement in the Games. As BusinessWeek magazine reports, these companies are seemingly caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place:

[M]ost sponsors are counting on a high-profile presence in Beijing to build their brands in the mainland and win favor among Chinese consumers and officials alike. . . . [At the same time,] says Matt Whitticase, press officer with The Free Tibet Campaign, which opposes Chinese rule in Tibet: “You cannot as a large multinational trumpet your corporate responsibility credentials, while at the same time indulging China and refusing to criticize it.” . . . .

To deflect criticism, most sponsors seem to be following a three-pronged strategy: They stress the global nature of the Games, point to other charitable work, and show concern for the activists’ causes without directly mentioning Beijing. Companies are likely to “express their commitment to human rights in ways that don’t clearly embarrass their Chinese hosts,” says Shireman of Future 500. . . .

McDonald’s says the Olympics are not the right forum for discussing Darfur. GE notes that its foundation has given $2 million to fund humanitarian efforts in Sudan. United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) highlights its work in aiding the poor worldwide. . . . Adidas says it is open to dialogue with activists. But rather than lean on the Chinese government, the maker of athletic shoes prefers to spur change by pressuring its suppliers, “where we have direct influence,” says Frank Henke, Adidas’ global director for social and environmental affairs.

Some time ago, I wrote about the controversy surrounding Internet search giants such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft censoring their search results for users in China, in accordance with the Chinese government’s restrictions. In that post, I said that it was rather hypocritical for companies, particularly Google and its corporate-wide credo of “Don’t Be Evil,” to turn around and ignore these principles of free speech by helping the Chinese government with their censorship activities.

In this case with Olympics sponsors, there is no such contradiction -- these multinational corporations have no corporate credo about not doing evil, promoting free speech, or any other idealistic principle about furthering the human community. Instead, their own credo is maximum profits and maximum returns for their shareholders. Therefore, I am not surprised at all to hear that apparently, the vast majority of them consider activist protests against their participation in the Chinese Olympics as a mere public relations nuisance.

On the other hand, with the power of the Internet and its ability to facilitate communication and coordination of activism, these corporations may be in for a rude awakening if calls for boycotts and other actions against them reach a critical mass, due to their implicit support of Chinese repression. We’ve seen it before -- General Electric leaving the defense contractor business, Nike paying more attention to working conditions in their overseas factories, companies divesting from Sudan, campaigns to get colleges to stop doing business with Coke, etc.

Public revolts against oppression -- and those implicitly supporting oppression -- are real and in many cases, are effective. That’s the bottom line that these corporations might need to pay more attention to.

As you probably know, Blacks dominate the sport of professional basketball. At the same time, have you also noticed that most of the referees in the National Basketball Association (NBA) are White? Does this racial disparity between the players and the referees constitute a potential for bias? As reported by the New York Times, the answer seems to be yes, as a new study concludes that White referees are more likely to call fouls on Black players than White players:

[The study’s authors] found a corresponding bias in which black officials called fouls more frequently against white players, though that tendency was not as strong. They went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”

N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern said in a telephone interview that the league saw a draft copy of the paper last year, and was moved to do its own study this March using its own database of foul calls, which specifies which official called which foul. “We think our cut at the data is more powerful, more robust, and demonstrates that there is no bias,” Mr. Stern said.

Three independent experts asked by The Times to examine the Wolfers-Price paper and materials released by the N.B.A. said they considered the Wolfers-Price argument far more sound. . . . Both [authors] cautioned that the racial discrimination they claim to have found should be interpreted in the context of bias found in other parts of American society. “There’s bias on the basketball court,” Mr. Wolfers said, “but less than when you’re trying to hail a cab at midnight.”

As the study’s authors note, this situation appears to be another example of art (or more specifically in this case, sports) imitating life -- racial biases and discrimination still exist against people of color, particularly Blacks, in many aspects of American society. Need more proof of that? How about the recent news that Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Barak Obama will now receive Secret Service protection -- the first Presidential candidate to do so -- out of fear of a racially-motivated attack against him.

Therefore, in this context, it’s not entirely shocking to hear that it apparently also exists in the sport of professional basketball, even despite the fact that the sport is dominated by popular, celebrity Black athletes who make millions of dollars a year.

The Don Imus incident seems to having a ripple effect for the benefit of people of color in general, and as CBS News reports, for Asian Americans in one particular case, as two White radio show hosts have been suspended indefinitely after making anti-Asian and anti-Chinese remarks on the air:

The hosts of the daily morning show, WFNY-FM’s “The Dog House With JV and Elvis,” have been suspended indefinitely without pay. . . . Local chapters of the Organization of Chinese Americans, an advocacy group, released a statement Sunday protesting the segment. By Monday, California State Sen. Leland Yee and others joined the campaign.

In the segment, broadcast on April 5 and again last week, a caller to a Chinese restaurant intersperses an order for takeout with lewd language and racial slurs. The caller tells one female employee he wants to come to the restaurant to see her naked and refers to a part of her body as “hot, Asian, spicy.”

The caller attempts to order “shrimp flied lice” and refers to a male employee as “Chinese man” before claiming himself to be a student of kung fu. At one point he refers to a part of the employee’s body as a “tiny egg roll.”

Kudos to all those who fought to make these radio hosts accountable for their racist actions. It would indeed have been a double standard if people had they not been punished after what happened to Don Imus. Ignorance and racism is the same, regardless of who it’s directed at.

Let this also be a lesson to public personalities out there that Asian Americans are no longer easy targets -- we will fight back and we will demand justice!

—————————————————————————————————--

Update: The Associated Press reports that on May 14, CBS announced that the “Dog House with JV and Elvis” show has been officially canceled, although there is no official word whether the two deejays still work for CBS. Kudos to CBS for doing the right thing in canceling the show, but there’s still one last step: fire the deejays.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the controversy regarding radio talk show host Don Imus’s recent comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, in which he called the student-athletes “nappy-headed hos.” Imus has a history of making controversial and even racist comments and surviving, but as many observers point out, he finally crossed the line this time.

As you’ve also probably seen, the outrage and backlash against Imus has been significant. He’s been suspended for two weeks and several of his show’s advertisers have pulled out. It goes without saying that I join the overwhelming chorus of those who condemn his comments as profoundly offensive and blatantly racist.

His comments clearly expose the racial differences involved as a White male making racist comments toward Black women. Despite his apologies and the fact that he runs a ranch for disadvantaged children (many of whom are of color), I absolutely agree that he deserves every bit of the criticism he’s received and needs to be fired, immediately.

The point of my post here however, is to try to place this incident in the larger context of American race relations. Specifically, in the wake of this entire controversy, I find myself asking, “Where was the overwhelming national collective outrage when Asian Americans were the targets of racist comments by various radio personalities?”

As detailed on the pages of sites like AsianMediaWatch.org, in the last few years, there have been several incidents in which radio talk show personalities have made equally offensive and racist comments about Asian Americans. Some examples:

• December 2004: Star (aka Troi Terrain) of Philadelphia’s Power 99 WUSL morning radio show yelled to an call center work in India, “Listen to me, you dirty rat eater. I’ll come out there and choke the ‘F’ out of you. You’re a filthy rat eater.”
• January 2005: hosts of the ‘Miss Jones in the Morning’ show sang a ‘Tsunami Song’ which mocked the victims of the South Asian tsunami, using racist terms such as “chink” and “Chinamen,” and called the drowning victims “bitches.”
• April 2005: Craig Carton and Ray Rossi (the “Jersey Guys” of New Jersey 101.5 FM) made racist comments and characterizations of Arab Americans and Asian Americans, calling them “Damn Orientals and Indians” and speaking in “ching chong” gibberish.
• January 2006: Adam Corolla made disparaging “ching chong” comments against Asians on his show and disparaged the Asian Excellence Awards.

To be fair, in most of these instances, due to pressure from Asian Americans and other community organizations and activists, the guilty parties did issue apologies and in the case of Troi Terrain, he was fired from his job. But to the best of my knowledge, none of these incidents attracted nearly the same level of overwhelming national, collective outrage as we’re seeing regarding Imus’s comments.

In other words, it was almost exclusively due to the outrage and work of Asian Americans that we were able to receive some justice in these cases -- we received very little, if any, help from the mainstream media or American society in general. So my question is -- is that fair?

Before I go further, I want to make it clear that I am not interested in perpetuating some sort of “Oppression Olympics” in which groups of color compete with each other in pointing out that historically, they’ve been more oppressed and institutionally victimized than other groups and that therefore racist incidents perpetrated against them are more important or significant.

Instead, my point is that I hope incidents like this remind us all that whenever we encounter racism that we should feel compelled to attack it, regardless of what racial group we identify with and/or to what racial group the offense is directed. This also applies to the mainstream media -- they need to keep in mind that racism happens to all groups of color. In other words, in the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”