Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Racism vs. Racism vs. Autotune

If there's one thing that social media really excels at, it's allowing people to sink to their own level.



Witness the anti-Asian rant of a rather obnoxious UCLA student, which she decided to SHARE WITH THE WORLD:



Why, you might ask, would she do this? When I visited LA, many years ago, a bus driver jokingly referred to UCLA as standing for "University of Caucasians lost among Asians". As in many parts of the USA, I guess the white angst about newcomers who are not like them is a common issue.

Not to the university admin, however, who called the video "repugnant".

Ironically, one guy in the school's Asian community responded with not only his own brand of racism, but sexism thrown in for good measure:



(Note that both of these are mirror posts. The originals were removed from YouTube as "hate speech".)

Is this kind of vengeance justified? It never really is.

THIS is how you get revenge on social media:



Make laughs, not war. By ridiculing the original ignorance in a genuinely amusing and creative way, you take the high road. And this she deserved.

For the record, she has since released this statement:

"Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I’d like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand."
UPDATE: Taiwan's NMA TV, famous for its whimsical computer animations of news events, has joined the fray:

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