Think all “Asians get along?” Nuh-uh! Jeff Probst of American TV’s “Survivor” proves yet again that Americans can be mo-rons regarding some pretty basic geo-political information.
Asians, he explained, include Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and “they don’t necessarily get along,” adding, “This is stuff maybe I should know.”
20 Comments
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/54179
Does this mean that anti-American folks here will stop calling me “Yankee?”
OK, it has only happened twice to my face (and by the same guy who I randomly bumped into five years apart) but that is two times too many.
I am NOT a Yankee.
What I do not get is how the hell did this not cross the shows producers mind at the begining. I mean why the hell didn’t they listen to that fresh Chinese UCLA grad production assistant who said “you know we are not just ‘asian’”. The show is failing the stupidity test, and I hope it gets canceled soon.
Andy > Yes we all know about you, moonshine, and your cousin/sister.
Now there’s race controversy in Survivor, Probst likes to say he is “a white guy from Kansas,” a state remarkably free from a large Asian-American population — at least it was when I was growing up in Missouri. But in actuality he grew up in Seattle and graduated from Seattle Pacific University. Probst hosted the Ernst Home Center fixit show on KIRO-TV Channel 7 before gettin’ hisself to a larger TV market. There are not a few Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants in Seattle.
Seattle’s local Asian-American students’ clubs at SPU and University of Washington are all about the pan-Asian (or AZN, aZiAn, or however they’re spelling it on MySpace these days) identity, because it’s the White Man who is keeping them down in America. (You know, the kind of horrible oppression whose victims tragically end up as prosecutors, law firm partners, accountants, doctors, fund managers, investment bankers and engineers.) I can see how Seattle might have warped his view of the world; they get everything else wrong up there too.
Geez, I must be way behind the times. I sometimes call my American friends ‘Yankees’ or Yanks as a form of endearment. I didn’t realize it was actually offensive to some (I have heard that it could be, but nobody I’ve said it to complained). Being strongly pro-American, I always thought that my using it would be seen in a positive light by my ‘Yankee’ friends (none of whom are from the South).
Another one is Oriental. I know it’s not used much anymore and is considered politically incorrect, but I can’t see that Asian is much of a replacement. After all, Asian can mean anyone from the Middle East to Japan. Not very useful when you might mean people from East Asia, though I know there’s a mix all through SE Asia. Mind you, maybe Asians don’t mind being lumped into the all-purpose label under Asian, just as I have no problem being lumped under ‘white’.
I didn’t read anything terribly offensive from him. What did he say that was so bad? Koreans seem to think that White people are all American so turn it back on them. You are taking quotes out of context and twisting them to fit your agenda which, really, is just copied from some other blog. Get an angle.
I think way too much is being made out of all of this… Caucasians don’t expect other races to be experts about their heritage or history. So, why should non-Asians be experts about Asian history or heritage? GMAFB.
Go any where in the world with a relatively homogeneous population, and you would observe very similar statements to be made about other races, that are just as insensitive, or just plain silly.
–Remort
what’s the deal here?
I’m European, you’re American and they’re Asian.
Since when that become offensive?
Remort and Joel,
We’ll have none of your sound commonsense. It is, afterall, a Shelton post.
MrMao,
That goes for you too, dammit!
There’s a saying: The only thing dumber than a fan of Survivor are the people playing it.
I dont understand the media outcry over this show.
1. First of all this is one of those “Reality” show. We’re talking about a bunch of adults dressed in swimsuits in a tropical place doing who the hell knows what.
2. OK, so they have teams grouped into Black, White, Hispanic and Asian, competing against each other. This is racist? In REAL life, the same thing happens pretty much. Walk into any university cafeteria and what do you see? Blacks sitting with Blacks, Asians with Asians, Whites with Whites, Jews with Jews. You see this pattern more or less in the corporate world as well. In the real world, same damn thing. Even middle class Blacks who earn decently money often prefer to reside in places like Harlem. The middle class whites prefer to live in their gated communities in outer whitelandia. If a white guy happens to be in a place like Harlem, he has this look on his face like he might get jumped, gangbanged, and raped.
You mean you never heard of the asian ghetto in Abilene?
Seriously speaking, I remeber from my days in LA hearing how the largest population of Veitnamese out side of Veitnam and California is Arkansas.
“When you start talking to a person from Asia, you realize — Wow! They have all different backgrounds!”
This kind of reminds me of a time when I was in high school and there was a kid whom I thought spoke with a Russian accent. So I thought he was Russian. So when I asked him about it he got kinda offended and said “no, I’m Ukrainian.” So I came to realize that when people who seem like they’re Russian but have last names that end with a “-ko” like “Metuchenko”, they’re most likely Ukrainian.
Having lived in NYC all my life, I’ve become expert at determining a person’s nationality based upon subtle clues like accent, appearance, names, etc. I can tell an American Black apart from, say, someone from Trinidad. I know the difference between Puerto Rican and other Hispanics. I can tell a white Jew from other whites. I can even spot the difference between an Ashkenazic Jew and a Sephardic Jew, and someone from Israel. But sometimes I cant tell the difference between an Israeli and a Hispanic.
I’ve always had a good grasp on geography because when I was little my mother gave me a globe for a present and I used to spend hours staring at the globe.
At work I have three co-workers whom everyone else uniformly refer to as “the Russians”. But actually, Sergey is from Belerus, Dmitry is from Latvia, and Leonid is from the Ukraine. When I pointed out this distinction to my colleagues, Dmitry was aghast. “How do you know this?”, he demanded. I said I simply do. He said, “but you went to public schools in NYC….that is impossible.”
where is “outer whitelandia”?
racial stratification is one American television’s specialties and Probst spouting his ignorance of Asia, the continent or its people, is just typical of how much most Americans really know (or care to know) about the world.
none of this is news worthy, except that it lets everyone who didn’t get caught saying things like this in public appear more informed as they laugh and feign dismay at the Survivor Guy.
Looking forward to this season’s “Survivor”. Expect outcries about the “racial bias” of the contests. Maybe we can get a gyopo to pull a 67-minute sit-in protest ala ‘88 Olympics. Add the potential for intra-group conflict, such a Japanese vs. Koreans, Cubans vs. Mexicans, Jamaicans vs. African-Americans and…ummm…errr…Norwegians vs. Swedes (guessing ’bout whitey), and you’ve got compelling TV. Could be like the aftermath of the OJ trial, only better.
Norway Team Fighting!
bluejives> ok, you’re unbeatable in geography & identifying nationalities, but if you want to appear a bit more serious, please refer to Ukraine as Ukraine, not THE Ukraine. unless you usually refer to The Korea, The France, etc…
but hey, everybody’s making this kind of mistake. when I moved from france to japan a few years ago, some of my closest friends (educated) asked me if it was not too difficult to speak chinese…
also, I’m always surprised koreans refers to my Ukrainian friend as being Russian. Even after I repeat “Ukrainian”, they insist “it’s the same”. At that time dropping a good old “yes, it’s like you, you’re japanese !” is the best way to make my point (or drive the guy into frenzy, but I’ve been lucky enough to meet relatively smart fellows so far).
The population of Latvia is heavily ethnic Russian. It’s quite possible that a person from Latvia having the ethnic Russian name “Dmitriy” is, in fact, ethnically Russian.
“The Ukraine” (like The Netherlands) is fine, although just Ukraine is becoming increasingly common. It is certainly nothing to get angry or insulting about.
BTW, have they done a survivor with different regions?
sorry, didn’t mean to appear insulting (you believe “if you want to appear a bit more serious” to be insulting ?!), and I’m definitly not getting angry over such a topic
the dropping of the “the” is an heritage of the independance of Ukraine, and it’s important to a lot of people from the region.
it was just an example of how things can appear not important to certain people while hurting the sensibility of others.
we foreigners in Korea know how not to hurt the sensibility of our hosts by saying “east sea”. most of the rest of the world doesn’t know (or care), and most probably will call it otherwise. not a problem at all unless they brag about being geographic & ethnic experts, which explains my FRIENDLY comment to bluejives.
apart from this, I find all this (confusing ethnies , nationalities, countries) more amusing than really annoying. I’m a bit more concerned however when officials of my country make embarrassing comments of the like (happened numerous times in the not so distant past)