Phil blogs about Chicago Cubs fans buying racist themed t-shirts to “celebrate” their first Japanese player, Kosuke Fukudome:
As you can see above, on the front of the shirt is the traditional Cubs cartoon bear face but with slanted eyes and wearing oversized Harry Caray-sized glasses. It’s accompanied by the words “Horry Cow” in cartoonish “Japanese” script. (The late Caray was the Cubs’ longtime announcer, and among his catchphrases was, “Holy cow!”) Fukudome’s name and number are on the back.
Great. I don’t know what’s worse—the fact that somebody (who is apparently “an Oriental guy”) made this shirt, or that it’s so damn popular amongst Chicago fans. What a way to welcome the franchise’s first Japanese player. That’s racist!
Apparently those shirts got pulled pretty quickly. Amazing that something like that can still slip by these days.
A couple of additional points:
1) The oversized thick-framed black glasses were also a Harry Carey trademark.
2) The Cubs had nothing to do with the production or sale of this shirt; the vendor was using the Cubs’ logo without licensing it, which is how the Cubs were able to get their sale stopped. Had the vendor not been using the Cubs’ logo, there would have been nothing the ball club could have done about it.
As a Chicagoian (granted, not one that cares about baseball, but still) I am completely embarassed. I do remember last fall hearing about the new player- the people were pronoucing the name so it sounds sexual, but since I hate sports I am just not sure what it is pronounced like actually- and being irritated because I thought they were making it up.
The shirt really is obnoxious.
Hey … I can’t speak for Japanese or other Asian folks, but is the post title here problematic?
I live not too far from the Cubs’ ballpark. Yeah, the shirt’s been yanked, thankfully. If I see someone wearing one, though, you can bet I’ll say something. I’m hoping the public keruffle raised by this will enlighten any idiots who happened to buy one. (I know, I know.) And the player’s name is pronounced KOE-skay foo-koo-DOE-may.
Asian person here.
Yeah, I’d *really* rather not see the original slur repeated as the title of this post. Wow.
JenLovesPonies –
A Chicagoan who doesn’t like baseball? What are you, a Communist? ;-)
For those of you who are non-Chicagoans, the City of Chicago is one of only two American cities that has two major league baseball teams that both play within the city’s borders; and, unlike New York, where the Mets were an expansion team that started in the 1970’s, both the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox were charter members of their leagues and have been around 100 years or more.
There is a rivalry for the affections of Chicagoans. If you live on the North Side or northern suburbs, you are presumed to be a Cubs fan. If you live on the South Side or southern suburbs, you are presumed to be a Sox fan. Cubs fans are stereotyped as yuppies or professionals, Sox fans are stereotyped as working class. The annual series between the two teams during the season is greatly hyped, and the tickets are hard to come by. Currently the White Sox hold bragging rights over the Cubs due to the former having won the World Series in 2005, while the Cubs are observing their 100th season without having won the World Series this year.
I’ve emailed and asked Jack to weigh in, but meanwhile I’ve edited the title of the post.
Although Jack is of course free to disagree, in my opinion the title of this post, and of a previous post, was a bad mistake. I apologize to all “Alas” readers, but especially to Asian readers.
Oh, and I should point out Resist Racism’s post on this topic.
Isn’t it an imitation of Angry Asian Man’s style?
It’s an excerpt, the author linked AAM.
I am embarrased as a Chicagoian too. Not only cause the shirt is obviously racist. They have the wrong race, Fukodome is Japanese not Chinese. The shirt looks more like a parody of Chinese culture. As I’ve heard from some Asian people, one of the things they find frustrating is we can’t tell a Chinese person from a Japanese person. Like, we just figure “Oh they’re all just Asian” of course, unless it comes to ordering take out.
If the person was smart they’d have talked to someone familiar with Japanese culture, or at the very least had a rote familarity with Anime. They could’ve come up with something really cute & funny, like a Chibi (small & cute) version of Fukodome hitting the baseball, then flailling his arms excitedly running past the bases, like characters do when they’re excited in Anime. I don’t know if that would be too much as well. At least it reflects some reasonably accepted aspect of Japanese culture & humor though.
Amp, thanks for changing the title. I found the original title, as well as the previous post title pointed out at Resist Racism, to be, yes, incredibly racist. Snickering at stereotypical Asian accents? Really? Unfortunately, these titles have forced me re-think my view of this blog, its authors and its commenting community.
Kai, I don’t know if you’re Asian or not; if you are, I don’t want to tell you what or what not to get offended at. But as for myself, I assumed it was pulled off AAM because “That’s racist!” is something of a tongue-in-cheek catchphrase there. You’ll find no anti-Asian racism here.
sylphhead,
Did you see the original post title here? The title at AAM was “Welcome to Chicago, Fukudome.”
Can’t speak for the Angry Asian Man, but to me the tagline “That’s racist!” does not sound like he’s fooling around.
To clear up some confusion, I should mention that the original title of this post was “Horry Kow That’s Racist!”
Kai, I think the titles of these two posts were racist, just as you say.
That’s just my opinion — I can’t speak for Jack. But for me, I’m sorry. I’m grateful to Resist Racism for pointing it out, and I’ll try to do better in the future.
sylphhead, yes I’m familiar with Angry Asian Man’s catchphrase (which isn’t tongue-in-cheek, by the way); in fact I appeared on an Asian American panel with Phil Yu a couple of weeks ago, following up on our meeting last year. Despite Mandolin’s question in comment #10, he would never employ a mock-stereotypical-accent in a post title, or just at all, actually (aside from quoting), because That’s racist! And then there’s Jackie in comment #12 calling the image in question “a parody of Chinese culture”, which just baffles me. So yeah, all of this is not exactly generating an Asian-friendly vibe here, despite your confident assertion to the contrary.
Amp, thanks for the apology. I hope you see where I’m coming from. I’m sure it’s all been well-intentioned but I was rather stunned by the lack of consciousness on this front.
I suppose I was asking for it with my glibness. Here’s an excerpt from the AAM site:
Essentially, that’s what I was trying to get across, although now I know better than to express it using whatever adjectives are floating around in my mind. :)
In any case, I’m Korean and definitely no self-hater; quite the contrary.
I skimmed the other comments on my first post, but going through it again, yes, the “parody of Chinese culture” comment is just a confusing choice of words. Jackie, if you’re reading this, I know your intentions were good, but calling an image of yellowface with slit eyes, buck teeth, and coke-bottle glasses a “parody” implicitly lends it a political legitimacy it doesn’t deserve. Is an image of a Jewish man with a bag of money in one hand and killing Jesus with the other a “parody of Jewish culture”, or an image of a gay man with a little boy a “parody of gay culture”?
Kai wrote:
I’m pretty sure Mandolin saw the title after I had deleted the mock-stereotypical-accent from it; so she just saw the title as “That’s Racist!,” and was confused about why it was being called out.
And Kai, I think I do see where you’re coming from. I can’t promise that I’ll never screw up again, but I believe I won’t make this particular screw-up again.
Sorry for not posting this earlier. I never read the comment thread until now nor did I receive Barry’s e-mail (not sure why).
I sincerely apologize for that racist title. Kai made some great points in pointing out that reusing the racist slogan from those shirts in Chicago was, in itself, racist and hurtful and I apologize profusely for that error and for the title post. I essentially was playing off of the title on the shirt and on Phil’s catch phrase but it ended up being racist (not coming off as racist, but simply racist). And again, I apologize.
I’d like to thank Barry for pointing this out in another e-mail (in where he mentioned the previous e-mail that never got to me) and to Tom Autopref for originally pointing it out and for Kai as well.
As a white male I am obviously unaware, no matter how hard I try, of certain aspects of racism within this country, even if I try to be anti-racist there is no such thing as erasing one’s white privielge and raicsm and therefore anti-racist allies can still be racist despite striving to be anti-racist. So I again thank Kai and Tom for pointing this out to me and for Kai in making his very apt commentary on the racism of my title.
Just finished posting a blog post on my blog about this incident
http://mustardseedblog.com/2008/05/06/on-being-an-ally-admitting-when-youre-wrong/
Pingback: Hory cow | Kaokaokao