...enscriptCHUN.

Friday, April 14, 2006

racism, commercialization, Easter

The Babylon-ificaton of Easter and other Christian holidays continues.

The original full story, courtesy of AngryAsianMan:

Woman Wants Easter Cards Pulled From Store Shelves
Joni Low Says Cards Are Offensive

SAN DIEGO -- Some members of San Diego's Asian community think two Easter greetings recently sold at Target are offensive, so they are demanding the cards be pulled from store shelves.

And as of Wednesday night that demand is being heard loud and clear.

"The first thing that stands out is the rabbit with buck teeth, slanted eyes and a Chinese outfit," said Joni Low.

Low is highly upset with two Easter greeting cards recently sold at Target stores.

One card reads an "Easter Haiku -- He Hops By Each Spring. He Leaves Us Eggs He Painted. It's A Cry For Help."

Low, who is the executive director of the San Diego Asian Business Association, is calling for cultural understanding.

"It's entitled an Easter Haiku. Haiku is a Japanese poetry, so to begin they are mixing Chinese and Japanese," said Low.

And there's more that has Low upset.

"Then when you open the card up, it says 'Hoppy Easter,' which is another derogatory phrase," said Low.

Target pulled the controversial material made by Carlton Cards and apologized after Low and other Asian groups voiced their concerns.

Target shoppers told 10News what they thought about the cards.

"I think it's cute. Kids would love it," said one shopper.

"It's disturbing because it doesn't make me happy on Easter," said another shopper.

In 2002 Abercrombie and Fitch was accused of selling a racially insensitive tee-shirt.

The shirt showed two Chinese men wearing rice hats with the caption "Two Wongs Don't Make A White."

Low said if things don't change, it's time for what she called the usually mild-mannered Asian community to send a stronger message.

"Boycott the store that sells them -- boycott the company that makes them," said Low.

Nothing celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ like a buck-toothed, slant-eyed rabbit dressed in "Chinaman clothes" with a Japanese haiku about painted eggs, eh? That's right, here in America, the commercialized celebration of a religious holiday is carte blanche to make fun of two different Asian cultures, because hey, all those Godless yellow folks are the same!

Whatever.

Luckily, after several Asian American groups wrote to Target to express their displeasure, the cards were pulled. Still, how'd crap like that reach the shelves in the first place? You'd think after the Ambercrappy & (Pieceof)Fitch, companies would be smarter.

.:.

Good Friday

Despite the idiocy, I'm determined to meditate on the holiday. I hope everybody of the faith out there is able to do the same.

A familiar verse...

"He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.

But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.

All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.

By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?"

-Isaiah 53:3-8

posted by G at 4:16 PM |