Martin Bashir’s comments about “Asian babes”
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I saw this on AAM. It’s about Martin Bashir’s comments at the Asian American Journalists Association’s annual banquet. It says:
The London-born presenter, who moved to the US four years ago, said: “I’m happy to be in the midst of so many Asian babes. In fact, I’m happy that the podium covers me from the waist down.”
Bashir, 45, also managed to embarrass fellow presenter Juju Chang by saying a speech should be “like a dress on a beautiful woman - long enough to cover the important parts and short enough to keep your interest - like my colleague Juju’s.”
I’m out of rice chaser jokes, but I will say is that I saw this story on the relatively fringe website Angry Asian Man, and the story somehow missed the prominent areas of the NY Times, CNN, and BBC. You would think that in a room full of professionals who make their living by being taken seriously for their minds rather than their bodies that there would be a bit of an outcry over this. I’m wondering where all the Asian American journalists were that day.
I know that there are politics that your average journalist doesn’t control, and perhaps to a certain degree, this isn’t anything nearly as serious as say, the beating death of Vincent Chin, but one would think that there would be a bit more outcry at such a statement made at the annual banquet of the largest Asian American journalist organization in the country.
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nightshade
12:55 am | Aug 06, 2008I’d say that what he say constitutes sexual harassment (totes poor taste) but I wouldn’t link it to rice chasing, etc. Why? Because dude is Asian. He’s of Pakistani descent.
Also, this was covered in The Guardian, England’s leftist newspaper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/05/television?gusrc=rss&feed=media
bizzle
10:47 am | Aug 06, 2008thats harsh to label him a rice chaser… I mean have we voted out of being “Asian”? He is of Pakistani descent and born in London… He grew up being called asian… believe that in UK Indians and Pakistanis are more often reffered to as asian than chinese, japanese, and korean. Definitions and generalizations differ… I think the AA definition of asian generally means “chinese, japanese, korean….” but AA don’t automatically think of including Indians Pakistanis and Afghanis.
Yeah it probably wasn’t too classy of him to say it.. but I think it is more of a internal “Asian American” thing. I don’t feel he is a rice chaser.. maybe a Chinese chaser…
THX1138
1:20 pm | Aug 06, 2008Is Martin Bashir the same “journalist” that made his name asking Michael Jackson about his genitals and what he does with little boys at the Neverland Ranch?
Bashir is a celebrity tabloid hack. Apparently, his comments are what pass for humor in tabloid-obsessed Britain.
SamuraiJack
2:53 pm | Aug 06, 2008You guys are all on crack. Who cares if we’re both “Asian”? It’s just a damn word. Physically, except for hair colour, brown people and Oriental people share nothing in common. “Rice chasing” is about looking for certain physical attributes that identify a person as “Oriental”.
It’s unclear if he’s a “rice” chaser or not, he was just reinforcing the same tired sexual stereotypes of Asian women. If he were speaking to an audience of white professionals, I seriously doubt he would utter a comment about “white women”. The white guys would lynch him on the spot. The Asian reaction was pretty tame, as usual, as it seems AAs have accepted their stereotyped roles in society.
evil_FUX
4:22 pm | Aug 06, 2008Why the hell is this even post worthy on here or AAM? I got nothing offensive from the article other than the fact that the other journalists were pissed Bashir didn’t act more professionally, and that he’s likely a horny bastard. I fail to see how it reinforces sexual stereotypes of Asian women. It’s not like he said, “I’m so happy to be in the midst of so many Asian babes. I’m glad this podium covers me from the waist down or you’d see one of your sistas doing what she’s known for.”
No, his comment was fairly general in wording such that if he was speaking at a black journalism association banquet he could’ve easily replaced “Asian babes” with “black babes”
jaehwan
11:37 pm | Aug 06, 2008I have to agree with SJ. Just because “Asian” can describe a continent doesn’t mean that that is what we’re discussing. Obviously the stereotypes of East/Southeast Asians and South Asians are entirely different. If they had put Harold in place of Kumar for the terrorist jokes, it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny. It’s because the stereotypes are different.
In this case, Bashir went back to a specifically East Asian/Southeast Asian stereotype. All minority women are sexualized, but Asian women deal with it more than all others. Bashir wasn’t talking about South Asian women; he was talking about what Americans usually refer to as “Asian.”
FUX,
Regardless of race, it’s generally considered sexist for a man to mention or reference his sexual organs in front of female acquaintances or strangers. It would’ve been bad regardless of whom he was addressing. It also would’ve been bad if he had said it in front of black women, but he didn’t. Do you think this is a coincidence? Something that many Asian women complain about is being sexualized. The context makes it offensive.
This is my opinion, anyway.
Candide
12:59 am | Aug 07, 2008Maybe they all waited until they went home and blogged about it. :P
evil_FUX
1:32 am | Aug 07, 2008Well then that just goes back to the point that Bashir acted unprofessionally in trying to crack a joke. To a degree, it could very well be just a coincidence. I mean we know nothing about this guy’s personal life or beliefs; in the end he very well might just be a horny bastard that decided to lighten his speech up with a joke he thought would be funny.
As for the context, it can be both ways can’t it? There’s nothing so clear cut in his wording that indicates he would be linking such a meme with his joke unless you were looking for it. Plus, shit there are some women that take offense to being sexualized too. If he didn’t direct that second joke about the comparison between a speech and a dress at Juju Chang, would you be up in arms?
lingyai
3:15 am | Aug 07, 2008I agree with THX1138, Bashir is a hack, especially that MJ piece, he didn’t guve a shit about any kids, he just wanted to acted concerned and create a BS controversy.
Kuroyama
3:55 am | Aug 07, 2008Im certainly NOT here to defend the sexism of his comments, but growing up having to contend with “Who is Black and who is not”, or worse “Are you more or less Black than…?” really really sucked ass. Now that Im a grown man I dont deal with that… not really… living in Japan I only have to contend with some people of African national descent that dont care to interact with Black Americans… But there could be a number of reasons for that…
The point Ive strayed from is that it would also really really suck if people of differing Asian descent also got into “Who is Asian and who is not”, or worse “Are you more or less Asian than…?”
jaehwan
10:13 am | Aug 07, 2008FUX,
Coincidence or not, it’s still in poor taste given the demographics of whom he was addressing. If he had made jokes about liking fried chicken or black guys chasing white women in front of an African American group–and there’s nothing wrong with liking fried chicken or black guys going after white women per se–it would’ve been just as tasteless. It’s all about context.
I’m not up in arms, nor do I think AAM is up in arms. As I mentioned, it’s not as serious as Vincent Chin. I’m just saying I’m surprised more people didn’t say something about what to me seems an ignorant comment given the history that Asian women have in dealing with sexualized stereotypes.
Kuro,
I’m sure you can appreciate the idea that Asian American issues and African American issues are not the same. Saying that you’re talking about race and not continents isn’t divisive in my opinion; it’s constructive. It better defines what you’re discussing so that people understand the issues better.
jaehwan
10:17 am | Aug 07, 2008I wanted to add to my statement: “It better defines what you’re discussing so that people understand the issues better.” There are obviously two sides to this issue, but it’s clearly an important issue since people debate it so much.
jaehwan
5:45 pm | Aug 07, 2008By the way, I just saw this. It’s actually much worse than I originally thought:
evil_FUX
6:19 pm | Aug 07, 2008But can you really call him on that Jaehwan? Like I said before, it looks like the context could cut both ways. The only thing absent from tipping it either way is Bashir’s own personal beliefs or comments.
I mean if you have video of how Bashir said it or similar that may indicate his beliefs, then I might agree with you.
But absent of that, you can’t really say much and you’d be doing what we rag on the crazies for whenever they see an AF walking with a white dude or appearing on TV.
As for saying Bashir saying something ignorant in general, absent his beliefs, is enough can you really claim that? What exactly separates his comment from an unprofessional joke to it being a comment linking the hypersexualization of AFs? Did he reference dragon ladies, china dolls, submissiveness, geishas? Is his comment even really referencing any kind of hypersexuality?
If anything it looks like his comment just links the women in that room and his opinion of sexiness (as well as being a horny bastard), and if that’s enough Jaehwan then you might as well call out any man for finding any woman sexy.
nightshade
6:30 pm | Aug 07, 2008OK, let me refine my first statement. I was not excusing him for being a jackass because he’s Asian.
The shit that Bashir said is sexist. He’s a giant pig.
But there is no basis to say that what he said is racist in nature as well.
minorTruths
10:00 pm | Aug 07, 2008I don’t have much to add here. Except that whenever I saw this guy on tv doing his news reports, I never got the sense that he was a very genuine person. I know that news reporting is suppose to be objective and all, but he never came across right to me.
How hard can it be to genuine and a horny bastard at the same time? Are there no more genuine, horny bastards in the world today? I’m serious.
jaehwan
1:55 am | Aug 08, 2008I’d agree with Shades–it’s sexist, not racist. When I think racist, I think of someone trying to viciously hurt someone out of hatred, or I think of someone abusing institutional power. In this case, there’s power, but it’s due more to gender issues than racial issues.
That being said, it’s still sexist against Asian women but the sexism is exacerbated by race.
Oh, one Asian female journalist did speak out.
FUX
I think I can call him on that. I don’t know what his thoughts are, and I have no idea whether he’s prejudiced or not. But to make a statement like that in public, knowing the stereotypes that Asian women face (see the article I linked above), is offensive on a sexual level. I find it hard to believe that a guy like Bashir who has been around the world many times, who is one of the most prominent broadcast journalists in the world, and who certainly has met Asian people before, did not know the significance of what he said. Remember, he specifically mentioned “Asian babes.”
A couple years ago, a politician addressing American Indians got in trouble by saying “the natives are restless.” A little while before that, a white politician got in trouble for addressing African Americans and using the word “niggardly.” These all could be perfectly innocent, but these people ought to know their audience, and I think it’s perfectly acceptable to hold an experienced newscaster like Bashir to that standard. I won’t call him a racist, but I will say that his sexism is exacerbated by the racial dynamics, which I’m sure he understands.
evil_FUX
3:42 am | Aug 08, 2008Fair enough jaehwan, I guess it’s just new to me that the pairing of the words “asian” and “babe” can apparently equivocate to “hypersexualized dragon lady, china doll, geisha, pornstar”
This is almost exactly what I was trying to point out in the latter half of my post above. At best Bashir said something sexist that happened to be exacerbated because of a racial element. But then that just means you blast him for being sexist in general. It’s like the only reason this is even news among AA sites is because it involved something AA related in that moment, when really he’s just being a horny ass, sexist bastard he probably always was. In other words, posting about this is essentially like us finding a reason to be angry.
jaehwan
1:57 pm | Aug 08, 2008Okay, FUX, help me out here.
Do you think what he did was tasteless or not? Should someone say something about it or not? I’m agreeing with everything you said above until the transition in the second to last sentence.
What he said was sexist, and his sexism was exacerbated by racialized stereotypes. It’s related to gender, but it’s also related to race. We agree on all this. So how is posting about this “finding a reason to be angry?”