Okay, I’m nitpicking.

Ugh. So. Long. Ago.

The Mister Wong logo didn’t offend or enrage me. When I first saw it, I cringed to myself and thought, “oy. NOT cool.” Let’s say none of this exploded as it did and the logo was still in use when Mister Wong hit the U.S. I personally would not have utilized the site. However, like I said, I was not enraged in any way, so I was not up to the point analogous to your hypotheticals where I would have “called 911.” My post simply stated that I *understand* why Ernie and some others in my community would be deeply offended by it.

Forget what a “politically correct” drawing of an Asian man or a Black man or a Latino man might be. Let’s just talk about where our political climate is at today and race relations in America. I don’t disagree with Europeans when they say America is one f*cked up place right now. It is. And race relations here aren’t at a point yet where a non-Asian person can draw a caricature like Mister Wong who is supposed to be an Asian person and exect Asian people not to get offended. Like you said, it’s simply our political climate. It’s not okay here. That’s all there is to it.

Like what Courageous Kiwi said in a comment to Ernie earlier — Maybe from a purely objective point of view, there isn’t anything per se wrong with the cartoon and certainly we now understand there was no malice. But here in America, neither Kiwi nor I would be okay with that logo today. We probably won’t be okay with that logo tomorrow either, or the next day. But maybe someday, the serious part of life won’t be so bad that we cannot appreciate the funny parts. For now, it’s still too serious for it to be funny, just like how if you tried making a sexual abuse joke to a rape victim, she probably won’t find it too funny.

You spoke of “unproductive and clearly abusive” comments. But that is precisely what the criticism at 8Asians can be labeled: Rather than constructive, it was purely and entirely destructive. It provided not alternative suggestions whatsoever.

Second, you write:
“Here, Asians did NOT overreact. What appears to be our hypersensitivity really evinces our lingering pain from an enduring history of oppression, the subjection of our forefathers to coolie status, and memories of playground teasing when white kids pulled their eyelids taut and ran after the Asian kids yelling “ching chong ching.””

This is a strawman argument. A history of oppression doesn’t justify letting out the feelings against third parties. The only “justification” not to call this an overreaction is to declare all whites equally responsible. Then, however, the racism would be flat square on your part. This is precisely the problem with your A&F comparison. A&F is a US companie, and if it doesn’t take into account oppression in the US, then it can very well be criticised. But Mr Wong isn’t.

You write:
“While I thank Mister Wong’s web team for taking substantial steps to alleviate and mediate, the overtly insulting responses to Ernie’s post were not constructive in any way whatsoever and only showed just how necessary it was for 8Asians to air our disturbance in an open marketplace of ideas.”

Sorry, but to expect constructive replies, it would be wise to voice constructive criticism. Ernie didn’t do that, and for precisely that fact, he received the reactions he called for.

“No one is asking anyone to become an expert in Asian American history. However, even if you don’t understand someone else’s pain, when that person is clearly in pain because of something you did even if you didn’t mean to do anything, shouldn’t you nevertheless take a step back and reflect?”

But that’s something entirely different than what happened here.
I’ll take your own example:

“Recall the case I raised in the post about the woman at UVA who sued a professor for battery and pain and suffering because he tapped her on the shoulder during class. It’s not socially unacceptable per se to tap someone on her shoulder. But this particular woman suffered from sexual abuse and rape. The tapping on her shoulder reminded her of her nightmarish past and she suffered severe emotional distress because of it. She overreacted, right? All he did was tap her on the shoulder. The professor meant no harm. I don’t get it. Why did she go postal?”

You state yourself “It’’s not socially unacceptable per se to tap someone on her shoulder”. That being the case, if someone is tapped on her shoulder and goes postal, the act STILL is socially acceptable. And no one will have any understanding whatsoever to suggest that tapping someone on the shoulder is something else than socially unacceptable. You apparently fail to realize that the campaign about Mr. Wong is precisely declaring sad tapping socially unacceptable. It has been said on and on and on here “How could they”, “They should have known” and the effect of the campaign, namely the complete and utter abolition of the logo, not just for the US, but worldwide, has been hailed. It has even been declared a sound business decision although business-wise, it likely was a piss-poor decision, alienating more customers than it will produce new ones.

@Jesse -sorry if I get a bit more direct now, but you receive as you dish out:
“Therefore, you can’t make the “reverse racism” argument, the power and offense is JUST NOT THE SAME. ”

Sorry, but that’s complete and utter BS. Prejudice remains prejudice, whether it produces a visible effect or not. A lie is a lie is a lie. The pain felt because of it might differ, but that doesn’t make a truth out of a lie. And it takes for some pretty weird logic to suggest otherwise. What’s worse, you demonstrate a complete failure of grasping the consequences of racism -because they are bad not just for the victims, but for the perpetrators as well -just on different levels- and in both doing so AND ignoring the issue of truth vs. falsehood, you deprive yourself of most arguments against racism altogether. You even ignore that plenty of Asians have serious issues with racism on part of Japan -just ask some of the foreign maids there. To suggest that racism is only racism when perpetrated by white people is ridiculous crap.

You bitch and moan and insult Asians living in Germany and completely ignore the fact that Mr. Wong has also been around in Chinese. Only that tiny minority who actually voices a complaint has the right to be taken as a ledger. And because you say so, that has to be true. You declare a lot of stuff complete and utter bullshit, but the most bullshit I have seen from you. Your lecturing on European history is lagging by about 100 years. The fact that you call it a “damn good hegemony” that is perceived as malicious occupation by all too many on the receiving side only suggests that you’re not quite honest about “seeing things from the other perspective”, respectively seeing it only as valid for anyone else. This, however, is precisely the attitude that leads to the oppression cited by akrypti, to colonialism and all its nasty consequences.

Racism isn’t abolished by one side trying to see things from the other perspective, but by EVERYONE reaching out towards each other. Anyone who promotes anything else, sorry to say, is only promoting one thing: racism.

And to see that you plan to go to Germany, but your knowledge about Germany is obviously very limited, is quite weird. Your citation (”we ARE Germans”) would hardly be heard in Germany before Soccer World Championship last year. Since WW2 Germans lack national consciousness and pride. You very rarely saw a German flag aside from official buildings and sentences like “We are Germans” or “I am proud to be a German” would immediately cast you to be weird or a nazi. This is caused by OUR history. You should now that and accept, that we are offended by being called racist (especially for a logo which here (!) is not racistic at all).

First I thought about ignoring your comment at all, because of the sterotypes you heavily use. But maybe you do not know better. Sentences like:
“…we Americans are trying to put our own history and lessons learned about racial strife on other countries… well you better damn well believe it. Call it hegemony if you will, but it’s a damned good kind of hegemony if you ask me.”
are reasons for so-called Anti-Americanism in Europe. With this mind you will get interesting discussions here.

I recommend you to read the following article, describing relation US-EU. It is a little bit off-topic here, but nice to read.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,478884,00.html

Let me continue and intensify your examples: When you see an open windows at night you get scared because the memory you have. If you call every time 911 because of the resulting danger, this makes sense for you, but for sure you will get a problem with the police soon.

The woman who sued a professor after tapping may be right, because tapping is not acceptable for her. But maybe she is remembered as well, seeing a picture of an uniformed soldier. Can she sue the professor using a picture in his lecture? Or if she is reminded by the threat “I’ll be back!”, can she sue TV station for showing the movie Terminator?

And finally: I understand, that you do not like the logo of Mr. Wong. How would a politically correct drawing of an Asian face look like? Is this possible at all?