Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly’s Comments on Asian Americans and Backlash

By John | Thursday, January 10, 2013 | 36 Comments

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Last Thursday on his show, The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News personality and reporter Bill O’Reilly , did a segment on some of the fiscal and social issues facing Hawaii. As a vacation destination, O’Reilly is a big fan of Hawaii, but not a fan of the state’s liberalism, and is perplexed by some of Hawaii’s challenges by stating:

“35 percent of the Hawaiian population is Asian. Asian people are not liberal, you know, by nature. They’re usually more industrious and hard-working.”

First of all, making any blanket statement about any racial or ethnic group is considered a stereotype or racist- some example like all Asians are good at math and computers, Jews are good at making and managing money, African Americans men are well endowed, etc… And I am sure all of us at one point, including myself, have mistakenly made blanket statements while arguing or defending a point or position (In my case, probably comments regarding The Tea Party movement).

Politically, I don’t think any racial or ethnic group is by default liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, by nature. And I’m pretty sure there has been any conclusive scientific evidence to date that one’s political persuasion is genetic and set at birth. Our values and political beliefs are generally formed and influenced by our environment – by our parents, religion, community, etc.

Additionally, I think that you can have both industrious and hardworking conservatives and liberals, as well as lazy and stupid ones – same with Asian Americans and whites. Of course, the conservative line of thinking regarding liberals or Democrats is that they are lazy, freeloaders who are dependent on the government (tell that to all the techies and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area / Silicon Valley …)

Now, it’s been widely reported and known that from the 2012 exit polling in November, 73% of Asian Americans voted to re-elect President Obama. So O’Reilly is trying to understand the cognitive dissonance of his mental model of liberal yet industrious and hard-working Asian Americans. But to put it simply, O’Reilly is simple-minded.

While channel surfing, I caught the tail end of MSNBC’s The Ed Show and caught George Takei (an Obama supporter) give his perspective on O’Reilly’s simple mindedness. The Ed Show included a brief montage of O’Reilly’s past racist or stereotypical comments. Takei provides his personal experience of being interned and facing racism after being released from prison camps after the end of World War II:

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U.S. Representative Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) had her own comments to add to O’Reilly’s statements:

“However, I think O’Reilly’s attempt to characterize Hawaii’s Asian-American population is most insulting of all. Claiming that Asian-Americans are not liberal by nature because they are ‘hard working and industrious’ is the kind of one dimensional and paternalistic attitude that we should have gotten past decades ago. Hawaii’s—and America’s—Asian-American communities are as rich and diverse as any in our nation. Attributing any broad set of characteristics to any large group only serves to encourage attitudes that ‘they’ are somehow different from ‘us.’

“Finally, there is absolutely no justification for O’Reilly’s claim that being ‘hard working and industrious’ is in any way incompatible with holding liberal political views. Hawaii is the ‘bluest’ state in America, and it has been built through the hard work of generations of people of all persuasions. Those who have succeeded through their own efforts do not turn their backs on those who continue to find themselves in need. We maintain our commitments to our seniors. We focus on ensuring that our children have access to educational opportunities. And we are industrious for the sake of our communities, not just for personal gain.

“Bill O’Reilly owes Hawaii and all Asian-Americans an apology. And the next time he visits our state, I encourage him to spend more time getting to know real people, and less time sitting next to the pool and grousing about what he thinks is going on ‘out there.’”

Funny how conservatives like O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh (who apparently *loves* San Francisco) vacation in bluest states and cities.

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LTE2

“Claiming that Asian-Americans are not liberal by nature because they are ‘hard working and industrious’ is the kind of one dimensional and paternalistic attitude that we should have gotten past decades ago”
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Blah, blah, blah. Liberals are forever working towards government in every aspect of your life and they cry paternalism? I would say one quality many liberals have is their disconnect from reality and while alternate universes are fine for UFO explanations or sci fi shows, it’s not good for social stability or economics. Yes Ms. Hanabusa, there is a real world and you’re not living in it.
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The true measure of compassion is not being forced into doing good (such as the tax heavy blue states) but what one does of their own free will. The red states voluntarily give a greater percentage of their income to charitable causes than their blue state counter parts.
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“Of course, the conservative line of thinking regarding liberals or Democrats is that they are lazy, freeloaders who are dependent on the government (tell that to all the techies and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area / Silicon Valley …)”
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I grew up near where high tech was born, worked for one of America’s original “Apples” and while it takes hard work to invent, it takes a LOT more to keep the edge and then compete against other companies and countries who are always getting better and better and fostering a creative atmosphere while liberals in America promote you didn’t build it as a lifestyle.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Silicon Valley starts looking like a ghost town in a decade or so. I can say this because liberals can not learn from their mistakes or the mistakes of others and California has been working hard to be the place you do not want to place your business, the same mistake the eastern states committed years ago and in which they are still paying for to this day.
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Hence…
Funny how conservatives like O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh (who apparently *loves* San Francisco) vacation in bluest states and cities.
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Many Americans visit blue states but more a moving to red states. Seems those liberals find their true blue paradises are not the place they want to live in anymore.
http://www.facebook.com/tienvnguyen Tien V Nguyen

And thus giving O’Reilly and the other pundits exactly what they want….attention and relevancy.
zdrav

I don’t know what’s more offensive: O’Reilly’s notion that Asian-Americans all have uniform characteristics, or his idea that liberals can’t be industrious and hard-working.

Just another increasingly irrelevant old White guy. No need to pay him much attention anymore.
david0688

If you don’t want Asian-Americans to be seen as a block then stop polling them as a block. I think what O’Reilly was trying to get at is why did Asian-Americans vote for Obama in such large numbers.
zdrav

Because they could easily smell the stink of racism from the GOP.

The GOP likes Asian-Americans, so long as they can be used to undercut affirmative action programs for Blacks and Latinos.

But you think the all-white GOP will tolerate Asian-Americans who actually want equality or something?
LTE2

“But you think the all-white GOP will tolerate Asian-Americans who actually want equality or something?”
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You think Democrat Asian- Americans will end up attacking Republican Asian-Americans like the Democrat Blacks viciously attack Republican Blacks?
zdrav

Republican Blacks? You mean maggot-brained imbeciles like Allen West and Herman Cain?
zdrav

Donating to your tribalistic and bigoted church shouldn’t count as charity. It always made me laugh when Romney counted donating to the ultra-wealthy Church of Latter Day Saints as “charity”.

No, real charity is giving aid to people who live on the other side of the country who are of a different race and religion than you.
LTE2

“Just another increasingly irrelevant old White guy.”

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Largest news discussion audience on cable with a viewership all over the political spectrum. Fox New’s audience is only about 30% Conservative/Republican.
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If he were irrelevant, you wouldn’t have commented on him.
LTE2

“Republican Blacks? You mean maggot-brained imbeciles like Allen West and Herman Cain?”
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Case closed
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Cain’s 9-9-9 plan was the best idea to come out of the 2012 election cycle. Now Obama, he ran on a welfare plan for every purse and purpose platform and had no way to pay for it.
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Which Black had offered a solution and which Black criticized Bush for spending too much and then upped spending all the more?
LTE2

“No, real charity is giving aid to people who live on the other side of the country who are of a different race and religion than you.”
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I had posted a link but I am not sure if it is going to show up.
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You can Google LDS Charities and see what they do and where they do it. They also state 100% of every dollar donated is used to aid those in need.
zdrav

Fox News is worse than irrelevant; it’s detrimental to the conservative cause. If Romney took a greater dose of reality than believe Fox’s “fairy tale” of unenthusiastic Democratic voters, then Romney might’ve avoided the total ass-kicking he got.
zdrav

9-9-9 was a simple solution for simple minds.
Jeff

I am continually shocked and appalled that Asians are liberals. Asians are so mindless and sheeplike that they follow and do what they’re told like good old boys. Asians don’t think for themselves and are the best followers ever. In the name of equality, liberals promote blacks while demoting Asians, it’s called affirmative action. In California, Prop 209 which ended this racist policy of enrolling unqualified blacks in universities and preventing qualified Asians from enrolling was opposed in large part by Asians. How stupid can Asians be in continually supporting policies that directly hurt them? Thank god for whites and the GOP that voted prop 209 into law or Asians with 1500 S.A.T’s would still be at community colleges while blacks with 1000 S.A.T’s are at Berkeley and Stanford. Asians also make the most money in America of any ethnic group, meaning that Obama’s tax policies hurt us the most and we still vote that clown in so we can pay and be taken advantage of. Wake up America, white people aren’t your enemy anymore.
LTE2

“If Romney took a greater dose of reality than believe Fox’s “fairy tale” of unenthusiastic Democratic voters, then Romney might’ve avoided the total ass-kicking he got.”
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Many people got it wrong but the vote for 2012 was not in the league of 2008, Obama got less votes the second time around nor did he win by a margin where he could claim a mandate.
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Anyone organization or people who do not agree with the LeftWing/Progressive movement is “detrimental” to the Conservative cause. Nothing Democrats fear more than many of their party members actually stop and think about the things the Democrats are saying and doing, hence the constant stridency from them to run cover.
zdrav

Most Asian-American aren’t wealthy enough to be concerned about things like the estate tax, or taxes on every dollar made after the $400 000 mark.

Stuff like that affects people like Mitt Romney, Warren Buffet, Foster Friess, etc., and not your typical upper-middle class Asian-American doctor/lawyer/engineer.
zdrav

He got over 50% of the vote, captured over 300 electoral votes, and the election was called by 11:15pm. It was a lopsided election.

I laugh at your pitiful movement right now, and I will proudly do a victory dance right in front of your face. You guys have lost the popular vote for the past 5 out of 6 elections, and you’re having to resort to anti-democratic tactics like stringent voter ID laws.

Americans despise your movement’s cowardly genuflection before the most powerful and stomping of the most vulnerable. Can’t you get that message already?

Oh wait, it must be because everybody wants to be “cool” and “hip” by voting for Obama. You got it, Einstein. Keep telling yourself that, lol.
LTE2

“and you’re having to resort to anti-democratic tactics like stringent voter ID laws.”
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You need I.D. to buy a 6 pack of beer. Call me a silly old so & so, I would say elections are equally as important as buying a 6 pack og beer.
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“Americans despise your movement’s cowardly genuflection before the most powerful and stomping of the most vulnerable.”
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I admire you exacting reproduction of left wing rants and responses but the issues America is facing goes beyond chants and slogans Hope And Change.
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“Can’t you get that message already?”
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It was amusing (in a way) when the great left wing paradise called Cuba started telling it’s citizens last year “you’re fired”. The irony of a society set up to protect “the most vulnerable” were told, go find a new job in a one employer state. Where was Michael Moore when they needed him most? Can’t you get the message?

Like Cuba, Obama thinks he can defy economic gravity. Like Cuba, he will fail. As I said early, Liberals won’t learn the lessons.
zdrav

If voter ID laws are just so important, then why only have them in Democrat-leaning swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio?

Laughable.
Jeff

Actually, you’re wrong, Asian Americans have the highest average income of any race. That means that we do make enough money to worry about “estate tax, or taxes on every dollar made after the $400 000 mark.” And you imply that most whites have to deal with the above mentioned taxes and that’s wrong too, it’s probably not much more than the few you named, like “Mitt Romney, Warren Buffet, Foster Friess, etc”. And there are other issues, like affirmative action.
zdrav

Having the highest average income doesn’t mean that you’re the type of millionaire or billionaire who has so much property and assets that you need to fret about things like estate taxes, capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, etc.

Of course most White people aren’t wealthy enough to benefit from the GOP’s economic policies. But the ultra-wealthy in America are almost exclusively White. In other words, there aren’t many, if any, Asians in that top 1% of the 1%.

The GOP wants to end affirmative action, but only so that they can go back to the days when only White men were in power. You think that they’re going to tolerate America’s universities and corporations being 50% Asian due to meritocratic policies? Hell no. They’re going to start filtering for “character” and “leadership” and other BS like that.

The Democrats are by no means perfect, but they are far more inclusive to the goals of diversity and equality than the Republicans are.
Jeff

They already tolerate 50% Asians in the top universities you idiot. After they did away with affirmative action in California with Prop 209, the Asian enrollment increased to about 50% at the top California universities. And you rail against what you imagine to be the future racist motives of the GOP while supporting the present, REAL racism of the liberals. How do know what the motives of the GOP will be in the future? Actually, no one does and therefore we can only go by facts. And the facts are that the GOP are fighting for our equality while the liberals are fighting to hold us down in the name of equality. Anyway, your, perceived, imagined, future motives of the GOP can’t possibly be any worse than the factual, current, real racism against Asians by the liberals.
zdrav

The fact that Asians make up 50% of the student population at the UC schools is a very contentious issue. If the Ivy League had such a high Asian enrollment rate, there’d be mass panic. If White people were so enraged that there were too many Jews at the Ivies, then just wait until it’s slanty-eyed chinks taking up all the spaces at their beloved Harvard.

So… What’s this liberal racism?

I can point to plenty of evidence that exposes conservative racism: preference for an electric fence on the Mexican border as opposed to humane immigration reform, barrage of racist codewords against Obama (e.g. “shuck and jive”, “foodstamp president”, “learn to be an American”, “secret Muslim”, “anti-colonialist”), Pete Hoekstra ad, Chinese professor ad, Michele Bachmann saying that immigration policies worked great under the Asian Exclusion Act, Santorum’s “Blah people” gaffe…
Jeff

The fact that the Ivy League schools limit Asians is evidence of LIBERAL racism that the GOP are fighting against. The Ivy’s practice affirmative action and limit qualified Asians while admitting unqualified blacks. I don’t know who you are but to site evidence of liberal racism that the GOP are fighting against and attributing that to the GOP is absolutely insane.

The fact that there is a wall on the Mexican border is evidence of security, not racism. What other nation allows just anyone to come into their country undocumented? None. We’re not just trying to keep the illegal Mexicans out, we’re trying to keep all the illegal’s out, it’s just that the Mexicans are the only one’s able to get in this country illegally. If there was a flood of German illegals, I’m sure we’d be trying to control that also. It has nothing to do with Mexicans, but with illegals.

In fact, the fact that you want us to admit illegal Mexicans but not other illegals into this country is evidence of your liberal racism, giving one race preferential treatment over another.

You liberals lack logic, lie and label your racism with the tag of equality. There’s no discussing anything with you when you can just lie and make up facts.
LTE2

“If voter ID laws are just so important, then why only have them in Democrat-leaning swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio?”
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You can have voter I.D. laws in any state. I.D. laws do not guarantee a Republican victory anymore than tax and spend guarantees economic recovery.
zdrav

But the GOP is only vigorously pushing voter ID laws in Democratic-leaning swing states. These states, mind you, have had absolutely no record of any voter fraud.

Well, I guess Virginia had some problems, but that was by GOP operatives. There was also that Nathan Sproul guy in FL, another GOP operative caught with electoral fraud shenanigans.

What’s up with conservatives and trying to rig elections?

If voter ID is so important, then why not make an equally concerted push in every single state, even GOP-leaning swing states like Missouri?
LTE2

“If voter ID is so important, then why not make an equally concerted push in every single state”

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Every state should have them.
zdrav

But the reality is that the GOP is only pushing them in the states that I’ve mentioned, particularly in minority-dominant districts.
zdrav

College admissions aren’t everything.

Asians still support affirmative action because, for example, Asians are very underrepresented in leadership positions in business, the professions, and industry.

There are plenty of reasonable ways to deal with immigration that doesn’t involve electric fences and militia patrols.
zdrav

Oh, and you Republicans are now trying to get the Democratic-leaning swing states to award their electoral votes PROPORTIONALLY, as opposed to winner-take-all.

Absolutely pathetic. Instead of rethinking their outdated and offensive platform, the GOP has decided that it’d rather cheat to win.
LTE2

“There are plenty of reasonable ways to deal with immigration that doesn’t involve electric fences and militia patrols”

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Machine gun nests are tried and true.
LTE2

“But the reality is that the GOP is only pushing them in the states that I’ve mentioned, particularly in minority-dominant districts.”
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I am aware of state wide requirements and not district only efforts In the case of my state, if the Republicans really wanted to stop minorities from voting here, the state could sell Philadelphia to Delaware or North Korea.
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Considering the Democrats can raise the dead and get them to vote, Democrats might appreciate voter id in a tight Democrat primary race.
LTE2

“Absolutely pathetic. Instead of rethinking their outdated and offensive platform, the GOP has decided that it’d rather cheat to win.”
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The Democrats have wanted proportionality too.
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I admit the Democrats have a winning platform. Endless welfare, industrial policy meant more to fund the welfare state than to allow personal wealth creation, endless race baiting, a delusional faith in love commune thinking, class warfare, over throwing of governments, pandering to dying left wing socialist societies, situational law and ethics, creating an endless supply of cheap money and no federal debt to large to bare, and a faith if we all went to Eisenhower tax rates everything would be fine just like in the 1950′s. Endlessly dictating who to like, what to think, who to hire and what to eat. I am waiting for them to start demanding arranged marriages.

America, home of the free- cellphones.
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Now, that’s a winner of a platform!
ijang

How much you wanna bet zdrav isn’t even Asian? he’s probably just some idiot that thinks the world is white vs everyone else. This is the precise problem with liberals.
ijang

I’m Asian and I voted for neither guy. Sure I can agree with democrats on certain social rights, but it’s like their entire platform is based on social issues, “empathy” and other meaningless bullshit. Every single liberal I speak with try to derail the conversation into something about race, or gay rights, or religion etc. It’s like they’re all children who don’t understand serious topics. Countries are not run by good feelings. Equal treatment is not the same as being equal. Social issues are the LEAST important things.

In my native Korea the politicians express no position on social issues, because the public doesn’t care. That job is for civil leaders. Most people and politicians are nationalists by western standards. Ultimately the country depends on supremacy, competition, money and realpolitik. All things that seem to make liberals cringe as “evil” or “intolerant”. So even if the republicans are old, racist, incompetent, out of touch etc. at least they have the actual interests of the country at heart, not just some rhetoric about being nice or making everyone appear equal. They’re not.
ijang

I certainly don’t support affirmative action. Being underrepresented in those sectors is a problem caused by discrimination. The solution is equality, not discrimination in the other direction.

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