Dude, Chinaman is Not the Preferred Nomenclature - Asian-American, Please
Friday, April 11, 2008
Before leaving for vacation on Thursday, AA wrote:While I'm away I'm sure Chris Berman will curse on air, Tiger Woods will shoot a 50 at the Masters, and John Kruk will have a nip slip on Baseball Tonight.....Close, boss, but not quite.
No, the first story I, your faithful weekend presence, gets to deal with in his triumphant return to Awful Announcing (hi, by the way) is that old standby: racial slurs! Wheeeeee!
The story comes from Michael David Smith at The FanHouse. Rather than simply restating the facts, let's let him tell it:
During today's Masters broadcast, CBS announcer Bobby Clampett referred to Chinese golfer Liang Wen-Chong as "the chinaman."Oh, Bobby. That ain't cool, no matter what the commenters on Smith's post have to say about it. (Seriously, read the first two. Ah-may-zing stuff right there.) There are certain words that those of us who live in the 21st century no longer use; this is certainly one of them.
According to CBS spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade, Clampett later apologized on the Masters webcast.
Clampett has been working Amen Corner the last two days, and his commentary can be heard both online and on DirecTV. He used the "chinaman" slur while describing Liang's round and explaining that he will not make the cut.
At least he was mindful enough of his slipup to issue an apology...sort of:
"It has been a privilege to be here with you the last 2 days describing action of all of the players. In describing the Asian player Wen-Chong Liang if I offended anybody please accept me sincere apologies."I like to call this the Hardaway Method of apologizing: "I'm still not sure I said anything wrong, but if I did, I'm sorry for saying whichever part offended you." As Smith notes, "This style of apology...always rings a bit hollow."
14 Comments:
Save 'em for your weekly HoldEm game, phildo
Oh, here we goooooooo...
August National will kick Clampett to the curb the same way they kicked Gary McCord for the "bikini wax" comment and Jack Whitaker for the "mob" comments. Book it.
Steve Kerr & Bill Parcells (Kerr's own "Chinaman" comment for Yao & Parcells' "Jap plays," respectively) approve.
I cant believe they called Padraig an Irishman yesterday.. Im so offended!!
Just a comment on your headline. No, Asian American would NOT be politically correct. He is not an American. He is Chinese.
What are you supposed to call him? Really. I want to know. It's not like he called him "chink" or something like that.
anonymous #1 - The headline was a joke from The Big Lebowski.
why do people not understand that their lack of awareness doesn't make them right? You can be a racist without being fully aware of it, you know. 'Ignorance' and 'racism' are pretty much cousins of one another.
anon 3:13 -- that's too deep for a sports blog. boil it down to X's and O's or telestrate what you're trying to say. maybe say it like emmitt would say it. then i'd understand!!
He's from China.
He's a man.
What's wrong with Chinaman????
Maybe he was saying, "he's from China, man."
"He's from China.
He's a man.
What's wrong with Chinaman????"
Because it's idiotic as saying...
He's from England.
He's a man.
What's wrong with Englandman?
At the very least say "Chineseman", if not the preferred nomenclature.
Since Clampett was working Amen Corner he should REALLY watch this YouTube film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7iQRFP_e90
.
I love the old man racial slurs. The ones that died around WWII. I'm waiting for someone to refer to Dice-k as "That Nip".