Saturday, July 13, 2013

AFTER FAKE PILOT NAMES ARE BROADCAST, A POWER TOOL FEARS THAT THAT RACISTS WILL BE THE REAL VICTIMS

I'm sure you know about this by now:
Bay Area news station KTVU just reported that the pilots of Asiana's disastrous flight 214 were the crack team of "Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow."

Despite the names obviously being just a bunch of racist jokes, KTVU, which has since apologized for the report, says in a statement given to Gawker -- and read on the air -- that an NTSB official confirmed the names to them earlier today.
The NTSB says that the "official" was actually "a summer intern [who] acted outside the scope of his authority." (May I just say, as a middle-aged guy, that it's depressing to think a young person would still find it amusing to confirm these pathetic racist names, especially under these circumstances? Are you people no less provincial and ignorant than your elders were at your age?)

Disgust has been widespread. I assume the intern will be canned, and I hope the same thing happens to whoever "compiled" the list in the first place.

Ahhh, but not everyone feels disgust. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Scott Johnson of 2004 Time Blog of the Year Power Line:
... KTVU has apologized for the error, but in a sense I appreciate it. Humor has been in short supply. I needed the laugh.

... The NTSB angle is interesting, and detracts from the humor. The NTSB has issued its own abject apology for confirming the "inaccurate and offensive names." It almost makes me want to issue an apology for my inappropriate laughter. I didn't mean it! It was involuntary!

... I fear that the NTSB is going to get to the bottom of this. Discipline will be imposed. Heads will roll. The agency will commission a panel to study the incident and propose new procedures to prevent this from happening again....
The post is filed in the Category Laughter Is the Best Medicine.
Yeah, here it comes from the right, I fear. The real victims here are innocent whiye people who are hounded into pariah status for an innocent chuckle. The last accepatable prejudice is the prejudice against harmless mirth-makers. First they came for Paula Deen....

10 comments:

Victor said...

Steve,
I hate to burst one of the few optimistic bubbles I've ever seen from you, but what makes you think that kids today might be any different from when we were kids?

We did stupid schtick like that at the lunchroom in JHS and HS, back in the early 70's.
Hell, "National Lampoon's High School Yearbook" edition was full of stuff like that.
*FSM - WHY DIDN'T I KEEP MY COPY?*

And even before, kids were doing that, I'm sure.

There were probably teenage Jewish boys sitting around a lunchroom table doing Pharaoh name jokes in sight of the pyramids, and Egyptian kids doing Jewish name jokes.

And even earlier, when over a light lunch of mastodon tartare and grass, boys in their caves were making jokes with the names of the people in the tribe across the stream.

I'm sure right now, there's a teenage kid in China making Smith and Johnson jokes.

I wish it was otherwise...

Ok, I'm still a juvenile, and I found myself laughing at that, despite my best efforts not to.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but THAT'S the prank WE ALL wanted to pull on an adult, way back when!

And what is an old man, but a teenage boy past his "sell-by" date.

Uncle Mike said...

Slow golf clap for the ballsiness of pulling off this prank, immediately followed by feelings of shame for having laughed. White guilt, yay!

Full disclosure: my Chinese husband's first response was, "Not funny!" but then he giggled about it.

We deserve each other.

Joseph Nobles said...

I hold out hope that the summer intern thought the confirmation request was itself a joke, as in "no one could believe those names were real, this must be a prank." But I'm used to disappointment in life.

Steve M. said...

National Lampoon's High School Yearbook" edition was full of stuff like that.
*FSM - WHY DIDN'T I KEEP MY COPY?*


The faculty adviser to my high school yearbook borrowed my copy of that and never returned it. I hope he didn't use it as wanking material (I seem to recall that it had a couple of risque photos)....

BillyWitchDoctor said...

Let's all send Little Lord Haw Haw lots of swell jokes and GIFs about 9/11 and see how well his sense of humor holds up.

In other funny news: Edward Snowden has dived into the piranha tank to escape the cat, and announced that if anything happens to him, the cat will suffer the consequences.

The piranha were too busy devouring Snowden to comment.

Examinator said...

BillyWitchDoctor

If your purpose is to be "non-politically Correct"...or display American white insensitivity you've done it in spades.
First 'witch doctor' in you're pseudonym. As someone who has lived in shaman(istic) aka medicine man, communities I can't think of a more widely racially/ religious loaded demeaning “inaccurate” term.
It clearly implies pejoratively (black) primitive put down.

Then you used the term “ little LORD HAW HAW” , have you any idea who he WAS and subsequent offense it causes to European (particularly Brits)?

BTW this isn't an attack rather is an example of how impregnated racism is in American culture / "plain talk" (sic) read insensitive arrogance.
NB the Black Americans are just as bad in absolute terms ( two wrongs don't make a right)

The meta point is that notions of 'political correctness' is right wing creation to permit their self assumed superiority (sic), ( usually based on deliberate ignorance) selfishness, insensitivity, offensive lack of consideration for others. Political correctness is in reality simply consideration to others sensitivities or what old codgers used to call POLITENESS.

Case in point : two Aussie radio presenters on air rang the hospital where the wife of the2nd in line to the throne was in a patient and pretended to be the Queen' Husband and tricked a ward nurse into giving out private health condition of the princess. Yuk yuk ? ( who cares)? But the Brits went crazy at the nurse ( a first generation English citizen but culturally Indian ) who gave the information out was publicly attacked as incompetent, some numb nuts went as far as threatening her with racially motivated violence. Yup some Brits have the Tea Party and white supremacist mentality minorities.
Any way, the nurse hung herself leaving a husband and two children ( part was fear, part cultural shame etc)

The two presenters were fired and are now being investigated by Scotland yard for breaches of the Telephone act. If she is extradited to UK she has been threatened with violence by the nut bang end of Royalists and nationalists.
One of the presenters is suing the radio station for not providing a safe work environment. All the WFT aside just consider that all this from a 'harmless' (?) if puerile joke! Now consider the victim's family... she was the major bread winner!

There is also a Popular Australian TV host/Comedian, Adam Hills ( he's popular in many countries including Britain and Canada) BUT he has a policy not to tell racist minority targeted or mean spirited ( deliberately hurtful) jokes.
When asked doesn't this inhibit his humor to which he replied NO I use the same jokes but phrase them appropriately and don't use those that can't be made non threatening or specifically insulting.

The joke in the article was 'funny' but it was targeted at individuals and a minority.... in the context of the above example, who know what harm it could do or has done
Simply put there IS NO such a thing as a harmless racist joke... it at its least it adds conformation to the *anti social* background noise for the 'mean spirited' .

BillyWitchDoctor said...

Examinator, you use an awful lot of words to show us what a complete idiot you are.

You'll be glad to know I stopped reading at "in you're pseudonym."

Thank you for wasting your time accusing me of racism, in defense of racism.

Anonymous said...

Have you not been to 4chan, somethingawful, or any other message board where The Youth congregate? Well-executed juvenile humor is some of the best, and I think the funniest part of the joke here is that it made it to air. Someone actually wrote down "Wi Tu Lo" (and probably confirmed the spelling!), someone else typed that into the teleprompter, and someone read it into the camera and no one stopped to think about what they were saying! So it's a comment on the stenographic (?) tendencies of the media.

Also I found out about this through an asian friend of mine, and since she obviously speaks for all asians it's officially ok to laugh.

As for righties being worried that heads will roll because of this -- yeah, some should, because of such poor fact checking, not because of humor.

Dark Avenger said...

As someone of a fractional Chinese heritage on my mothers' side, I think the funniest thing was all the nako ni(white devils) at KTVU who thought they were real Asian names.

Roger said...

What was the race of the intern?

And what is the i.q. of the staff at KTVU?