The 10 biggest race and pop culture trends of 2006: Part 3 of 3
Eddie Murphy will be engaging in some yellowface in his new film, Norbit. Jenn from Reappropriate summed it up thus: “In it, Murphy plays a dorky, meek Black man adopted as a child by an old Asian man and, in adulthood, who is dominated by a fat black woman stereotype. The catch? Murphy plays Norbit, Norbit’s girlfriend, and the Asian man who adopts him. As the Asian man, not only does Murphy wear yellow-tinted skin, but plays up the old Asian male stereotype, complete with poor Chinglish accent.” By the way, I hope now that he’s won a Golden Globe, he’ll stop making these god-awful movies.
And of course, the most talked-about colorface incident of 2006 has been Angelina Jolie playing Mariane Pearl in the new film “A Mighty Heart.” It’s still unclear why they decided it was necessary to pile on the bronzer and wig when Mariane’s race plays no role whatsoever in the film.
2. Celebrity racial slurs
Making racist remarks in 2006 rivaled nipslips and pantylessness in its ability to garner press attention for celebrities and public figures.
The Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger was caught on tape debating the spiciness of Latinos: “I mean Cuban, Puerto Rican, they are all very hot…They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it”. And of course, George Allen was caught on tape calling an Indian-American man a “macaca.”
Miss Jones, a DJ at New York hip hop station Hot 97, called New York City Transit Workers Union president Roger Toussaint a “dumb coconut who probably don’t even have a green card.” New York’s other big hip hop radio station Power 105′s DJ Star made all kinds of disgustingly racist and violent remarks about the wife and children of a rival DJ, threatening to “do an R. Kelly” on his daughter and calling his wife a “whore,” a “lo mein eater” and far worse anti-Asian slurs.
Kanye West told Essence magazine that “If it wasn’t for race mixing, there’d be no video girls.” As if that wasn’t offensive enough, he went on to say: “Me and most of my friends like mutts a lot … Yeah, in the hood they call ‘em mutts.”
Michael Richards was caught on tape in a racist tirade at Los Angeles’s Laugh Factory, repeated calling a black hecler the n-word and saying: “Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass.” It was interesting to see how mainstream media outlets focused exclusively on Richards’ use of the n-word, when really the most offensive thing about the tirade was his overt reference to lynching .
Rosie O’Donnell decided to mock Chinese people on The View with a long “ching chong” joke. The most depressing thing about this incident was how the Asian American community had to explain, and even prove, that yes, “ching chong” is indeed a racial slur and highly offensive. O’Donnell’s eventual non-apology was perhaps even more insulting than the original joke.
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