davidleong.info

Maybe I’ve just had a long day, or perhaps I’ve had one too many race conversations in the last week, but whatever it is, I’m really not feeling the love for Zondervan right now, and I’m especially perturbed by this ridiculous book that shamelessly exploits pseudo-Asian “kung-fu-karate-ninja-chinaman” stereotypes to push a marketing agenda- and it’s all Christian, of course!

Now in fairness to the authors (ignorant as they appear to be of the offensive nature of the book), I realize this exploitation is not intentional (oh, it hardly ever is), and that there’s surely good intentions in the content of the book.  But you know what they say about good intentions (how can this be put delicately?)- the path to hell is paved with them.

Now hear me out: I’m not reigning down some eschatological condemnation on Mike and Jud (the two white male evangelical authors)- it is just an idiom after all.  But I do take issue with both the presentation and the content of the book- because as Marshall McLuhan continues to remind us, we often cannot separate the medium and the message.

When people read (as it says on page 24 of the book) that the “short stature and native speed of the Thai people” makes them “vicious karate experts” (talk about some culture confusion), and this is combined with the “sneaky ninja” clipart, all couched in nice evangelical language, they naturally assume that each of these racially loaded stereotypes is harmless and normative.  And were it not for the fact that I actually know the difference between Thailand and Japan, maybe this wouldn’t seem like a big deal.

But the problem goes deeper than geography: this cultural insensitivity is merely symptomatic of evangelicalism’s larger issues- namely, that it is domesticated within white America’s racialized view of Christianity, which apparently has no problem with the widespread orientalisms that mischaracterize diverse Asians and Asian-Americans as either martial arts masters, chinese food delivery boys, or exotic dragon ladies.  As others have already noted, this whole thing is like the Rickshaw Rally debacle all over again.

Thankfully, Angry Asian Man and Professor Soong-Chan Rah are already all over this.  But sadly, I can already hear Zondervan’s apologetic press release: “our focus group included orientals who took no offense at the kung fu images and themes… and by the way, we like sushi and have adopted asian babies.  Therefore, we understand diversity.”

The bottom line is that you KNOW this kind of racialized exploitation wouldn’t fly with some stereotypes of other ethnic groups (you know which ones I’m talking about), so why is it okay to mock the Asians?  Because we’re affluent, assimilated, and passive?  I don’t actually know any martial arts, but if I happen to come across this book display somewhere, I’m going kung-fu crazy on its ass, right on the spot.