Hotashi - Jack’s Blog

In my earlier post, I brought up an anti-Asian “satire” piece that ran in University of Colorado’s school newspaper. I mentioned that the column did not read like a satire to me, but I didn’t fully extend on that. Truth be told, I’m no literary expert, so it’s hard to explain it in technical terms. However, I found a follow-up comment on another blog that goes into better detail on why Karson’s article is not satire.

Taken from Alas, a blog.

satire is a punch in the eye of Power. satire’s anger, its needle, is directed upward - never downward. if it is, then it ceases to be satire and it’s just another way for those in power to bully the powerless or to scream to the public that you’re just another tool of the status quo.

this is satire:

it is a precise literary term (which means you have to have some measure of intellectual weight to pull it off, which Karson doesn’t)
in satire, your target is held up to merciless ridicule that is often very angry, ideally in the hope of shaming your target into reform (what is Karson advocating for reform? asians themselves or the treatment of asians on campus?)

it has a strong vein of irony or sarcasm (parody, burlesque, exaggeration and double entendre are all devices frequently used in satirical speech and writing - again, pointing to intellectual rigor in the person who calls herself a satirist, and while Karson’s piece is certainly full of sarcasm the racial justice angle is completely submerged, thus undercutting any satirical purpose.)

who is the target of Karson’s ire or sarcasm?
certainly not the white power structure that marginalizes a community of color on campus, making them a racial Other.
certainly not asian stereotype - in fact, his piece replicates them and justifies them.

asian students are the target of his clumsy sarcasm and ’satire’ and to what end? there is none, except to vent some feelings of inadequacy. Karson, as part of the white majority, is bullying a racial minority on campus and joking about reeducation camps so that they can be more ‘white.’ how is this column supposed to criticize the marginalization of asians on campus, or the treatment of asians on campus, or anything about racial justice??

it doesn’t do any of those things so it just becomes, perhaps inadvertently, a racist fantasy of forced assimilation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 1:14 pm by Jack, and is filed under Racism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.