California state Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from San Francisco, is leading a fight in demanding an apology from the radio talk show host for what he and others view as racist and derogatory remarks against the Chinese people.
In recent days, the state lawmaker has rallied civil rights groups in a boycott of companies like Pro Flowers, Sleep Train and Domino’s Pizza that advertise on Limbaugh’s national talk radio show.
“The comments that he made – the mimicking of the Chinese language – harkens back to when I was a little boy growing up in San Francisco and those were hard days, rather insensitive days,” Yee said in an interview Thursday. “You think you’ve arrived and all of a sudden get shot back to the reality that you’re a second-class citizen.”
During a Jan. 19 radio program, Limbaugh said there was no translation of the Chinese president’s speech during a visit to the White House.
“He was speaking and they weren’t translating,” Limbaugh said. “They normally translate every couple of words. Hu Jintao was just going ching chong, ching chong cha.”
He then launched into a 20-second-long imitation of the Chinese leader’s dialect.
The next day, Limbaugh said he “did a remarkable job” of imitating China’s president for someone who doesn’t know a language spoken by more than 1 billion people.
“Back in the old days, Sid Caesar, for those of you old enough to remember, was called a comic genius for impersonating foreign languages that he couldn’t speak,” Limbaugh said. “But today the left says that was racism; it was bigotry; it was insulting. And it wasn’t. It was a service.”
[Chinese Americans] say Limbaugh’s comments are inciting hate and intolerance amid a polarized atmosphere. A number of civil rights groups, including Chinese for Affirmative Action, Japanese American Citizens League and the California National Organization for Women [huh?] , have joined Yee in calling on sponsors to pull advertisements from Limbaugh’s program.
“I want an apology at the very least,” said New York Assemblywoman Grace Meng, a Queens Democrat. “Making fun of any country’s leader is just very disrespectful for someone who says he is a proud American.”
She added: “He was, in his own way, trying to attack the leader of another country, and that’s his prerogative as well, but at the same time he offended 13 percent of New York City’s population.”
Excuse me? Making fun of a dictatorial government is an insult to citizens of Chinese descent, and Chinese who have fled that dictatorship? An insult to the man responsible for holding in prison the 2010 winner of the Nobel Peace prize? (The 2009 winner of that same prize was conspicuously silent on the fate of the poor man). If so, criticism of Castro and Chavez is an insult to Cubans and Venezuelans and the left’s criticism of, say, Pinochet is a racial slur against Chileans. Why is it that the Left so adores Communist dictators? Hmm.
Limbaugh is an equal opportunity insulter. However, the moonbat state Senator from California recognize the source of the insult, and let it go.
Leland Yee is much more a garden variety San Francisco social-justice utopian than he is a champion of Chinese Americans. The guy represents a little island of well-to-do moonbats in the middle of Mexifornia.
The hypocritical idiocy of the left is both startling and riotously funny.
Are they born that way, or do they grow into it?
Wasn’t it an insult when the Chinese planted a pianist in the white house to play a theme song to an anti-American movie. Damn liberals. I’m Cuban and feel free to insult Castro and his communist regime as much as you want. I find these liberal types ignorant. Same people wear Che t-shirts having no idea who Che Guevara really was, a murderer!!
Spud Gun Man -
How stupid is this? If I insult you, do I insult all “Professional” Real Estate agents? No!! I actually wish I did, but it just ain’t true.
People are way to thin skinned and PC in this environment. It is a joke. Do I dislike Barack because he is black? Absolutely not. I dislike his policy, and he is a commie. Other than that I am sure he is a nice guy. I love Halley Berry, and Naomi Campbell. I want Michael Jordon on my team. And Tiger Woods – now there is a guy I would like to hang out with. He is a babe magnet. So tell everyone to just lighten up a bit. OK? We will all be better off.
Your Pal,
Walt
Speaking of Rush(es) … Google “Good Rush, Bad Rush,” and you can quickly find your way to a wonderful tee shirt you can buy if you want to. It says in big letters on one line “Good Rush, Bad Rush,” and underneath the words “Good Rush” is a picture of the band Rush, while underneath the words “Bad Rush” is a photo of Limbaugh.
Attention, conservative readers of this blog who are of CF’s vintage: ignore the one-dimensional Limbaugh and go for writer PJ O’Rourke, whose conservative views are shot through with common sense and humor, rather than ratings-currying bombast. Start with his early book Republican Party Reptiles. You’ll enjoy it and you’ll no longer feel you have to pretend you didn’t lose many brain cells listening to the “good” Rush.
P.J. is my very favorite political writer, Grumpy – his “A Parliament of Whores’ is brilliant.
or a yello bastid
Chris, your close friend is right – not responding to derogatory terms like “yello bastid” by ilsa in your comments section seemed to imply your approval of them. I presume that by censoring and deleting the more colorful comments, you are quietly saying that you don’t agree with the tone of the comments and their use of racial slurs to educate your readers. Thank you, as I was beginning to think you had a general dislike of Asians.
On the subject of Limbaugh – I winced when I heard his imitation of the Chinese language because it sounds like the schoolyard taunting that Chinese children endure. Racially motivated taunting. Limbaugh may have been directing the insult at Hu, but Asian Americans, especially members of the older generations like Yee, have heard the same insulting mimicry directed at them. Because mimicry of the Chinese language is a common way to insult Americans of Chinese descent, please tell me how that is different than using a racial slur.
Way Outside, I should have loudly denounced those comments, and I regret that I didn’t. I truly had never heard the term before and I was ahocked. I handled the matter very badly, and I apologize. That’s not at all who I am, nor what this blog is about.