Both my intent behind the hashtag and in my distance, is always about forcing an apology on me for not understanding their context when, in reality, they misunderstood us when they made us a punch line again. And to see the woman of color as literal.

To see the white man as always reasonable, always pure, always deliberate, always complex and always innocent. A lot of white America and so-called liberal people of color, along with conservatives, ask, “Do I understand context?” And that’s part of wanting to completely humanize the oppressor. But you used this specific joke as a platform to have that conversation. In that case, do you think that “The Colbert Report” itself is oppressive or just that specific joke or comment was oppressive? It forces people to deal with those conversations about race that go beyond micro-aggression and that go beyond being politically correct, to what it means to uproot racism in its entirety. So I think it’s kind of like pulling a blanket off the façade of progressivism. And in an effort to just contribute to the self-improvement of white allies that are often times just racist. I think as a result of the white ally industrial complex, for too long people of color have been asked to censor whiteness, they have been asked to educate their oppressor, they have been asked to use the right tone, and appease their politics in order to be heard. I wanted to hit the irony and inability of the left to deal with their own racism. So what do you want from this conversation? … When the question is really, what is so complex about understanding someone who is both a writer and an activist, understanding how I use satire and hyperbole to make a political commentary. And so it’s all this like, “What can we do to get you to understand context,” like, “What did you know, what did you not know,” like, “You don’t understand satire, you didn’t see the show,” etc. So in that sense, it’s not about understanding context, it’s never about understanding nuance and complexity of a white man’s joke, when a woman of color is always read as literal, when to me it was never a literal hashtag.

I think it was just an opportunity to use hyperbole in a way to make social commentary, which is what the would want to do to begin with.

You don’t think understanding your context is just as important? Why do you think that’s an irrelevant question?īecause you’re still trying to understand my context, rather than the reaction and the conversation that I was trying to create. No, and I think that’s an irrelevant question. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length:ĭid you watch the Monday night segment on the “Colbert Report”? #CancelColbert has launched conversations about the efficacy of Twitter activism, the limits of satire, the relevance of context and liberal racism - conversations that, on the whole, have likely made America more aware of how we use race in humor.Īfter reading Kang’s piece and witnessing Colbert’s response on Monday, I wanted to see what Park had to say about the conversation she started. It would be reductive to dismiss Park as a troll who baited a show for her own personal profile as an activist, as some have done. Park has used Twitter to discuss feminism and racial stereotypes before, with #NotYourAsianSidekick, #POC4CulturalEnrichment and #BlackPowerYellowPeril, all of which have picked up steam on the social media platform. 'Instead,' writes Kang, 'she saw the hashtag as a way to critique white liberals who use forms of racial humor to mock more blatant forms of racism.' Those outraged by Park’s call to cancel a show over an out-of-context joke amplified the hashtag and made it go viral.īut Park told Kang that she never wanted the show canceled, and that, in fact, she is a fan. Then, Twitter’s “peculiar distortion effect,” as Jay Caspian Kang described it in the New Yorker, took hold. The 23-year-old jumped on it immediately, calling to #CancelColbert over the racial slur. On Thursday night, a writer, comedian and activist named Suey Park saw an opportunity when “The Colbert Report” tweeted: “I am willing to show the Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong, Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” It was a joke pulled out of context from a segment mocking Dan Snyder’s Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation.

Sooey park