Political Correctness 101

On March 11, 2011, Japan shook and swayed as a result of a 9.0 magnitude undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan. A tsunami – with waves up to 76 feet high and travelling up to 10km inland – followed soon after. Worst still, there is now the dangerous issue of radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

All these indicates the gravity and severity of what’s happening in Japan at the moment. Naturally, an outpour of sympathies and condolences has been made in Japan’s direction. Foreign governments immediately offered assistance and humanitarian aids. And throngs of Hollywood’s who’s who called for the public to donate and pray for Japan.

But surprisingly so, there were still reports of gaffes made by people and institutions from all over the world.

(a) 50 cent, rapper, via Twitter:  

> "Wave will hit 8am them crazy white boys gonna try to go surfing."

 

> "Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoes from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol."

(b) Gilbert Gottfried, comedian, via Twitter (there were many, below are samples) : 

> "Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them."

> "Japan called me. They said "maybe those jokes are a hint in the US, but over here, they're all sinking."

(c) Cappie Pondexter, a WNBA player, via Twitter :

> "What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes."

> "u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can't expect anything less."

(d) Fizz Fairuz, Malay actor, via Twitter : 

"Manalah ultraman n power ranger n doraemon dlm saat2 genting tsunami di jepun..."

(e) Alexandra Wallace, now-former UCLA student, via YouTube :

"I swear they're [Asians in the library] going through their whole family just checking on everybody from the tsunami thing. I mean, I know, okay, that sounds horrible, like, I feel bad for all people affected by the tsunami. But if you're gonna go call your address book, like, you might as well go outside because if something is wrong, you might really freak out right here in the library and everybody is quiet. Like, you seriously should go outside if you wanna do that."

(f) Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor, PM's wife, via an interview :

"Ini [referring to the earthquake in Japan] pada diri saya adalah suatu pengajaran kepada negara-negara lain untuk apa-apa pun mereka nak buat ataupun sebarang pembangunan yang mereka ingin lakukan. Seharusnya mengkaji dulu keadaan sekeliling dan mengaitkan dengan climate change dan green technology termasuk juga negara kita."

(g) Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, via a news conference :

"I think (the disaster) is tembatsu (divine punishment), although I feel sorry for disaster victims. Japanese politics is tainted with egoism and populism. We need to use tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has rusted onto the mentality of Japanese over a long period of time."

[As translated by Kyodo News]

(h) Media Corp (Singapore), Berita Harian (Malaysia) and The Nation (Thai) media blunders:

Malaysia’s Berita Harian and Thailand’s The Nation newspapers published cartoons deemed offensive. While the Singaporean media company was deemed as capitalising on the tsunami disaster.

National Director of Japanese-American Citizens League (JACL), Floyd Mori had this to say about all the many insensitive remarks, “I think comments such as these not only inflame prejudices of the past but cause misinterpretations of the real facts of this major catastrophe.”

In any case, one could already predict the ensuing chronology. #1: Those statements made news and received bad press. #2: After a wave of criticism made against these public personalities/institutions, they made another public statement not long after. #3: But this time around, they, rightfully so, apologise for their mistake. Save maybe in example (f). [F for epic Fail?]

But for some, the repercussions were a lot greater than just having to say sorry.

Mr. Gottfried lost his contract with Aflac, in which he voiced the insurance company’s trademark icon, the Aflac Duck. For Alexandra Wallace, although she was not punished by UCLA, she decided to withdraw from the university citing safety reasons after receiving threats.

There is a recurring theme in all those situations. Yes, the faux pas is rather obvious. But the more important theme is how for every one statement deemed offensive, there was a wave of public outrage to counter it.

A friend of mine, Tashny Sukumaran, who happens to be a Free Malaysia Today journalist opined that, “Regardless of the kinds of disasters or issues, there will be people on both ends of the spectrum. You've got people making tsunami jokes but you've also got people like that scuba diver who rescued his wife, or fundraisers from all over the world.”

When asked to comment on the public’s reaction to the barrage of insensitivities coming from all sorts of directions, she had this to say, “A lot of the time the insensitive statements are a result of lack of information rather than compassion. I firmly believe that people are inherently good, and this is evidenced by the waves of public backlash.”

Perhaps an advice of sorts from Professor William Irvine of Wright State University in Ohio is most appropriate in concluding this entry. In the event that insensitive remarks made are not justified, he suggested that, "...we shouldn’t sit there whimpering about the critic’s insensitivity; instead we should defend ourselves by vigorously demonstrating to him why he is wrong. We will both be better for the experience.”

So this is me 'vigorously demonstrating' against such remarks.