Sunday, March 13, 2011

Asians in the library? How dare they!

A remarkable youtube video has been circulating today, and it has kicked up a veritable shitstorm. The video features a female UCLA student ranting about how "hordes of Asians" living and studying around her need to learn "American manners" like how to fend for themselves and how not to talk loudly in the library. Among other things, she mentions how she is tired of seeing families of these students flock to their apartments every weekend to cook, wash clothes and help around. Yes, how unusual of families to want to visit their kids?

But that's not her main offense. Midway through the rant, she starts complaining about how these hordes have no respect for proper library etiquette. She does a crude imitation of a generic "Asian" accent.
 
The original copy of the video got deleted but by now there are duplicate copies floating around:


Naturally, the enraged mobs are out on the streets vilifying her as a racist. I don't know if this is necessarily racist (IMO, the word racist/racism - both of which carry very heavy connotations, are woefully overused and abused in our society), but it is bewilderingly crude, offensive and ignorant.

2 comments:

  1. lolololol

    I wonder what day the original video was posted... I totally slept in Powell the other night, and I KNOW I took some calls from a certain Prominent Internet Blogger! If I had know psycho-grouch was so annoyed, I would have talked louder so she'd know Asians weren't the only mouthbreahters breaking her concentration!

    Although I do agree with her on one thing - if someone calls to tell you your parents just died in a tsunami, do us all a favor and TAKE IT OUTSIDE! >:(

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  2. HAHAHA I do remember that night when you received calls. I believe this video was posted yesterday though, so she had no chance of noticing your trangressions.

    There was a FB event called "Asians in library" that featured her profile page from some modeling website. Can't see the event anymore.

    And her tsunami comment was completely out of line, more so than everything else she said.

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