News Roundup

Monday, July 23, 2007

Yang: A taste of racism in the Chinese food scare (The Statesman):

“The French delight in preparing food; the Italians adore eating it. But no people on Earth are so engrossed in food as the Chinese, for whom it is not just craft, pleasure and sustenance but the fundamental building block of society. In the West, acquaintances greet one another with “How are you?” The Chinese ask, “Have you eaten?” So for the Chinese, tainted food is more than a health hazard — it’s a kind of sacrilege. As one Chinese shopper told National Public Radio, “People here think food is as important as the sky. If there’s something wrong with the food, it’s as if the sky is falling.”

Nevertheless, China has been portrayed as a nation blind to hygiene and blissfully unconcerned about recent reports of food contamination. That’s troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture.”

NAACP calls for federal probe of racist e-mails sent to troopers, police probe under way (SignOnSanDiego.com):

“A photograph and video were e-mailed to private accounts in February. The photo is of a black man lying on a street surrounded by pieces of watermelon and a bucket of chicken, while the video shows a young white girl repeating racial slurs with the encouragement of off-camera adults.”

Tintin’s Racist Past (Forbes):

“When British lawyer David Enright opened the pages of a comic book entitled Tintin In The Congo while in a shop with his wife and two young boys, he was probably expecting a benign adventure story full of fun for all the family. Instead what he found was a “highly offensive” collection of racist caricatures of Africans, from superstitious natives to incoherent simpletons…”