A 
bit late in the game, but I wanted to give my readers a heads up about some issue that has been making it’s rounds around the blogosphere.
Basically, a book, written by 2 Caucasian brothers has been using elements from Asian culture to present the problems of character assassins.
This has (surprise!) offended some people. And some pretty prolific bloggers have gone on the offensive defensive interwebs to address some of these concerns.
Here are the pertinent links:
- Blog Post on Deadly Vipers blog site about apologies. Read the comments to read Prof Rah’s thoughts.
- Three posts (1, 2, 3) from Prof Rah’s blog about the issue at hand. I particularly found ironic their decidedly NON-apologetic apology to a comment on their post on apologetic apologies.
- Eugene Cho’s blog post on the matter. Good stuff.
- Friend Dan So’s blog post.
- DJ Chuang’s blog post.
- Friend Drew Hyun’s blog post. Good stuff.
- Here is a video from the authors’ facebook page, which certainly doesn’t help.
All of these are worth some quick reads. Here are my quick hits:
- Am I offended? No. And yes. I’m not offended because I could care less about what these two guys think of me or my culture (not even my culture). However I am offended that the White America and Caucasian Christianity has not gotten the point yet.
- Are people overreacting? Probably. But you know what? Good for them. Because for far too long, people haven’t cared enough. Honestly, if someone treated African-American culture like this to sell a book, then we would see Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton on the TV to protest. So, I say good for you for creating a wave when there was only a ripple.
- How can they be so racist? I don’t know. But, I do know. Probably because they haven’t had enough experience in authentic friendship with any Asians. I don’t blame them as I don’t think they meant it maliciously. As Drew put it, I think it was a blindspot. And you know what? I’m sure I have them about white people, black people and all people, even Asians. I always said that I encountered a lot of racism during my 6 years of living in the Bible Belt… my own.
- What should be done? Zondervan and the authors need to use this opportunity to make good on this and bring this issue to light to help foster reconciliation.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” ~ 2 Cor 5:18
What I hope doesn’t happen is that they tuck this issue away and figure that it’s a just a proverbial blip on the map—a niche issue.
My parting thoughts is that I think these are probably nice guys who made a bad decision. But their response to Prof Rah’s email are what’s really aggravating. Even brought to his attention, he seems to reveal the marginalization of Asian culture even clearer.
Thanks for letting me bring this to your consciousness. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
Its more ignorance than racism. And there’s a bigger issue involved than race, its the issue of Matthew 18:15-18. Everyone involved are brothers in Christ, so they should approach it like Matthew 18. Out of that conversation could have come a more beautiful conversation that could have addressed ignorance and forgiveness. Now its a convoluted conversation with everyone forced to take sides. Lastly, being Christian is our identity first, then Asian. We should operate from that formula.
Rich – Thanks for the link love. I think you articulated clearly what many of us are struggling with. Our lack of progress as a church when it comes to issues of race & ethnicity is frustrating. Hopefully, this conversation will move forward and enable all of us to grow.
Nice post. I’ve been following this for a few days and am happy to see the growing outrage. I’m amazed the authors still have chosen not to issue any kind of apology and I think it’s because money is involved. They have created a brand using Asian culture caricatures and when they moved those caricatures they’re just left w/ another self-help book.