The encouraging thing about the stuff-up at Runway Reporter was that many people wrote in to the popular fashion web site to tell them, among them industry types such as Paul Blomfield and Murray Bevan. The down side is that it cemented in some older readers’ minds that all Chinese do look the same and there was a genuine resemblance between Mr Kan and myself.
   I still think it irresponsible to use race as a humour tool and claim it was all a joke, especially in this day and age.
   And Raybon wasn’t too thrilled by it, either.
   But, at least I won’t issue a fatwa against the site, but it brings to light that sometimes, multiculturalism is a claim and not a reality.
   I recall taking a close (platonic) friend, who is of a different race, to numerous events some years ago, getting photographed by paparazzi all the time, and noting that the photographs of us together never made it into the news. It may well have been, back then (in the old, old days of 2003), too sensitive to show a mixed-race pair in the media. Especially if one of the races is mine. Claims of too much Asian immigration in the news, you know. (Of course there would logically be more Asian immigrants, since it is the most populous continent. Try telling our present Foreign Minister-outside-Cabinet that.)
   I could have forgiven this once or twice, but every do over a seven-month period?
   When asked, we made it quite clear we were just friends and nothing more. We enjoyed the other’s company.
   I won’t cast the first stone too strongly, because a few years back I was still quite happy making gay jokes behind the backs of gay friends. Not a good look. Not the sort of person I want to be.
   But in the media, I would be far more careful in making sure I would not do anything that would prejudice any group. Two fellas together at an event? Show it. They were there, right? A couple of mixed race? Why not?
   I report, you decide.
   And I certainly would have been careful not to mix up two people caption-wise, even if at certain angles Robert Verde and Vin Diesel look the same. That is great for an internal joke, and I would have left it there. A public caption is quite another matter. Posted by Jack Yan, 21:54  permalink

comments

Post a Comment  Links to this post