First off, in case you missed it a few weeks ago, here's the seriously hilarious screw-up by an Oakland TV station after the Asiana crash. The info actually came from an intern at
the NTSB, so the station never questioned it and, simply because it went right on the air, no one ever actually pronounced the names out loud beforehand.
Other than that, as the saying goes, the story was accurate.
The Asians broke a sacred trust last week. We notice that there's a million and one special interest groups constantly lobbying for gays, blacks, Jews, women, American Indians, and any other 'victim group' worth its weight in grievance.
But not Asians.
There's no 'Asian Caucus' in Congress. There's no 'Asian Pride Month' or 'Asian Anti-Defamation League' or 'Asian Feminist Lobby'. Asians simply aren't into that whole 'offended', 'insensitive', routine the other groups are.
Until now.
Asiana Airlines To Sue Oakland TV Station Over Use Of Racist ‘Names’
On Monday, Asiana Airlines confirmed that it will seek legal recourse against Oakland’s KTVU after the station used ethnically and racially insensitive—and inaccurate—“names” to identify the crew aboard Flight 214
“Those names were not only wrong, but so grossly offensive that it’s hard for us at the Asian American Journalists Association to fathom how those names made it on the broadcast.”
While the apologies may have been accepted by some, many feel the damage has already been inflicted, as demonstrated by Asiana’s plans to file suit against KTVU to “strongly respond to its racially discriminatory report,” according to an airline spokesperson.
As I noted in Meaningless Words, the word 'racist' is about the most misused and meaningless word in the language today. In this case, Koreans aren't any more of a 'race' — at least according to the definition we've been using for the past 10,000 years — than Scots and Irishmen are.
But the real joke here is that the fake names are Chinese in derivation, not Korean. So shouldn't it be the Chinese suing the TV station?
As it turned out, they axed the suit a day later. But what we note is just how the race-grievance leftie sites phrased it:
Asiana Airlines Abandons Plan To Sue KTVU Over Racist Name Gaffe - Huffington Post
Asiana Airlines Won’t Sue TV Station Over Racially Charged Snafu - Variety
Asiana Airlines (not) Suing Network Over Those Fake, Racist Pilot Names - Slate
Asiana Airlines Nixes TV Lawsuit Over Pilot Names - Politico
Hey, at least Politico didn't use the word 'racist' in the headline, right? Maybe they understand. Or, maybe not:
Asiana Airlines has decided not to sue a local TV station over a broadcast in which the station falsely reported racist and offensive names for the pilots in the the airline’s crash landing in San Francisco, according to reports Wednesday.
They were fake Chinese names. Seriously, that's pretty funny. The real icing on the cake would be to find out the NTSB intern was Japanese.
From the first article, it did get one thing partially right:
Members of AAJA also called for “caution” in coverage of the Asian community and Asian culture, pointing out several reports that suggest that “a defect in Korean culture” contributed to the crash—something the group says there is no proof of.
It took about nine video clips and a thousand words of text but I managed to confirm that in Culture in the Cockpit. The part they got right is that this isn't a Korean problem.
It's an Asian problem.
As I noted in the piece, there have been a number of Japanese and Chinese flights where "not willing to speak up" was a BIG DEAL by the time the dust settled.
Literally, in some cases.
On a grander scale, this is also a humanistic problem, and one magnified in countries that have a tradition of Air Force jocks going into the airline industry such as Columbia, Egypt and Russia, but Asia is where the "don't question authority" mindset is particularly ingrained.
The kamikazes of World War II might be Exhibit A.
