Asian American organizations and ABC Network hold successful meeting about Kimmel skit

by: Mary Tablante

Several representatives from Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations collaborated to share their concerns regarding the October “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” skit that used hate speech. They followed up with ABC Network representatives with a meeting on Jan. 24. During the meeting, ABC agreed to several changes, including removing the skit from all social media and performing cultural sensitivity training for their staff.

The “Kids Table” segment aired in October and involved one child’s suggestion of killing everyone in China after Kimmel asked a group of children, “America owes China a lot of money, $1.3 trillion. How should we pay them back?”

The meeting went beyond the Kimmel skit and all parties discussed steps moving forward and how to prevent incidents like this from happening again on ABC.

Daniel Mayeda, an attorney and co-chair of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, said he thinks it was interesting for the ABC representatives to hear why people were upset about this incident in particular. The AAPI groups explained the historical context of discrimination and how Asian Americans can be perceived as foreigners or perceived as different from “regular” Americans.

“We’re too often viewed as foreigners and this kind of thing also could lead cumulatively to bullying (and) hate crimes,” Mayeda said.

Mayeda added that an individual saying something similar to, ‘kill all Americans’ would never make it on air, and saying ‘kill the Chinese’ has an impact on Asian Americans because people may not make the distinction between Asian Americans and foreign nationals.

Tom Hayashi, the executive director of OCA National Center, said he was optimistic in terms of ABC receiving their message, but there is still a long way to go with respect to the mainstream media’s knowledge and sensitivity of AAPI issues and the AAPI communities.

“This experience reinforces the need for ongoing conversation (and) ongoing education about cultural issues,” Hayashi said. “I think sometimes (AAPIs) tend to be a lost party because we don’t have enough of these kinds of conversations. Even though it was regrettable this incident happened, I think it was a positive opportunity for us to have this conversation.”

Hayashi added that things that are said in the form of jokes have real consequences that vary in terms of severity and the most severe has to do with hate crimes against members of AAPI communities. For instance, Private Danny Chen, a Chinese American, was subjected to ethnic slurs and harassment leading up to his death in 2011.

“I think (most networks) don’t think about (these consequences) because they really don’t know too much about the history of our community … part of it will be educating leaders within these organizations, especially non-AAPIs, to the history of our community, also for us to push for members of our community to rise to the level of leadership where they can also advocate for these issues internally,” Hayashi said.

Mayeda said he sensed a strong understanding from the ABC representatives. “We felt it was tremendously successful meeting. It really strengthened the partnership,” he said.

The AAPI groups also suggested starting a community advisory council to have ongoing conversations with ABC and discussed the possibility of including national programing during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May.

“From a moving forward perspective, we wanted ABC to do something more to address the needs, issues and concerns of the (AAPI) community,” Mayeda said. This includes the possibility of having ABC address Asian stereotypes and how they can lead to bullying and hate crimes on programs such as “Nightline” and “20/20.”

The ABC representatives who attended the meeting were Paul Lee, President of ABC Entertainment Group; Hope Hartman, Vice President of Corporate Communications; Steve Milovich, Senior Vice President of Global HR, Talent and Workforce Diversity; Olivia Cohen-Cutler, Senior Vice President of Broadcast Standards and Practices; and Tim McNeal, Vice President of Creative Talent Development.

The representatives from the Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations who attended the meeting were Guy Aoki of Media Action Network for Asian Americans; Tom Hayashi of OCA; Daniel Mayeda of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition; Ed Moy of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance; Priscilla Ouchida of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition; and Hapei Shue of the National Council of Chinese Americans.