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Shaq’s Taunt — Prelude to Hate Crimes?

The Shaq/Yao controversy gives us a ready-made status report on Asians in America.

How are we doing? Not as well as we thought. I now admit to being totally wrong.

I had hoped that Houston Rockets center Yao Ming would be America’s liberator of Asian stereotypes. To me, he was the “Great Yellow Hope,” not just for the NBA, but for all of us.

I mean, when was the last time you saw anyone Asian over seven-feet who didn’t move like a Lego figure? But Yao is different. He’s fluid. He’s smart. He’s the super-sized Asian dunking basketballs all over America in arenas throughout the land. In the parlance of sports talk, “Yao da man!”

I even envisioned Yao’s first meeting with America’s pre-eminent basketballer, Lakers’ star Shaquille O’Neal as something special. The Jan. 17 event would be a classic athletic contest, with the first stuff over Shaq, a monumental statement, a SportsCenter moment. A modern day “Golden Spike.”

But now the first meeting of Yao and Shaq has been upstaged by ugliness.

Instead of inspiring America’s imagination about the potential of all Asians in America, Yao Ming has unbelievably inspired America’s ignorance. Inadvertently, he’s become the great enabler of stupid racist comments.

How else can you explain Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal’s comments: “Tell Yao Ming, ‘Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-so.’”

Shaq now says he was joking. “If I offended anyone, I apologize,” he told the media last week. “[But] to say I’m a racist against Asians is crazy.”

Take the apology at face value. What he’s really saying is “If you’re offended, it’s your problem. But here’s my half-ass apology if you need it. I’m a big man.”

That’s no apology.

But then he tried to laugh it all off. It was just a joke! Joking? Does “Tell Yao Ming, ‘Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-so,’” translate into “Take my wife, please?”

The original comment was made last June on Fox Sports Net’s The Best Damned Sports Show Period.

I guess all of us were watching The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Or worse yet, maybe some of you were laughing and not cringing, and waving your Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts in approval.

Fortunately, the media replicates material like DNA. An audiotape of the interview was replayed not once, but twice in December on a syndicated radio show. And that’s where we must thank Irwin Tang for quite naturally having his dander raised.

Tang, a 32-year-old sports fan and a research fellow at the University of Texas’ Center for Asian American Studies, was listening to Fox Sports’ Tony Bruno Sports Extravaganza.

“I couldn’t believe my ears,” Tang told me over the phone. “And then I just felt sick.”

The whole story should make you feel sick.

When it first aired in June, no one, no Asians, nor other humanistic souls thought twice about any of it. In fact, instead of condemning Shaq’s comments to the trash heap, some media folks like the ones at Bruno’s show kept playing the tape.

Is America’s threshold for racism growing?

How does one explain the reaction I got from Evan Mandelbaum, the producer of Bruno’s show. “Shaq’s comments are racist,” he told me by phone. “But does that make him a racist?”

How do you answer that one? Every step of the way in this story we see how little regard there is for Asian Pacific Americans.

Tang went to the mainstream media, most notably the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press. There was no interest in his reaction to Shaq. But should that come as any surprise? How long did the media sit on Sen. John McCain’s use of the word “gook” in the last campaign?

It was only when he came to the ethnic press and AsianWeek that Tang found a voice.

That’s when the mainstream media and Shaq finally acknowledged the import of the story.

But then get a load of what Los Angeles Times columnist J.A. Adande wrote: “It’s 100 percent correct to say that O’Neal was wrong. What shouldn’t even be considered for one second is that O’Neal is a racist. In private conversations I’ve never heard him denigrate anyone on the basis of race ... O’Neal wasn’t trying to demean an entire group of people. He was using the stereotype of the group to poke fun at an individual.”

So this is how you get away with using a group slur. You just say you were targeting one member of the group.

That makes it okay? Shaq doesn’t even get a wrist slap of condemnation. He gets a defense through media apologists.

And suddenly, to young people who look on Shaq as a pop culture icon, a little racism is okay.

Somewhat more disappointing is the acceptance level among some APAs. While driving I heard KNBR’s Ralph Barbieri and Tom Tolbert commenting on the issue. Normally I like the Razor and Mr. T. But they had an Asian caller say he was Filipino, married to a Chinese woman, and they make fun of each other all the time. In other words, Shaq’s words were just innocent self-mocking fun.

Shaq’s words were hardly self-mocking fun. They were taunts. Taunts are preludes to hate crimes. Over the last few years there have been 400 to 500 hate crimes against APAs in America, according to the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. Two of the hate crimes since Sept. 11 were murders; and almost all of them stem from the same well that produced “Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-so.”

That’s not exactly an innocent, “Your mama wears combat boots.”

APAs should consider a number of actions. One could include writing to NBA Commissioner David J. Stern, at the National Basketball Association, Olympic Tower, 656 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

Another could be a boycott of Shaq’s latest endorsement deal: Radio Shack. What’s a self-respecting hi-tech Asian doing in a Radio Shack anyway?

But the most immediate thing would be a demand for a formal apology. The NBA, hell bent on globalizing the game for filthy lucre, better get a handle on this now. When foreign players come to our xenophobic shores, it should be an opportunity to embrace our similarities around a game we all love. Not to demean, taunt, and intimidate players and fans.

If nothing is done by Jan. 17, the first meeting between Shaq and Yao, then watch out.

Shaq’s defenders give racists everywhere a green light. Shaq’s joking taunts should make you shiver. They make you, Yao, and any one else of Asian descent, a target.

Reach Emil Guillermo at emil@amok.com.