Fox News' Jesse Watters, who hosts a segment titled "Watters' World" on The O'Reilly Factor, went to New York's Chinatown a few days ago under the guise of asking Chinese-Americans what they thought of America's relationship with China. Instead, he spent four minutes referencing every Asian stereotype imaginable, using his platform to characterize the community as an out-of-touch joke, and diminishing their culture to the laziest of tropes (while also deploying some truly unnecessary subtitles).
The segment begins with some "Kung Fu Fighting" parody music, followed by Watters asking two Asian women if he should bow when he sees them. When he did actually ask his subjects about politics, the program made sure to subtitle their answers, or chose to only show their confused faces in response to his comments.
Later he's seen practicing karate (which is Japanese), playing with nunchucks (also Japanese), and (poorly) attempting to say a Chinese sentence. He also asked for "traditional Chinese herbs" to help "performance," and attempted to humiliate a senior citizen who couldn't speak English.
Watters' and O'Reilly's conclusion? The Chinese-Americans are, to the hosts' surprise, aware of what's going on in politics, and also surprisingly willing to put up with white men suggesting otherwise.
However, once this segment went online, the internet was not as kind, and rightfully so. Many, including the Asian American Journalists Association, pointed out how demeaning it was.
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New: Statement from the president of the Asian American Journalists Association on that Jesse Watters segment: https://t.co/cNTAdYsqZW pic.twitter.com/M3xf9xagU3
— Media Matters (@mmfa) October 5, 2016
Take a look for yourself below.
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