Cynthia Cheng

The Jezebel and Big Bad Baby Names (registration required to read this board) posts about the “racist” KFC ads in Australia have me thinking.  Is the very reason that American commenters not understanding the fact that Australians did not see the ad as racist a misunderstanding or something else (just a backgrounder: the KFC ad depicts a white Australian rugby fan sitting in a sea of black people who are from the West Indies (you can tell by the shirt colours).  To show solidarity between rivaling teams, he brings out a bucket of KFC, which the West Indian fans promptly grab.  The ad, which ended up on Youtube, upset quite a few Americans because it showed black people grabbing the KFC – the black people liking fried chicken is a North American stereotype that does not exist in Australia.)? 

It’s interesting.  Most of the commenters on both boards are fairly well-educated, with post secondary degrees.  One would assume that with these degrees, they could at least see things from an international perspective, rather than domestic.  However, it is not the case, and it extends well beyond the KFC ad.  Everything, especially things related to ethnicity seems to be a certain American perspective (take a look at this recent post about Japan’s Coming of Age Day) and international views, while allowed, are brushed off, because the US posters don’t feel that the international perspectives are the “correct” way of thinking. It seems that these commenters want people from other parts of the world to think like them.  What I can’t understand is how people who are supposedly “educated” can think this way.  It’s very dangerous. 

This rattles a lot of people from other parts of the world.  If you don’t having people tell you what to do, you shouldn’t do the same to others, especially if it isn’t part of their culture (this is like parents dictating to their kids what career path they should take, even if the children have no interest in the industry because the parents want their kids to be “just like them”).  In any case, these views make people from other parts of the world think that Americans are “unexposed.” And if taken the wrong way, it can be dangerous.

I also find it interesting that the US, being a country made up of immigrants, doesn’t have a more international point of view.  Especially when many people, even if they’ve been in the United States for more than two generations, have still kept some old world traditions or have adapted old world traditions for a newer environment.  Of course, many in the Sarah Palin camp will say that these people aren’t “real Americans,” since they don’t subscribe to the same kind of views she does.  However, if many of the people in the US are smart to make fun of Ms. Palin and her camp as being “unpolished,” why can’t they see things from an international perspective?

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