Fox’s Bob Beckel went on another ethnic rant on The Five yesterday. His target this time was the Chinese. We’ve previously noted Beckel’s Islamophobia and his animosity toward the Chinese. But this time, he used an explicitly ethnic slur in his attack.
In a discussion about Chinese hackers, Beckel said:
The Chinese are the single biggest threat to the national security of the United States. They have been, they will be and they can wait. They’re very patient. You know what they just did? As usual, we bring ‘em over here and we teach a bunch of Chinamen – uh, Chinese people how to do computers. They go back to China and they hack into us, right?...
He concluded his remarks by saying, “So, China –“ and making a punching motion with an arm gesture that means "F*** you."
After a bit of discussion, Beckel continued. “Doesn’t anybody worry about these people? There’s billions of ‘em. And all they do is hack into our stuff, they send us cheap toys, all of which got lead in ‘em and they’re killing kids.”
H/T Talking Points Memo which also noted Beckel's previous use of the slur.
Watch Fox’s “liberal” co-host below.
In any case, wouldn’t the equivalence of “an American man” be “a Chinese man”? Beckel is losing it IMO.
But if it offends you, fine. There are other words I think are offensive that you probably don’t.
I think he went to a line where he can get away with it. Had he used the word “chink”, he would have crossed the line he can’t go back from.
I am not defending the use of the word. It should have been avoided but he was throwing a tantrum. And this is Fox. I suspect many in their audience loved it.
“American men” is a two-word phrase describing the male population of a certain country. “Chinaman” is a one-word phrase that has a HISTORY as an ethnic slur. Granted, it was largely replaced as a slur by “chink” (though it doesn’t seem to have really been as widespread until around the Korean War era in which case it could have derived from CHINese Communist—CHINC being pronounced, and spelled, as chink). But “Chinaman” was especially common as a slur from the 1850s through the late 1930s. Admittedly, there were times when it wasn’t intended as a direct slur but it was still used in a condescending or patronizing fashion (the n-word was used in a similar fashion up to the Civil War; from Reconstruction on, it became more of a deliberate racial slur while “colored” and “nigra” became used as the condescending/patronizing form).
