By Louis Chan, AsAmNews National Correspondent
T-shirts featuring a winged bat with the caption “Wuhan Wild Wings- so good, it’s contagious” is sparking anger from many in the Asian American community while being defended as funny by its promoter.
A photo on the website The Dude’s Threads, which is selling the t-shirts, shows an Asian American woman eating a bat with chop sticks.
Mimi Schacht brought attention to the t-shirts through a Facebook post. She told AsAmNews she initially saw an ad for men’s t-shirts and clicked on it hoping to find something humorous for her father. She was not amused.
“My immediate reaction was anger and outrage at the mocking intent,” Schacht told AsAmNews. And my second thought was, I’m so sick of this racist mentality that one could think something like this is worth making a few bucks at the expense of other human beings, in this case, Asians.”
Reaction to Schacht’s comments have been largely favorable on Facebook.
“And the ignorance continues,” wrote one. “Report and get these people taken down.”
Others suggested reaching out to Vice President Kamala Harris and still others urged people to put pressure on Shopify to not carry the merchandise.
Schacht reached out to the company on April 22, but has yet to hear back.
AsAmNews also reached out beginning yesterday and heard back today.
“I keep hearing there’s some kind of anti-Asian crime bullsh*t going on right now, but I just have to assume it’s our bullsh*t media making something into existence to make people scared, or angry, or whatever,” said Craig Duderino to AsAmNews. “I stopped reading the news a while ago, and I’m sure you don’t want to tell your readers to stop reading the news, but it would be my advice to them.”
The number of reported incidents against Asian Americans from March 19 of last year through the end of March this year reached 6603 cases, AsAmNews reported today.
“What offends me most is the belittling of Asians in such a mean, offensive way. It clearly depicts the attitude in which the creators view Asians; as less than,” said Schacht.
She wants an apology to the community and the removal of the product from the website. Duderino, who says he is half Asian, appears not to be moved.
“I think most of us are fed up with PC culture. They’re funny tees, that’s it. People need to lighten up and enjoy themselves instead of searching for things to be offended about. Also, my brother and I, the owners of the store, are Asian. We and our Asian-American customers don’t need anyone to be offended on our behalf.”
Duderino says he has tons of emails from Chinese Americans telling him how funny his t-shirts are.
Schacht is in disbelief.
“Are they at such a loss of creativity they need to stoop this low? With the rise in attacks, it’s beyond the pale of tone deaf,” she said.
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Every country in the world has its weirdos who eat gross stuff. If they want to denigrate, dehumanize, and humiliate Chinese people, then there are many more factual and actual pictures of whites gobbling down disgusting substances. No photo-shopping needed. Maybe some of you talented Asian-American graphic artists can create some memes of whites eating rats, spiders, snakes, or worms, etc. from the show Fear Factor. Eww. White racists’ diet includes…
Comedy and Parody have been around since the dawn of man. It seems to me this entrepreneurs’ intention is to sell his products which are humorous in nature. It is his right in this country to do so. It is a consumers right not to purchase and move on. As I am sure that this particular shirt was offensive to Ms. Schacht there are probably others that she got a giggle from that may offend a different party. It is not as if this was merchandising from an Asian hate group, this is clearly from a humor driven retailer. Ms Schacht even said as much stating she went there to find something funny for her Father and when it did not align with her personal view of what is or is not funny she starts a campaign to shut down a small businessman. One other point I would like to make and that is, The Vice President of the USA has much work to do and urgent concerns to focus on and the fact that anyone thinks this matter should involve the VP is not in touch with reality in my view.
It’s just a tshirt and while it may be in bad taste I still think it’s funny. I chuckle and I move on and get one of their other tee shirts
The hilarious thing is the owner is half asian! I guess his half white side is being rascist against his half Asian side! It’s a play on words people lighten up! If you want to get serious how about you condenm the Chinese communist Govt for all its attrocities against it’s own people!