Jul 12, 2017
Emil Guillermo: The Slants' Simon Tam speaks candidly on PODCAST:
"The cure for hate speech isn't censorship...let communities
decide, not government."
July 10, 2017 6:58 PM
It's been a big summer for Simon Tam, musician and founder of
the Slants, now trademarked, reappropriated, and unanimously
affirmed by the Supreme Court.
He also got married recently in his native state of
California, so there's been much to celebrate.
And yet it seems there still some who aren't cheering his nearly
eight-year-long battle to trademark his band's name and use the
disparaging term "slant."
People of color remain divided since the Slants' victory is
certain to allow for the Washington NFL team to continue using its
disparaging name.
Tam told Emil Amok's Takeout, he's aware of that and
it bothers him.
"It makes my skin crawl, it's terrible," Tam said. But he
ultimately feels the decision was a win for all, protecting
vulnerable communities who have had no say in the trademark process
until this case. "Our identities were used against us," said Tam,
who feels it will now be up to the marketplace and our own
communities to say what's inappropriate, rather than the
government.
"The cure of hate speech is not censorship," said Tam, who
believes that the First Amendment allows for a deeper and more
nuanced approach than simply to say some words are good, and others
are bad.
In recent reports, some Asian American legal groups like
NAPABA and AAAJ have criticized the Supreme Court decision. (AALDEF
and other Asian American groups joined the
ACLU amicus brief
and supported the Slants.) But Tam has held steady and rejects the
"slippery slope" notion of critics who believe that an avalanche of
hate speech will result from the decision. In an
open letter to his critics, Tam sees the decision as advancing
legit reappropriation.
"In fact, now communities can be equipped to protect their own
rights and prevent villainous characters from profiting and
misleading people with these same terms," Tam wrote.
In his open letter, Tam cited the case of Heeb, a Jewish
publication on pop culture, granted the registration for their
magazine, but when they applied for the exact same mark in the
categories of t-shirts and events, were denied for
"disparagement."
As Tam points out, it meant when a group of Holocaust deniers
sent harassing communications to subscribers, inviting them to Heeb
Events, the organization was unable to stop them. "Had Heeb not
been wrongly denied a registration, they would have been able to
get a cease and desist order. This case now allows a just procedure
against other people wrongly profiting from racial slurs or
countering the work done by reappropriation."
Tam concludes: "Laws, like words, are not always inherently
harmful. It depends on how they are used. It is like a sharp blade:
in the hands of an enemy, it can inflict pain and suffering.
However, in the hands of a surgeon, it can provide healing. The law
I fought against was a large sword used by the government to
haphazardly target "disparaging" language, but the collateral
damage was on the free speech rights of those who need protected
expression the most. Like other broad policies around access and
rights (be it stop and frisk or voter ID laws), there was a
disparate impact on the marginalized."
That logic may still not satisfy those conflicted by the
decision, especially when it leads to a result like affirming the
use of the Washington NFL team's slur.
But the bottom line is still the First Amendment, which Tam is
busy expressing in the studio on the follow up to the group's last
EP, "The Band Who Must Not Be Named."
The new disc will definitely be named, eponymously, the group's
first ever under its proud SCOTUS affirmed banner. For Tam, in the
name of the broader Asian American community, it was worth
it.
Hear Simon on
Emil Amok's Takeout here.
* * *
Emil Guillermo is an independent journalist/commentator.
The views expressed in his blog do not necessarily
represent AALDEF's views or policies.
Emil Guillermo: Oh no, "Hawaii Five-0" and what it means to all of
us
July 6, 2017 4:18 PM
When I first heard about Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park leaving
"Hawaii Five-0," I couldn't believe it.
The stars of the long-running TV crime procedural based in the
50th state simply asked for pay equity. They got the cold shoulder
instead. Their exit leaves CBS with what it deserves. Hawaii
Five-nothing.
(photo by Loren
Javier)
I'm not watching a show with zero Asian American stars going into
the eighth season.
Really, how do you just let your top Asian American cast
members on a TV show set in the nation's most Asian American state
just pick up and leave?
It's easy if you don't value diversity. Or to be more
specific, equality.
Here's the deal the white co-stars get that the Asian American
stars don't. More pay. And a cut of the series profits. As if the
white stars are the draw that carried the whole show.
They're not.
I don't even know who the co-stars Alex O'Loughlin and Scott
Caan are.
Frankly, I couldn't pick them out in a line at a Panda
Express.
But, of course, CBS Television Studios, the show's producers,
wouldn't budge.
And this is in a show that I would say was equally Kim's and
Park's.
All this proves is Asian American leverage in showbiz remains
zero. Unless you're married to the boss like Julie Chen, who has
climbed to the top on the shoulders of "Big Brother." But for the
majority of Asian Americans who appear on the glassy side of the
camera, the message is pretty clear. Just be happy to get SAG/AFTRA
scale. Know your place. Don't overreach. You're the hired
help.
As my old friend Guy Aoki of the Media Action Network for
Asian Americans told
Hollywood Reporter, "the racial
hierarchy established in the original 1968-1980 series remained
intact in the 2010 reboot: Two white stars on top, two
Asian/Pacific Islander stars on the bottom."
It's sad that at this time in history, in what should be a vehicle
for Asian Americans. this is how Asian American stars are
treated.
If you can just let a guy like Kim, arguably one of the top
male Asian American stars in Hollywood, just leave, that's a major
message to someone like me who wants to be the next Victor Wong. Or
Amy Hill.
Despite all the window dressing and Asian American stars you
can point to, showbiz remains as racist now as it ever was.
I'm particularly depressed by this after coming off a short
run at the San Diego Fringe Festival with my one-man show, "Amok
Monologues."
My one good review made it worthwhile.
Still, I'm a journalist and storyteller by trade. I combined
the theater at this juncture in my life because I studied acting
and drama a long time ago when I was in college and in grad
school.
Back then, I even thought about going into acting. But when
the only Filipinos I saw played beach boys and drivers, I thought
better of my stereotype.
In fact, the best role I ever got was playing the white guy in
black theater. But then maybe that's because my college roommate
was the director and he owed it to me.
I realized early on that it wouldn't happen for me in showbiz
unless I write my own stories. But for me, the urgency of
journalism outweighed the lure of show business. I felt the facts
needed to be established before I felt comfortable telling stories
on stage.
That meant turning to journalism to tell our stories, even
with hairspray and makeup, as I did when starting in
TV.
I thought TV would provide the right balance between showbiz
and journalism. At KXAS in Dallas, I worked with Scott Pelley.
(Would he have ended up like me had his name been Pellicito?) At
KRON-TV in San Francisco, I worked with some of the most talented
folks in the business.
Oddly, my career climbed to its furthest point the more people
couldn't see me--- in radio, where I could sound as white as
anyone.
But my life in the media shows, you still can't escape what
Aoki calls that "racial hierarchy." Whites still control. And if
being Asian American is important, or being deracinated sounds
hideous to you, you're out of luck.
Some make the compromise anyway, and hang on. Temporarily. But
it catches up to you. You are who you are. And that can be a factor
in how far you go in media.
Maybe there are enough Asian American anchors around
(predominantly women), so you can debate me and insist that things
are changing. But that may be all show. If salaries were revealed,
like in the "Hawaii Five-0" situation, I bet we're still being
lowballed.
So what does it mean to everyone else not in showbiz or
journalism? Plenty. If you don't play in the ensemble, or play the
lead in fake TV life, don't think you'll get a fair shot in real
life quite as easily.
TV helps create the stereotypical reality. When we don't show
up in the image-making machinery of our culture, it's much harder
to show up anywhere. Did CBS care that Hawaii was the most Asian
state in the nation?
When a show can get away with dumping its key Asian stars just
like that, it will surely embolden those in other
industries.
Gains don't come without a challenge. For as long as
necessary. Look at American history. And look at the current
backslide on major issues from affirmative action to voting
rights.
"Hawaii Five-0" is TV giving us a reality check, just when we
thought we had made some progress. I mean, more than 50 years after
the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, you'd figure we would
get a break on things that are pretend. But somewhere on top of the
heap, someone has made a decision. Paying two Asian American actors
what they're worth isn't good business. So Kim and Park are gone.
The white fantasy of "Hawaii Five-0" lives on.
In the meantime, I'm not watching a Kim-less, Park-less
5-0.
I encourage you to do the same, and to support Asian American
actors, producers, and writers in their projects.
And I'm doing what others are doing these days. Writing my own
stuff. Telling my own stories. It seems to be the only way to beat
the racial hierarchy of Hollywood.