Whoopi Compares Vick Case to Chinese Eating Cats

Harry Mok
September 5, 2007

Some might say her comments are ignorant and even racist. I would lean more toward the ignorant because it's true that the Chinese eat cat. And dog. I've been to restaurants in China where both are served and tried dog.

The stereotype is based on fact. I don't know exactly how common it is to eat dog and cat China, but it's not an everyday thing. And certainly few if any are being consumed in the United States by Chinese Americans or anyone else. The problem is when the eating cat and dog stereotype becomes the only image that is conjured up when talking about Chinese or Asian Americans.

Contributor: 

Harry Mok

Editor in chief

Editor in Chief Harry Mok wrote about growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm for the second issue of Hyphen and has been a volunteer editor since 2004. As a board member of the San Francisco and New York chapters of the Asian American Journalists Association, Harry has recruited and organized events for student members. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a graduate student instructor in the Asian American Studies Department.

Comments

Comments

dorian wrote on Sun, 09/16/2007 - 7:00pm
hey joe,Do you know what a troll is? Do you even know what ignorant means? Cuz you're only proving yourself to be less than mentally functional by posting stuff you don't even know about.
Asian Avenger wrote on Wed, 09/19/2007 - 7:19pm
Joe is probably a stupid whitey
alyssa wrote on Sat, 12/20/2008 - 2:27pm
JUST RECENTLY I VEIWED A SHOW ON T.V ABOUT CHINA AND THEIR DOG AND CAT EATING HABITS...AND TRUTHFULLY..I WILL NEVER BE THE SAME WHEN IT COMES TO ANIMAL CRULTY...IAM WAY MORE MOTIVATED TO BE TOTALLY AND COMPLETLY AGENST THAT...TO SOME ITS A WAY OF LIFE ..TO ME ITS BEYOND UNHUMAN! I THINK SURE YOU SHOULD DO MORE OF YOUR RESEARCH BEFOR YOU THINK SHARING YOUR STORY ABOUT YOUR TRIP TO CHINA AND YOUR DOG EATING HABITS.IF YOU CAN EAT DOGS AND SHARE THAT WIT THE WORLD THEN I THINK I CAN SHARE MY OPINION.THANK U FOR LISTENING.HAVE A GOOD DAY.
ALYSSA wrote on Sat, 12/20/2008 - 2:30pm
p.s. that message was to harry.
zag wrote on Mon, 11/26/2007 - 11:35pm
If it's a true statement and a real practice, it's not much worse than Whoopi when she eats watermelon.
Lxy wrote on Tue, 12/23/2008 - 1:01am
Alyssa, take your inhuman cow-eating, morbidly obese Amurikan ass to the website below, and take a good hard look in the mirror about your "love of animals."And while your at it, turn your Caps Lock off. It makes you sound like even more of a piece of White Trash than you already are.http://stuffwhitepeoplesay.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/i-love-animals/
marcusmagice wrote on Sat, 10/13/2007 - 12:07pm
I am an African American and I can tell you the comment was not a comparsion between dogfighting and eating dogs. Whoopi simply said that no one can say that dogfighting is black culture, and that saying so would mean that eating dogs is Chinese culture. She was making a comment about the labels the media uses to characterizes minorities. For example if a few blacks smoke weed then the whole race must love it. I think it is typical of the white media to jumble the statement and use it to isolate certain groups. The truth is the media creates stereotypes and not people and that was what she was trying to reference.
Chinese wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 1:33pm
Actually I have seen more Chinese eat snakes in China, rather than cats and dogs. Actually I have seen more Koreans eat dogs than the Chinese. However, Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese do not eat cats, dogs or snakes. In fact they find it disgusting.
asiandragon wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 1:54pm
Whoopi is a stupid [racist word deleted. -ed.]! She should keep her ugly face indoors and keep that bitch ass mouth shut.
tofu wrote on Tue, 02/10/2009 - 1:12pm
Yo, Before ya'll start jumping on Whoopi's case check yourselves & this topic. " BLACKS BANNED FROM BARS IN OLYMPICS". It's been covertly kept out of the corporate news media interestingly. Yo, ya'll got to wake-up cause 2012 is almost here & it ain't no joke. Do your re-search. "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"
Laura wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 5:11pm
I'm so glad to see that someone was paying attention to this comment. I was livid to hear that comparison - and I do believe it was a racist comment. What some people may eat when other meat isn't available - cats don't have much meat, after all - or as a delicacy, is not the same as murdering and torturing dogs. To add that dimension to an already longheld sterotype disgusts me. It's unfair to use what may only be true of a small subsest of a group to further "other" the group as a whole. She should have known better. I wish the mainstream media would hold her accountable for her comment.
Anonymous wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 7:37pm
I thought Rosie O donnell departure was a sign of better things to come. I guess Barbara Walters has to have that one instigator on the Views panel
tom diep wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 9:58pm
Eating dogs & cats in other countries are part of their culture. However, American's culture we don't eat pets and we don't treat animal esp. pets cruely and inhuman. In that respect I think Whoopi is ignorant when comparing eating dogs & cats from China with Vick's dogfighting and execution. This is wrong!
lala wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 10:28pm
asiandragon, are you related to kenneth eng? you sure do talk like him.
HMMMM wrote on Wed, 09/05/2007 - 10:34pm
I think before I comment on Whoopi, I need to here the whole content, then make a judgement.
Anonymous wrote on Thu, 09/06/2007 - 5:09am
Barbara Walters hates asians.
Hop Sing wrote on Thu, 09/06/2007 - 8:53am
Ah-so, I stir-fry little kitties for Cartwright family all the time!!!
huh... wrote on Thu, 09/06/2007 - 9:21am
I think the wrong part here is that she is twisting a fact about Chinese and putting it in a moral context that does not take into account the cultural or environmental aspects of that society. I believe Whoopi was trying to state that all cultures have customs that mainstream america does not accept. However I felt it was ignorant of her it include this example about Chinese. It further promotes Asians culture in a negative light.
Joe wrote on Thu, 09/06/2007 - 11:12am
Hey Orientals!,Don't be so thin-skinned about Whoopi's comments; the truth is I'd much rather watch a couple of dogs fight each other(but not to the death!) then eat them or cats,rats, snakes,poopy bird's nests,eels, insects, and whatever bizarre wildlife they routinely eat in China and other Asian countries. The French are just as bad too with their snails, chocolate covered ants, etc. Hell, I can remember when my Mom cooked us frog legs for dinner one night!
Dave wrote on Fri, 09/07/2007 - 10:28pm
Bombard ABC's website with complaints.They will listen.We as Asians need to take a page out of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton's playbook.These comments are not acceptable.
Anonymous wrote on Sat, 09/08/2007 - 8:47pm
I doubt it if that happens, Asians are to afraid to stick up for themselves.
Anon wrote on Sun, 09/09/2007 - 3:52pm
Article addressing racism on "The View":http://www.eastwestmagazine.com/content/view/211/55/
come on now wrote on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 8:05pm
Don't know why everyone is so surprised. This show is so full of sh_t to begin with. Everyone on it is a stereotype and/or typecast of something. Didn't anyone notice the Star Jones look-a-like the other day? Coincidence? Hell no. Whoopi is The View's Colin Powell. As an individual probably very smart and respectable but in the hands of the machine, just another expendable fall guy hired to say stupid sh_t to keep ratings up.