Kathie Lee Gifford Does Her Best Chinese Accent

Compared to Mr. Yunioshi, Gifford's performance was just a little bit of ching-chong on national TV. If you don't think Mr. Yunioshi was offensive, then the clip of Gifford is nothing. Al Roker is as much at fault as Gifford if you're going to take offense.

It's not that people who take issue with Gifford or Mr. Yunioshi don't have a sense of humor. These sorts of things are a tired act that may seem like harmless banter and probably have no malicious intent, but they evolved from racist origins where the goal was to dehumanize.

There always seem to be polarizing responses to incidents such as this. It's interesting how different the comments on Gawker are to the comments on the Sacramento Bee stories about deleting scenes from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," the cancellation of its screening and Rooney's response. Quite a different audience.

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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.

Kathie Lee Gifford Does Her Best Chinese Accent

Harry Mok

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Kathie Lee Gifford Does Her Best Chinese Accent

Harry Mok

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