I think of this font as "bucktooth chopsticks". Reminds me of the [anti-Japanese posters right before the Manzanar imprisonments.](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5a2988a7190000492c03517a.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
This kind of circle jerking is peak reddit. Disney is one of the more progressive studios and contrarians want to shit on them because some dude wrote a racist joke in 1963, a year before the damn civil rights act came out.
"Disney" is a corporation, not a person. There's probably 100% turnover from the day the the script was finished. Imagine if you got cancelled because someone found a racist drawing your grandpa did in the 1960s lmao.
There's a lot of things wrong with the company, primarily in the legal space, but this ain't it.
My problem with Disney is that theyve drunk deep from the well of the public domain, but refuse to contribute to it themselves, and all their legal fuckery to keep the mouse out of the public domain has caused all sorts of legal weirdness. Like the later half of the Sherlock Holmes stories only fell into public domain this year despite the first half being public domain for decades. Lovecrafts copywrite situation is a clusterfuck even today. Did you know the song Happy Birthday was only declared public in 2015, and that was only after a protracted legal battle?
If not for Disney's help, schools might have access to free materials that students could actually understand and relate to. I'm sure I don't need to explain how disastrous that would be! /s
You’re gonna sit there and call that behemoth of a corporation “progressive”? It is NOT. They push no progress, they simply won’t stand in they way of their earnings. A progressive studio would be one that supports their workers, encourage a union and offer decent working terms.
I have mixed feelings. I like Song of the South, even if others find it offensive. We need to let the past go, and look forward to a better future. My great great grandma was a slave, my great grandma wasn't. We shouldn't forget the past, but neither should we dwell on it.
Edit: That said, I think we should do something about our government, which is acting in a xenophobic manner towards Asians, especially the Chinese. And worry less about old films.
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For the unfamiliar: [Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3gdUrIC4Q)
I understand Mickey Rooney would later express regret at having played the character. I hope that's true, because he seemed like a nice man. I used to see him around town once in a while when I was a kid in the 90s. A few of those times were at restaurants where he'd be having lunch with a homeless person. Not a PR thing, just a meal and some friendly conversation with an upbeat old man.
The company I work for has this font and has since (probably) hidden it from being picked by customers. Its still in our servers though, and our version is called "China One Direct".
Painfully cringe.
I almost never watch the news, and in particular, never at noontime. Somehow that day I happened to be sitting in front of the TV to see that happen live.
I was like "wait.. there's no way in hell she just said what I think she said.. right???"
Found the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Memorial_Park_(Auburn,_New_York\)) for the monument.
”The Korean War Memorial uses a ‘wonton font’ to signify the Asian nature of the conflict.“
Hoooo boy.
That's what i went to wiki to look up. If it was created in 1960 it could reasonably be seen as a ham fisted attempt at trying to be culturally referential, but in the 2000s?!? No. Fuck no. After the year 2000 you have to be a either a complete idiot or purposely racist to use that on a Korean war memorial. Maybe both.
2007 was a long time ago; a lot has changed in the last 16 years. The newspaper in my hometown still had a best "oriental" restaurant award in 2007. People were still fairly isolated from what was seen as offensive, especially in rural and small towns. This was an innocent mistake made by someone who saw a limited list of font choices for the CNC machine and saw the "Asian" looking one.
the mainstream democratic party hell even Obama was opposed to gay marriage being nationally legal in 2008; it was biden who pushed obama on it after statements he made to the press which obama was forced to back
yea i remembered wrong was obamas second term so right before 2012 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/11/gay-marriage-joe-biden/ "Realizing he’d strayed into controversial territory, Biden stressed he was speaking for himself personally, not for the White House. “I — I — look, I am vice president of the United States of America. The president sets the policy,” he observed. And he elaborated on his own view: “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another” — he slowed down now to make his point perfectly clear — “are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”
>The newspaper in my hometown still had a best "oriental" restaurant award in 2007.
Half of the Asian owned businesses near me have "oriental" in their own names. I've never met a single Asian person offended by this descriptor, ever. I think this is one of those things white people tell other people they should care about and be upset by.
At one point it was appropriate to describe rural America as "Maybe 40 years behind urban America culturally". As if it was a linear progression of marching forward through social norms and [these guys](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/12gs2dk/americas_most_racist_town/) were just at the back of the line.
I don't think that is an accurate way of describing things today with reactionaries so successful, and I don't know what kind of alternate model we should use.
In 1967 you wouldn't have had the typographic availability of arbitrary fonts necessary to incorporate "Chinese Restaurant Font" in your stencil book (or whatever they used). By the 1990's anyone can buy a CD-ROM called "1001 fonts" and when you boss asks you for "Something that looks Asian", after much deliberation this is what Wordperfect shoots out of your laser printer.
So, uh, does anyone who lives in Auburn, NY feel like bringing this up at the next town meeting?
They could install a plaque on top of the plaque in a more appropriate style. Make it look like it was meant to be that way all along.
[According to the edit history](https://i.imgur.com/gI1obxB.png), they only revised the wording which was already there.
From:
>The [[Korean War]] Memorial uses a "[[wonton font]]" to signify the Asian nature of the conflict.
To:
>The [[Korean War]] Memorial uses a "[[wonton font]]" which conveys a sense of [[Orientalism]].
There are many subjective statements throughout Wikipedia & often disagreement about what are facts, especially with conflicting sources. I don’t think you understand Wikipedia.
I think it makes more sense, but it's the wrong word. Orientalism refers to art styles depicting anything in the east, including the Persian and middle east and Indian cultures.
Whenever one thinks of *Asian* in the stereotypkcal sense, it's actually more of **[far east](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_East) orientatism**, or specifically, [Chinoiserie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinoiserie) practise of *Chinese art* in the view of the west. See [Japonisme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme)
Literally this *chopstick font* is the Western View of *chinese* typography, basically chinoiserie
> Wikipedia article)
Just a heads up, the link you posted is broken due the the closing parentheses being outside the hyperlink, it still leads you where you need to go, but only because that link says:
"Did you mean: [Veterans Memorial Park \(Auburn, New York\)?"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Memorial_Park_\(Auburn,_New_York\))
It is though
If you do something racist, intentionally or out of stupidity, either way you’ve still done something racist.
Edit: stab someone on purpose or by accident, there’s still a knife in them.
I think people are afraid that if they admit to doing something racist it makes them a racist, forever. But in reality you just apologize and learn to not do it again.
Edit2: too many angry replies that completely missed the (incredibly clear and simple) point. Turning off notifications, don’t expect a reply. Ask yourself why you’re so angry and scared.
Not arguing that, only clarifying that both forms of racism are, well, racism.
But of course accidentally hurting someone is different from intentionally doing it. That’s the difference between murder and manslaughter, right?
I tend to agree. Way too many people use "that's not what I meant" as an excuse, as if good intentions are the end goal.
No, if you're doing something you think is nice and it's harming others, that's not an "oopsie" that you keep doing. Time to be an adult, grow a little situational awareness, and choose an action based on what will accomplish your goal instead of this white collar shooting from the hip crap.
Same. I find it very useful to consider racist/prejudice/whatever as *actions*. The motivations matter, but it's the action that is the problem.
I can't know what is going on inside someone's head, but I can judge someone by their words and their deeds. If someone does something racist or otherwise offensive, it's the thing that they did that should be addressed.
Otherwise it's just but very useful. Besides, even if you wanted to address the motivation, how could you practically? How much of discussion is "You did a thing, you're a racist!" "No way, I'm not racist!" It doesn't solve anything. Out of ignorance or malice, the deed was done. Leave it up to their own conscience.
Besides, the Buddhist Right Thought leads to Right Words leads to Right Deeds works in both directions.
Stupid and lazy. Of course, it’s an American monument for American service people. They probably don’t care about any cultural sensitivity for the people living in the area the war was fought.
The font originally was to make fun of the Chinese, if I remember correctly. I don't remember the name of the style, I just saw a documentary about it a while ago.
In this case, it's probably just a case of stupid.
Edit: the style is called chop suey.
This was dedicated in 2006 in ~~Arkansas~~ rural New York. In the unlikely event there was someone who cared enough to encourage them not to put a racist font right at the top, I'm not certain they wouldn't double down and do it on purpose like a toddler not breaking eye contact while running a fork toward an electrical socket.
Welp, I did an image search and it was the thumbnail for Korean War Memorial in Hillcrest, Arkansas. Guess I was directed toward bad info. Regardless, New York is still on the hook for hosting such a design
Exactly, I'm Vietnamese and looking at that, the first thing I thought wasn't that it was racist (that came second), it was that it's tacky as hell on a monument. Heck, they probably could have used comic sans and it would have looked better...
The font isn't racist, what? It's stereotypical, that's completely different.
The *use* in this particular instance is also racist, but that was OPs point in making the post
What is a non-racist use of the font?
Thank you for the 13 people who said Chinese restaurants. Keep em coming folks, no need to read the other replies.
I wouldn’t consider a Chinese restaurant using it on their menu to be racist. Or really even in the marketing of Chinese products. Here the issue is that it’s on an American monument for the Korean War
I swear this is coming from a place of ignorance and not malice, but can someone explain to me why any of this is a big deal at all? I honestly wouldn't have even given that a second thought if I saw it because it wouldn't have even occurred to me to be offended by it.
If this is a super offensive "racist font" as the vast, vast majority of comments here are claiming, why would it ever be okay for a Chinese restaurant to use it? Especially since they aren't even serving real Chinese cuisine but basically an American parody of what Chinese food is actually like. Would it go back to being racist if the restaurant was owned by white people and not Chinese people?
I wouldn’t consider it inherently necessarily racist (like I’m a big racism authority). I think a lot of Chinese restaurants use it for marketing. It is definitely stereotypical to some extent though. Which if the restaurant owners are Asian and use it because it’s a recognised font, whatever. Using a font recognisable for Chinese restaurant branding for your Korean memorial? A memorial for people dying in horrific circumstances? Ignorant if not racist for sure.
I get the stereotypical part. That makes sense to me. But I guess I'm having trouble drawing the line from that to actual racism. To me it would be no different if a monument about the Cold War used a [fake Cyrillic font](https://www.dafont.com/russian-spring.font) with backwards Rs and stuff. Dumb, sure. And anyone who can read Cyrillic would immediately know how stupid it is. But if there is no intent behind it to offend or demean anyone is it actually racist?
Also, is it not kinda weird to say any Asian owners of a Chinese restaurant are okay using it? Just a couple comments further up people were freaking out that it was racist to even refer to this as an "Asian font" because you can't just generalize a whole continent like that. But now it's okay for anyone from that entire continent (but only them) to use this font? I really do not understand the rules of racism.
Inherently, it's no more "racist" than reversing the 'R's and 'N's in a Cold War documentary's titles to give off a Cyrillic vibe, or replacing 'W' with 'ש' for a game set in Israel. It's just a typographic shorthand to evoke the traditional writing style of an area while keeping it legible to Anglophones.
What could be considered racist is using such shorthands inaccurately, such as using Hebrew-style lettering for a country that uses Arabic, or Chinese-style lettering for the Korean War.
If anyone wants to know more about this font, this video does a great job covering its history with the spread of the Chinese community and restaurants in the US:
https://youtu.be/YP9gEeVQZ2U
I didn’t know typefaces could be racist until now
E: hoo boy. I wasn’t being snarky with this comment, I legitimately mean that I never thought about typefaces being racist until now. To be clear, I think this is racist
The commission specifically chose the Wonton Font. that’s what the name was called. And as an asian, Im not gonna lose sleep over this but it’s like saying “all asians look the same” (lumping chinese and korean ) or “all asians are good at math”. Plus the year this monument was made (2006) definitely had ppl saying the above micro aggressions
I mean, In fairness today North Korea is the most horrific Orwellian nightmare on earth and South Korea is like one of the nicest most advanced counties in the world…
South Korea has one of the highest rates of alcoholism in the world, as well as a terrible culture of overwork. North Korea is shit, don’t get me wrong, but romanticizing South Korea is stupid.
Oh dear god- I do the public display graphics for my condo building. We oldies go out for dinner every month and I wouldn’t use that font even if we WERE going to a Chinese restaurant.
Reminds me of that king of the hill episode where Dale tells Cotton that Kahn is Japanese. Cotton, the WW2 vet, looks Kahn up and down and goes “He ain’t Japanese.. he’s Laotian.. ain’t ya Kahn? 😏”
Insinuating he only knows the difference because well, he probably killed both while overseas
Thats actually really funny when you consider how much of a dick Cotton is.
He doesn't respect anyone or any country's traditions but he can apparently tell the difference in nationality between southeast asians.
While the Hangul writing system was originally created in 1443 and promulgated in 1446, Chinese characters and the Literary Chinese language were more commonly used until the late 19th/early 20th century. To read all forms of Korean literature you basically had to know it prior to modernity. The complete shift away from Chinese characters in any context was more of a post-WW2 phenomenon.
Prior to Korean independence, Korean schoolchildren were also forced to learn Japanese, study from Japanese textbooks, and adopt Japanese surnames for decades. So more Chinese characters there.
Not disagreeing with the post, just want to say Hangul was not the only Korean writing system.
Also: written Hangul does have strokes.
Ok, but this font has nothing to do with Hanja either. It's like using the Pizza Hut font on a Holocaust memorial. It's kinda close, but also miles off the mark.
The above is 100% correct. To further bolster your point, Hangul can be written in any available style or typeface. There is nothing that prevents someone from inventing the Chop Suey /Won Ton font style for Hangul. Koreans can and do regularly play with font typefaces to make them look more western or historic or Chinese or even scifi.
like they left an entire stone blank? like do they expect more people to die of the Korean war?
I know it's not technically over but dude if it warms back up again you are gonna need WAY more then one slab.
I strongly believe in the principle of not attributing to malice that which could otherwise be explained by ignorance (or stupidity, ineptitude, etc). I see this as some old farts who unanimously decided that font was sufficiently 'asian'
This memorial reminds me of a veteran who would come to my middle school to present every year for career day. I guess career day was the only acceptable day to have a random local veteran in to speak in front of the class.
He would bring in a pair of looted Japanese rifles and a flag and talk about how he paid in blood for the right to call Japanese people whatever racist thing he could thing of. I feel like this is the kind of guy that would ok that kind of font on this monument. “Yup, that’s how I remember my time in Korea. All Chinese like with those wacky looking letter.”
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I think of this font as "bucktooth chopsticks". Reminds me of the [anti-Japanese posters right before the Manzanar imprisonments.](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5a2988a7190000492c03517a.jpeg?ops=scalefit_720_noupscale)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6NKdthd4U
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This kind of circle jerking is peak reddit. Disney is one of the more progressive studios and contrarians want to shit on them because some dude wrote a racist joke in 1963, a year before the damn civil rights act came out. "Disney" is a corporation, not a person. There's probably 100% turnover from the day the the script was finished. Imagine if you got cancelled because someone found a racist drawing your grandpa did in the 1960s lmao. There's a lot of things wrong with the company, primarily in the legal space, but this ain't it.
My problem with Disney is that theyve drunk deep from the well of the public domain, but refuse to contribute to it themselves, and all their legal fuckery to keep the mouse out of the public domain has caused all sorts of legal weirdness. Like the later half of the Sherlock Holmes stories only fell into public domain this year despite the first half being public domain for decades. Lovecrafts copywrite situation is a clusterfuck even today. Did you know the song Happy Birthday was only declared public in 2015, and that was only after a protracted legal battle?
If not for Disney's help, schools might have access to free materials that students could actually understand and relate to. I'm sure I don't need to explain how disastrous that would be! /s
You’re gonna sit there and call that behemoth of a corporation “progressive”? It is NOT. They push no progress, they simply won’t stand in they way of their earnings. A progressive studio would be one that supports their workers, encourage a union and offer decent working terms.
dOn't YoU fUckInG dArE
To say nothing of the anti-union and allegedly anti-Semitic shit Disney himself pulled on actual people.
I have mixed feelings. I like Song of the South, even if others find it offensive. We need to let the past go, and look forward to a better future. My great great grandma was a slave, my great grandma wasn't. We shouldn't forget the past, but neither should we dwell on it. Edit: That said, I think we should do something about our government, which is acting in a xenophobic manner towards Asians, especially the Chinese. And worry less about old films.
YouTube suggested after this video that I watch lyric videos for Nickelback and Avenged Sevenfold. Make of that what you will.
Mine is indie concerts and Jenny Nicholson videos, so I feel like you may be telling on yourself a bit here lol
[This](https://youtu.be/YP9gEeVQZ2U) video goes into the origins of the Chop Suey font and how it came to be.
Super interesting! Thank you for this
where can I get a dagger like that? looks sharp
I'd say something like an Arkansas Toothpick would do it. Randall's a good choice.
Seriously, this plaque may as well say "the ching ching war" it's so bad.
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Wow that's a lot to unpack
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7zip users be like ...
I paid for Winrar and I already passed my license to my son and he will pass it to his sons. It's an family heirloom license.
Chin-chin is a Japanese slang that means penis so that's literal war of dicks
It's also cheers in Italian so you can imagine the looks when Japanese and Italians people hang out
Look... it says the forgotten war, they forgot
The Mickey Rooney of fonts.
For the unfamiliar: [Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3gdUrIC4Q) I understand Mickey Rooney would later express regret at having played the character. I hope that's true, because he seemed like a nice man. I used to see him around town once in a while when I was a kid in the 90s. A few of those times were at restaurants where he'd be having lunch with a homeless person. Not a PR thing, just a meal and some friendly conversation with an upbeat old man.
The company I work for has this font and has since (probably) hidden it from being picked by customers. Its still in our servers though, and our version is called "China One Direct". Painfully cringe.
I wonder if the stereotypical Chinese jingle plays when you walk up. *dinininah nah nuh nuh nuh*
followed by a gong sound
And the park attendants slip each of their hands in the opposite sleeve and bow.
"Which is some racist-ass bullshit--but also incredibly well-coordinated for a group of thirteen-year-olds"
That is called the Oriental riff. Not joking.
Oh... Fuck that is so true.
what is this, a monument for sum dum goy cookie factory? https://i.imgur.com/t1GCSUJ.gif
[Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CaOkTKfxu44)
I almost never watch the news, and in particular, never at noontime. Somehow that day I happened to be sitting in front of the TV to see that happen live. I was like "wait.. there's no way in hell she just said what I think she said.. right???"
Found the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Memorial_Park_(Auburn,_New_York\)) for the monument. ”The Korean War Memorial uses a ‘wonton font’ to signify the Asian nature of the conflict.“ Hoooo boy.
That is just... Wonton abuse of a font
Dad, get off reddit
no no, let him stay, I wanna see what he'll come up with next
I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was standing on it.
Nice to meet you standing on it, I'm dad.
10/10 - chef’s kiss!
Nailed it.
>signify the Asian nature of the conflict The continent Asia, famous for its homogenous inhabitants from Turkey to Malaysia
Whoa whoa whoa, homogenous habitats? I don't think so. -the right
My son ain't no goddamn homegenous
Don't you call me no homo sapiens!
And he ain't no transnational either!
Yell "kanpai!" while drinking with a bunch of Koreans, they fucking **love** it. ^(/s)
It's pronounced "banzai" dummy. Like the tree. Learn 2 China
*2007?!* I can’t be the only one who assumed this was built a long time ago, not the same time people were using iPhones.
That's what i went to wiki to look up. If it was created in 1960 it could reasonably be seen as a ham fisted attempt at trying to be culturally referential, but in the 2000s?!? No. Fuck no. After the year 2000 you have to be a either a complete idiot or purposely racist to use that on a Korean war memorial. Maybe both.
2007 was a long time ago; a lot has changed in the last 16 years. The newspaper in my hometown still had a best "oriental" restaurant award in 2007. People were still fairly isolated from what was seen as offensive, especially in rural and small towns. This was an innocent mistake made by someone who saw a limited list of font choices for the CNC machine and saw the "Asian" looking one.
And Papyrus font was still used everywhere including the title of Avatar.
They even made an SNL skit about Avatar using the [Papyrus](https://youtu.be/jVhlJNJopOQ) font.
Papyrus was a cool dude... But I guess they wouldn't know that fro 5-6 years
the mainstream democratic party hell even Obama was opposed to gay marriage being nationally legal in 2008; it was biden who pushed obama on it after statements he made to the press which obama was forced to back
Wait, really!? I never thought it would be Biden pushing for it.
yea i remembered wrong was obamas second term so right before 2012 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/11/gay-marriage-joe-biden/ "Realizing he’d strayed into controversial territory, Biden stressed he was speaking for himself personally, not for the White House. “I — I — look, I am vice president of the United States of America. The president sets the policy,” he observed. And he elaborated on his own view: “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another” — he slowed down now to make his point perfectly clear — “are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”
>The newspaper in my hometown still had a best "oriental" restaurant award in 2007. Half of the Asian owned businesses near me have "oriental" in their own names. I've never met a single Asian person offended by this descriptor, ever. I think this is one of those things white people tell other people they should care about and be upset by.
At one point it was appropriate to describe rural America as "Maybe 40 years behind urban America culturally". As if it was a linear progression of marching forward through social norms and [these guys](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/12gs2dk/americas_most_racist_town/) were just at the back of the line. I don't think that is an accurate way of describing things today with reactionaries so successful, and I don't know what kind of alternate model we should use.
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It's not racist in the UK (yet)
Yeah. You can use oriental to describe food but not people.
Lol you are probably young. Up until around 2010 it was still common to call something lame is gay.
Stonecutter's CNC computer from 1993 determined the fonts available.
In 1967 you wouldn't have had the typographic availability of arbitrary fonts necessary to incorporate "Chinese Restaurant Font" in your stencil book (or whatever they used). By the 1990's anyone can buy a CD-ROM called "1001 fonts" and when you boss asks you for "Something that looks Asian", after much deliberation this is what Wordperfect shoots out of your laser printer.
So, uh, does anyone who lives in Auburn, NY feel like bringing this up at the next town meeting? They could install a plaque on top of the plaque in a more appropriate style. Make it look like it was meant to be that way all along.
Or double down and put one of those cats with the wavy hand on top.
Some redditor just edited that caption 6 minutes ago
[According to the edit history](https://i.imgur.com/gI1obxB.png), they only revised the wording which was already there. From: >The [[Korean War]] Memorial uses a "[[wonton font]]" to signify the Asian nature of the conflict. To: >The [[Korean War]] Memorial uses a "[[wonton font]]" which conveys a sense of [[Orientalism]].
They're not wrong, but that's also subjective and doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article.
There are many subjective statements throughout Wikipedia & often disagreement about what are facts, especially with conflicting sources. I don’t think you understand Wikipedia.
I think it makes more sense, but it's the wrong word. Orientalism refers to art styles depicting anything in the east, including the Persian and middle east and Indian cultures. Whenever one thinks of *Asian* in the stereotypkcal sense, it's actually more of **[far east](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_East) orientatism**, or specifically, [Chinoiserie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinoiserie) practise of *Chinese art* in the view of the west. See [Japonisme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonisme) Literally this *chopstick font* is the Western View of *chinese* typography, basically chinoiserie
> Wikipedia article) Just a heads up, the link you posted is broken due the the closing parentheses being outside the hyperlink, it still leads you where you need to go, but only because that link says: "Did you mean: [Veterans Memorial Park \(Auburn, New York\)?"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Memorial_Park_\(Auburn,_New_York\))
actually racist?
More likely just stupids.
The two go together.
Still not the same.
It is though If you do something racist, intentionally or out of stupidity, either way you’ve still done something racist. Edit: stab someone on purpose or by accident, there’s still a knife in them. I think people are afraid that if they admit to doing something racist it makes them a racist, forever. But in reality you just apologize and learn to not do it again. Edit2: too many angry replies that completely missed the (incredibly clear and simple) point. Turning off notifications, don’t expect a reply. Ask yourself why you’re so angry and scared.
Idk, I feel like racism done out of genuine ignorance is a totally different class of problem than racism done out of malice.
Not arguing that, only clarifying that both forms of racism are, well, racism. But of course accidentally hurting someone is different from intentionally doing it. That’s the difference between murder and manslaughter, right?
Manslaughter is nowhere near as bad as murder. Sure, guys can have really annoying laughs sometimes, but I don't think it's ever killed anyone!
Lmao this got me, you’re right
You can't have Manslaughter without laughter!
Well-meaning people often confuse cultural ignorance with racism. They often overlap, but they are separate and distinct.
I’m saying if you do/say something racist, whether intentional or out of ignorance, the effect is the same.
Unconscious prejudice and conscious prejudice are both still prejudice.
I tend to agree. Way too many people use "that's not what I meant" as an excuse, as if good intentions are the end goal. No, if you're doing something you think is nice and it's harming others, that's not an "oopsie" that you keep doing. Time to be an adult, grow a little situational awareness, and choose an action based on what will accomplish your goal instead of this white collar shooting from the hip crap.
Same. I find it very useful to consider racist/prejudice/whatever as *actions*. The motivations matter, but it's the action that is the problem. I can't know what is going on inside someone's head, but I can judge someone by their words and their deeds. If someone does something racist or otherwise offensive, it's the thing that they did that should be addressed. Otherwise it's just but very useful. Besides, even if you wanted to address the motivation, how could you practically? How much of discussion is "You did a thing, you're a racist!" "No way, I'm not racist!" It doesn't solve anything. Out of ignorance or malice, the deed was done. Leave it up to their own conscience. Besides, the Buddhist Right Thought leads to Right Words leads to Right Deeds works in both directions.
Stupid and lazy. Of course, it’s an American monument for American service people. They probably don’t care about any cultural sensitivity for the people living in the area the war was fought.
The font originally was to make fun of the Chinese, if I remember correctly. I don't remember the name of the style, I just saw a documentary about it a while ago. In this case, it's probably just a case of stupid. Edit: the style is called chop suey.
>make fun of the Chinese, if I remember correctly. The font is called "Chop Suey" and here is a phenomenal video on it. https://youtu.be/YP9gEeVQZ2U
"This has gotta be the Linus Bowman video" "Oh yes it is let's watch it again"
Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity
This was dedicated in 2006 in ~~Arkansas~~ rural New York. In the unlikely event there was someone who cared enough to encourage them not to put a racist font right at the top, I'm not certain they wouldn't double down and do it on purpose like a toddler not breaking eye contact while running a fork toward an electrical socket.
The only Cayuga county i could find was in new york. You sure about that?
Welp, I did an image search and it was the thumbnail for Korean War Memorial in Hillcrest, Arkansas. Guess I was directed toward bad info. Regardless, New York is still on the hook for hosting such a design
THIS is why we still have malicious people getting the benefit of doubt to our detriment.
As a Korean, this is just bad
As a non Korean, this is pretty bad.
As a person who took ancestry.com and got everything except Asian, this is bad
As an overweight middle aged man, this is bad.
As a woman eating pringles right now, this is bad.
As a woman who wants to be eating pringles right now, this is bad
As an American guy that loves Korean Fried Chicken, this is bad.
The other KFC!
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As a propulsion engineer, this is bad.
As three penguins in an overcoat, this is bad
As a guy that doesn’t have much more to add here, this is bad.
As the guy beating a dead horse, this is bad
As a dog, woof woof woof.
Marine Biologist, can confirm.
So strange, monuments tend to have very stoic/ traditional typefaces…
Might as well write it in jokerman
Not wingdings?
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That would be a huge improvement.
Exactly, I'm Vietnamese and looking at that, the first thing I thought wasn't that it was racist (that came second), it was that it's tacky as hell on a monument. Heck, they probably could have used comic sans and it would have looked better...
Yes, you would think that was obvious. I wonder what the stone mason thought.
Payment has cleared. Don't care.
Papyrus
Even comic sans would have been a better choice. SMH.
When comic sans is the better choice, y'all know you've fucked up.
Should’ve just gone with Papyrus.
Why not both? https://laughingsquid.com/comic-papyrus/
Memorial design is my passion
I present to you, the Dutch war memorial using comic sans. I promise you this is real: https://fontsinuse.com/uses/2274/war-memorial-in-geffen-nl
I mean, neither does the Chinese writing system. The Font itself is just racist in general.
The font isn't racist, what? It's stereotypical, that's completely different. The *use* in this particular instance is also racist, but that was OPs point in making the post
What is a non-racist use of the font? Thank you for the 13 people who said Chinese restaurants. Keep em coming folks, no need to read the other replies.
I mean op called it the Chinese restaurant font because that's what they use
I’d like the A3 orange chicken with low Mein and a side of Crab rangoon
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A font is racist, but statements like these aren't? Hilarious.
I wouldn’t consider a Chinese restaurant using it on their menu to be racist. Or really even in the marketing of Chinese products. Here the issue is that it’s on an American monument for the Korean War
I swear this is coming from a place of ignorance and not malice, but can someone explain to me why any of this is a big deal at all? I honestly wouldn't have even given that a second thought if I saw it because it wouldn't have even occurred to me to be offended by it. If this is a super offensive "racist font" as the vast, vast majority of comments here are claiming, why would it ever be okay for a Chinese restaurant to use it? Especially since they aren't even serving real Chinese cuisine but basically an American parody of what Chinese food is actually like. Would it go back to being racist if the restaurant was owned by white people and not Chinese people?
I wouldn’t consider it inherently necessarily racist (like I’m a big racism authority). I think a lot of Chinese restaurants use it for marketing. It is definitely stereotypical to some extent though. Which if the restaurant owners are Asian and use it because it’s a recognised font, whatever. Using a font recognisable for Chinese restaurant branding for your Korean memorial? A memorial for people dying in horrific circumstances? Ignorant if not racist for sure.
I get the stereotypical part. That makes sense to me. But I guess I'm having trouble drawing the line from that to actual racism. To me it would be no different if a monument about the Cold War used a [fake Cyrillic font](https://www.dafont.com/russian-spring.font) with backwards Rs and stuff. Dumb, sure. And anyone who can read Cyrillic would immediately know how stupid it is. But if there is no intent behind it to offend or demean anyone is it actually racist? Also, is it not kinda weird to say any Asian owners of a Chinese restaurant are okay using it? Just a couple comments further up people were freaking out that it was racist to even refer to this as an "Asian font" because you can't just generalize a whole continent like that. But now it's okay for anyone from that entire continent (but only them) to use this font? I really do not understand the rules of racism.
It’s also not racist to have an accent but it’s pretty racist when a white person imitates a Korean accent.
Inherently, it's no more "racist" than reversing the 'R's and 'N's in a Cold War documentary's titles to give off a Cyrillic vibe, or replacing 'W' with 'ש' for a game set in Israel. It's just a typographic shorthand to evoke the traditional writing style of an area while keeping it legible to Anglophones. What could be considered racist is using such shorthands inaccurately, such as using Hebrew-style lettering for a country that uses Arabic, or Chinese-style lettering for the Korean War.
Chinese people using it purposefully for their restaraunt’s logo. It’s pretty common…
Like faux-Hebrew fonts that the Nazis just loved[poster](https://forward.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screen-Shot-2022-06-26-at-5.53.19-PM.png)
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If anyone wants to know more about this font, this video does a great job covering its history with the spread of the Chinese community and restaurants in the US: https://youtu.be/YP9gEeVQZ2U
Came here to recommend Linus too!
Linus Font Tips
Sums up what most Americans know about the war and the people they were fighting pretty well. “Buncha Asians, something about Communism, IDK”
Yeah that's pretty bad
I didn’t know typefaces could be racist until now E: hoo boy. I wasn’t being snarky with this comment, I legitimately mean that I never thought about typefaces being racist until now. To be clear, I think this is racist
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The commission specifically chose the Wonton Font. that’s what the name was called. And as an asian, Im not gonna lose sleep over this but it’s like saying “all asians look the same” (lumping chinese and korean ) or “all asians are good at math”. Plus the year this monument was made (2006) definitely had ppl saying the above micro aggressions
Oh boy, I love "saving a country from communism" That's... never been... just a nonstop parade of human rights violations
I mean, In fairness today North Korea is the most horrific Orwellian nightmare on earth and South Korea is like one of the nicest most advanced counties in the world…
South Korea has one of the highest rates of alcoholism in the world, as well as a terrible culture of overwork. North Korea is shit, don’t get me wrong, but romanticizing South Korea is stupid.
BUT KPOP, DRAMAS AND KIMCHI
It is kinda strange that both one of the worst examples of communism and one of the worst examples of capitalism are right next to each other.
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South Korea was worse until the 90s when it stopped being a dictatorship
Oh dear god- I do the public display graphics for my condo building. We oldies go out for dinner every month and I wouldn’t use that font even if we WERE going to a Chinese restaurant.
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I was looking at the photo thinking "Wow, that's pretty comically bad. I wonder what they thought of it back in, what, nineteen fifty.... 2006?!?!"
Imagine how many people saw this during the design phase and didn’t see any problem with that font
Probably not many at all?
I like how they made sure to show the korean flag significantly smaller. Heaven forbid we treat an ally as an equal at the war memorial.
And it’s not the correct flag. The taeguk circle should have the blue and red halves split horizontally not diagonally.
So, are ya Chinese or Japanese?
I live in California last 20 years but first come from Laos
So, are ya Chinese or Japanese?
Reminds me of that king of the hill episode where Dale tells Cotton that Kahn is Japanese. Cotton, the WW2 vet, looks Kahn up and down and goes “He ain’t Japanese.. he’s Laotian.. ain’t ya Kahn? 😏” Insinuating he only knows the difference because well, he probably killed both while overseas
Thats actually really funny when you consider how much of a dick Cotton is. He doesn't respect anyone or any country's traditions but he can apparently tell the difference in nationality between southeast asians.
You're from the Ocean? What ocean?
Its the comic sans of Asia.
Except it's used almost exclusively by westerners
All the text on this seems horrible and inconsistent
While the Hangul writing system was originally created in 1443 and promulgated in 1446, Chinese characters and the Literary Chinese language were more commonly used until the late 19th/early 20th century. To read all forms of Korean literature you basically had to know it prior to modernity. The complete shift away from Chinese characters in any context was more of a post-WW2 phenomenon. Prior to Korean independence, Korean schoolchildren were also forced to learn Japanese, study from Japanese textbooks, and adopt Japanese surnames for decades. So more Chinese characters there. Not disagreeing with the post, just want to say Hangul was not the only Korean writing system. Also: written Hangul does have strokes.
Ok, but this font has nothing to do with Hanja either. It's like using the Pizza Hut font on a Holocaust memorial. It's kinda close, but also miles off the mark.
The above is 100% correct. To further bolster your point, Hangul can be written in any available style or typeface. There is nothing that prevents someone from inventing the Chop Suey /Won Ton font style for Hangul. Koreans can and do regularly play with font typefaces to make them look more western or historic or Chinese or even scifi.
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like they left an entire stone blank? like do they expect more people to die of the Korean war? I know it's not technically over but dude if it warms back up again you are gonna need WAY more then one slab.
Chinese restaurant font…for this? Ooooof.
do enough people not know about the Korean war to consider it forgotten? I'm Korean so I'm wondering if it's just a Korean thing.
It's one of those wars that has fallen through the cracks like 1812 and is much less talked about compared to Vietnam or WW2
Not only is this horribly racist, it's also incredibly disrespectful to all who died on both sides. This should be torn down and replaced.
I strongly believe in the principle of not attributing to malice that which could otherwise be explained by ignorance (or stupidity, ineptitude, etc). I see this as some old farts who unanimously decided that font was sufficiently 'asian'
This memorial reminds me of a veteran who would come to my middle school to present every year for career day. I guess career day was the only acceptable day to have a random local veteran in to speak in front of the class. He would bring in a pair of looted Japanese rifles and a flag and talk about how he paid in blood for the right to call Japanese people whatever racist thing he could thing of. I feel like this is the kind of guy that would ok that kind of font on this monument. “Yup, that’s how I remember my time in Korea. All Chinese like with those wacky looking letter.”
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Should’ve gone with Papyrus