By David Li, bostonese.com
Boston, Nov. 2, 2013, — On a perfect autumn day in Boston, two million Red Sox fans showed up for the rolling rally for their beloved team winning 2013 World Series championship. After the duck boats passed through Boston City Hall plaza around 11:30 AM, many Sox fans would notice another rally going on near the Holocaust Memorial on their ways to pubs in Hay-market.
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About 100 protesters passed handouts and shouted slogans like “Teach Kids Love not Hate”, “Genocide is No Joke” and “Say No to Hate Speech”. According to the protesters, on Oct. 16, 2013, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live show aired a prerecorded segment: the Kid’s Table. One boy answered: “kill everyone in China” when being asked how to deal with the $1.3 trillion US debt to China. Jimmy Kimmel laughed and further commented that “This is an interesting idea!” Later on, Jimmy Kimmel brought up this subject again and specifically asked “should we allow Chinese to live”. And the show ended in laughter. |
Executives at ABC and Jimmy Kimmel have made apologies earlier this week after protests erupted in San Francisco and Los Angles. But, many Chinese-Americans felt the apologies were not sufficient, and demanded disciplinary action to be taken to hold people who were responsible for putting the Kid’s Table segment on air accountable.
Many Red Sox fans stopped to listen to the protesters, and some high-fived the protesters. Protesters urged Red Sox fans to sign the following White House petition to investigate the Jimmy Kimmel Live show.
petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/investigate-jimmy-kimmel-kids-table-government-shutdown-show-abc-network/tLxzbBjg
The following open letter was handed out by the protesters.
An Open Letter To ABC And The Walt Disney Company
Today we get together to express our outrage, concern and disappointment brought by the Kids Table Show – Government Shutdown from Jimmy Kimmel Live by ABC, aired on Oct 16, 2013.
In the show, one boy, when being asked how to avoid paying Chinese debts, answered “kill everyone in China”. Everyone including Jimmy Kimmel laughed. Jimmy Kimmel further commented that “This is an interesting idea!” Later on, Jimmy Kimmel brought up this subject again and specifically asked “should we allow Chinese to live”. And the show ended in laughter.
We request ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel and issue a formal apology to ALL of its viewers.
This show promotes hatred, racism and violence, and particularly, delivers toxic messages to our next generation. This is NOT FUNNY. Joking with genocide in a public show is unacceptable; joking with genocide of a particular race in a public show is zero-tolerable. It crosses the line in a civilized society. Similar “joke” on Jews was laughed off in 1930s in Germany, and we all know what happened later.
We are especially offended because this show used innocent children to spread thoughts that some adults dared not speak by themselves. Even more, it delivers messages to kids that 1) you can solve your own problem by killing other people; 2) you have the right to allow other people to live or not. We should teach our children to LOVE, NOT to KILL. We have seen violence far too many times in schools. If such irresponsible behaviors of the media cannot be stopped, we will have another Sandy Hook tragedy soon.
Chinese communities are organizing other protests and activities including boycotting Disney and filing a lawsuit until our requests appropriately answered. Today we stand here to speak out not only for ourselves, but also for all children, and for a better society that Dr. Martin Luther King had dreamed. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizens