San Jose, California, July 12, 2011 — Major Chinese American organizations in Silicon Valley have called Fox News to fire ‘The Five’ co-host Bib Beckel after he uttered racist remarks on air.
Statement by APAPA
By now you probably have heard the extremely offensive language used by Fox News ‘The Five’ co-host BOb Beckel against Chinese Americans. APAPA(www.apapa.org) strongly objects to the the fear mongering, racially divisive statement on national TV. We support California senator Ted Lieu’s call for his termination.
APAPA founder and National Chair CC Yin states ‘It is incredible someone fostering such racial prejudice is allowed to host a nationally televised program in this day and age. It is not his first offense, having used derogatory language to describe ‘Orientals’ in a program last year. APAPA denounces this outrageous incidence and calls for an official apology from Mr. Beckel and Fox News. ‘.
APAPA Bay Area Chair Dr. Albert Wang follows ‘Here in Silicon Valley, where Asian Americans make up one half of the engineering jobs (San Jose Mercury News November 30, 2012), we have been the backbone of US technology leadership in the world. To state that “Chinese are the single biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. … Do you know what we just did? As usual, we bring them over here and teach a bunch of Chinamen – err, Chinese people – how to do computers and then they go back to China and hack into us” reflects his xenophobia and ignorance. APAPA calls for his immediate dismissal after a full, sincere apology to those he has so arrogantly offended.’
Statements by SVCA
Silicon Valley Chinese Association (SVCA) issues the following statement to denounce certain racist slur made by Fox News TV host Bob Beckel, and demand both Mr. Beckel’s immediate resignation and a formal apology by Fox News to Chinese Americans.
On July 10th, 2014, during his “The Five” TV show, Mr. Beckel used the word “Chinamen” to refer to Chinese people at large, including Chinese Americans. The pejorative word “Chinamen” has been long and widely considered to connote a derogatory and offensive meaning to Chinese people. Yet, this is the second time in recent memory that Mr. Beckel has been caught to use such insulting language toward Chinese Americans. Last year, Mr. Beckel said that after he went swimming, his “eyes blew up, and it made me look Oriental.”
As America continues to embrace diversity and welcome people from all cultural backgrounds, we are outraged by such racist offenses repeatedly made by Mr. Beckel, especially on a major TV network. Mr. Beckel must immediately resign from the “The Five” show, and Fox News must issue a formal apology to the Chinese American community.
Alex Chen
President, SVCA