Protest Letter to Details/Conde Nast Regarding "Gay or Asian?" Article

To:  Conde Nast Publications/Details Magazine

Dehumanizing, belittling, nonsensical, and most of all, RACIST, are words that can be used to describe the "Gay or Asian?" feature written by your staff member, Whitney McNally, in the April edition of your magazine.

We find Ms McNally's shallow attempt at humoring a white heterosexual male audience at the expense of the dignity and humanity of Asian males to be truly despicable. Considering the readership profile of your publication, it is clear that the feature is meant to poke fun at Asian men, and that it is not a compliment to their sense of style or "effeminate" physical features.

For decades Asian men have been maliciously emasculated and depraved of their manhood by Hollywood movies and television. We are truly perplexed as to what led Ms McNally to hit audiences over the head with this racist stereotype once again. Are her next clever plans to ask the burning questions, "Illegal immigrant or Hispanic" "Gangster or Black" "Terrorist or Arab"? Unless she wants to poke fun at her own race and ask questions like "Child molester or White?" or "Plastic or White?", we would certainly hope that the offense ends here.

While we feel that this goes beyond saying, this is not about homophobia, it is about being offended by a racist stereotype. Therefore any lame obfuscating attempts on your part to redirect your bigotry with the accusation that those who are upset must be homophobic will not be taken seriously.

Details/Conde Nast should have paid more attention to the news this past year. Due to the movements spear-headed by Asians, Abercrombie & Fitch was forced to pull a line of T-shirts that mocked Asians, Disguise Inc was forced to cease distribution of their racist "Kung Fool" Halloween masks, and very recently, retailer Saigoniste pulled their ridiculous Ho Chi Mama slogans from their clothing ads. Details/Conde Nast is next.

We hereby demand:

1) that the editor-in-chief of Details and/or a senior executive at Conde Nast issue an apology in regards to the "gay or Asian" feature written by Whitney McNally

2) that Whitney McNally be dismissed from your company.

If the conservative publication "National Review" felt that Ann Coulter's post 9/11 comment in regards to the Afghans, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity" (Sep 13 2001) was offensive enough to warrant an immediate dismissal, we are inclined to believe that Details/Conde Nast find Ms McNally's full-page assault on Asian men offensive enough to warrant her a dismissal as well.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Protest Letter to Details/Conde Nast Regarding "Gay or Asian?" Article Petition to Conde Nast Publications/Details Magazine was created by and written by Julia Oh.  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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