Chinese Take-Out Spawns Christian Controversy

By Amy Tracy -- Publishers Weekly, 3/21/2007 10:05:00 AM

A controversy involving offensive Asian stereotypes is simmering in Christian publishing. Youth Specialties (YS), a division of Zondervan, produced the book Skits that Teach (Aug. 2006) for church youth groups, and now they’re reacting to charges of racism. In some of the dialogue, a Chinese restaurant deliveryman uses language that portrays Asian people in exaggeratingly stereotypical ways.

Soong-Chan Rah, a professor evangelism and church growth at North Park University in Chicago, discovered this while searching online for Meemaw, a Chinese restaurant on the north side of the city. “I thought it was unusual that the first entry for ‘Meemaw’ was Zondervan,” Rah told RBL. “I clicked on the site and the offensive material was right there on the sample page.” Rah then posted the information on his personal blog. The material found a larger audience on the Web and elicited an outpouring of response from Asian-American Christians.

Rah contacted Youth Specialties, “and we had a number of conversations prior to them issuing an official response,” he said. “I told them that this material is in the public arena, it’s a public sin, and it required a public apology. The authors, Eddie James and Tommy Woodward, and YS president, Mark Oestreicher, were very sensitive to our concerns, and in the wake of discussions, issued gracious responses. It reflects tremendous humility to take correction and act accordingly.”

In their apology, Youth Specialties agreed to take a number of actions, including pulping all remaining stock of 1,700 copies (4,500 had been shipped), linking their apology to an e-mail targeting 30,000 youth workers, and maintaining an ongoing dialogue with Asian-Americans. “There wasn’t malicious intent with this,” said Oestreicher. “The editor flagged it to bring up with the publisher, but then forgot to do it.” In his public apology, Oestreicher said, “We at Youth Specialties screwed up big time.”

Vicki Cessna, senior director of corporate communications and PR at Zondervan (which acquired YS last year), said, “We certainly and sincerely regret the offensive material. We apologize for the error and insensitivity to the Asian community. We worked closely with YS to take immediate action.”

"There are a lot of racial assumptions in the Christian community about what is the ‘norm,’" said Rah. “African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics are often viewed as being on the fringe. This will become more problematic as the American church becomes more diverse.”

To view the Youth Specialties responses, log onto http://skitguys.com/skitguys/apology.php or http://www.ysmarko.com/?p=1379.

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