Attraction, Fetish and Racism: Asian Girlz and Day Above Ground

Human beings (especially the male variant) are visual creatures. If we see something that we like then we either make it known that we are available or inform that person of our interest in the culturally appropriate manner. Everyone has slightly different preferences. If you favor red hair and a relative lack of melanin you'll probably look first in one subgroup of humanity. If you prefer a lot of melanin you'll look in another subgroup. Whether via inertia, deliberate political/romantic decision, lack of opportunity or childhood cultural imprinting most people wind up with folks from their own particular subgroup, however defined. But humans have always mixed and always will mix. There's nothing wrong with this. Some people even prefer people who are not from their group. I don't automatically think this is bad. It depends on the reasons. There's a thin line between having a preference and having a fetish. There's an even thinner line between expressing admiration for a certain subgroup's real or imagined particular characteristics and reducing a member of that group to a sexual stereotype. Saying I like Black women is one thing. Saying I like Black women because they just want to get f*****d all night is probably something different. 

The band Day Above Ground recently crossed that line between preference and fetish with the song "Asian Girlz". This five minute song listed every stereotype about East Asian women. The song may have been meant as a satire on some non-Asian men who do indeed fetishize Asian women. Angry people could be missing the point entirely. Or it could just be 100% racist crap. If it was meant as satire, which I'm not sure of, it didn't work. Levy Tran, the Vietnamese-American model who acted in the video gave an apology.

I'm so sorry once again to anyone who was offended by the video. It wasn't at all the intention. I truly apologize
— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) August 1, 2013

I sincerely apologize to all who feels that I set Asian women back 50 yrs. I know I lost respect from a lot of ppl. It wasn't my intention
— Levy Tran (@MissLevy) July 31, 2013

Check out the video and one funny response to it below. Both videos are slightly NSFW. There is no nudity but there's implied sex and sexually explicit language in the first video and profanity in the second.

One man's response

Thoughts?

Was this satire gone wrong?

Is this the most racist song you've heard?