A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Second Opinion / COMMENTARY FROM OTHER NEWSPAPERS : KOREA TIMES : A Force-Fed Racial Stereotype

(Eddie) Murphy’s strength has always been to recast and ridicule stereotypes. . . . Rather than ridiculing stereotypes, however, the Korean joke (about the Soon Ja Du/Latasha Harlins case in his movie, “Boomerang”) perpetuates one, that of Koreans as greedy, quick-to-shoot shopkeepers with little regard for human life. (The joke has the punch line “I’m sorry I shot you, but I thought you were robbing my store.”)

For those with little or no contact with Korean-Americans, their perception of who Korean-Americans are can only be the one indelible image force-fed to them by the television news media: a grainy, shadowy figure in black and white who lifts a gun and, shaking with fear or rage, sends a bullet into the head of a 15-year-old girl.

(Paramount Pictures’) assertion that the remark (in Boomerang) is innocent fun is simply representative of the same film studio insensitivity that has consistently dehumanized Asians and Asian-Americans for years, reducing them to castrated Long Duck Dongs or faceless ninja masters who karate-chop people to Benihana bits.