Once again, I’m with you Lissa.

My mother is Korean, my father is “white” (German, Scotch-Irish). I took zero offense to this. Why? Because there’s no offense intended. Look at the picture…. all the white kids are squinty and the one Asian kid is round-eyed. Looks like nothing but a bunch of friends having fun and being silly. If the Asian kid in the picture isn’t offended (and in fact is playing along), why the hell should you be? Oh that’s right… he’s not the one hoping to milk Miley Cyrus for a $4B payout.

Is it playing on a racial difference? Sure. But being offensive requires intent to harm. I recall one time as a kid some other kid came up to me, made some Asian-like faces, flailed his arms, and made “ching-chong” sorts of sounds at me. Did that bother me? Sure did, because the kid’s intent was to make fun of me and hurt me. In high school a Korean friend and I would always joke back and forth about being a “rice eater”, he’d call me a “half-breed” and I’d call him “slant eyes” or some such thing. Did this bother us? Nope, because it was all in fun with no intent to harm.

Look folks, racial/cultural humor can be funny (Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Mel Brooks, Jeff Foxworthy), or not (Margaret Cho – sorry, while I get her Korean jokes on a whole other level, I just don’t find her all that entertaining). You have to look at intent. Is it intended to be funny? or is it intended to harm? Causing harm to another, even by word or gesture, isn’t acceptable. But it appears all Miley did was have some fun with her friends.