Yang Offers Pushback to Political Cartoon Depicting Him with “Anti-Asian Stereotype” – NY Daily News Defends Comic

Edited by: TJVNews.com

With bigotry, racism and now an unprecedented explosion of visceral anti-Semitism dominating the headlines, it seems that some on the campaign trail in the New York City mayoral race are claiming that odious racism has infected this campaign.

According to a New York Post report, one of the front runners in the race, Democratic candidate Andrew Yang was pretty miffed on Tuesday as he offered some formidable pushback to the New York Daily News for publishing political cartoon of him as a tourist visiting Times Square in order to give readers the distinct impression that he was not a New York City resident.

Yang interpreted the depiction of him in the cartoon as not only highly offensive but smacked of anti-Asian racism. For their part, the Daily News claimed that the cartoon was not about his race but his true residency.

On CNN’s “New Day” program, Yang said, “I think anyone objective looking at that cartoon knows that it’s playing on an idea of Asian Americans as permanent tourists and outsiders,” The Daily News simply characterizing it as simply a political commentary that does not include race just rings false.”

The Post reported that the cartoon appeared subsequent to an interview on Sunday in which Yang named Times Square as his favorite subway station. The interview went viral online.

The cartoon portrayed Yang with nothing but slits for eyes which is an old anti-Asian stereotype. Yang’s wife Evelyn became emotional at a press conference in Queens in which she defended her husband. She said that the cartoon “perpetuates the trope of the Asian foreigner” and added that, “It’s not funny. It’s racist. It’s toxic. “Not only does this dehumanize Asians, it promotes racism against them. What message does this send to all the Asians who are afraid to go outside?”

As the mother of two young sons, she said with palpable emotion reverberating in his voice,   “It’s very hard to explain this to our children. Words matter, art matters, representation matters,  so let’s be better than this. Every time you make a joke about Andrew not being a New Yorker, you are telling Asian Americans that they don’t belong.”

The Post reported that the editorial board page editor at the Daily News launched a defense of the controversial cartoon. Josh Greenman argued that the cartoon’s objective was to illustrate the candidate’s lack of familiarity with the city’s politics and policy. The Post also reported that despite living in the city for 25 years, Yang had never cast his vote in a mayoral election.

Josh Greenman, the paper’s Editorial Board page editor, has defended the comic by arguing that it was pointing out the candidate’s lack of familiarity with Big Apple “politics and policy,” and wasn’t about his race. Yang, who has lived in the city for 25 years, has never voted in a mayoral election.

Yang on Thursday commented that “we’re at point in our history, unfortunately, where Asian Americans are getting beaten on the streets of New York and told to go back to where we came from or don’t belong.”

Speaking to CNN, Yang said  “I said Times Square was my favorite subway stop, because I live blocks away in Hell’s Kitchen, and use those subway stop to get around the city. It actually goes just about everywhere in the city, because there are so many lines that converge there.”