Following a Fox News segment widely criticized as racist and derogatory on “The O’Reilley Report” this week, a Change.org petition – as of Thursday night nearly at its 7,500-signature goal – is calling for an apology, the cancellation of “Watters’ World” and a meeting between AAPI representatives and Fox News execs.
The five-minute segment, in which Jesse Watters speaks to locals, has been called “blatantly racist,” “offensive” and “insensitive” by both Asian American organizations and leaders, and by others like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The petition, “Protest Fox News’ airing of racist anti-Asian Watters’ World: Chinatown segment,” was launched by Reappropriate.
Among its requests is for a discussion on the impact of on-air racism between the Asian American community and Fox News leadership, as well as “the broader underrepresentation and misrepresentation of the Asian American community at Fox News,” partly in response to Watters’ tweet, in which he defended his street interviews as “meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek.”
“There is nothing tongue-in-cheek or light-hearted about referencing virtually every single one of the terrible anti-Asian stereotypes of the past two centuries in an obnoxious video segment that was neither entertaining nor illuminating,” Reappropriate wrote.
