Kate Lewis ’18, Staff Writer

FOX News recently released a video segment of Jesse Watters on the Bill O’Reilly Show walking around New York City’s Chinatown, asking questions to residents that were considered to be filled with prejudice that caused quite an uproar among viewers.

Watters questioned residents about the upcoming election and foreign affairs with some random, potentially racist questions mixed in. Many viewers considered this video to be racist and filled with Asian stereotypes that resulted from Watters mocking the Chinese residents.

Some of the varying questions included:

“Do you like Donald Trump?”

“Who are you going to vote for?”

“Do they call Chinese food in China just food?”

“Am I supposed to bow to say hello?’

“Can you guys take care of North Korea for us?”

“Do you know karate?”

However,  viewers considered not only the questions to be racist but also the commentary from Watters and the clips that were interspersed between interviews. A few clips included Mr. Miyagi from “The Karate Kid” (who was Japanese, not Chinese), Bruce Lee and Asian school girls from “Austin Powers.”

The Asian American Journalism Association (AAJA) called the segment “Rude, offensive, mocking, derogatory and damaging.” They are demanding an apology from FOX News.

Even Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted, “The vile, racist behavior of Fox’s Jesse Watters in Chinatown has no place in our city. FoxNews – keep this guy off TV,” Blasio tweeted.

O’Reilly had originally called the segment “hilarious” on their website and then “gentle fun,” when it first got criticized for stereotyping, but Watters has given a real apology since. “My man-on-the-street interviews are meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and I regret if anyone found it offensive,” Watters said.
Sarah Carter ’18 found the video extremely racist. “It’s crazy that in 2016 those stereotypes are still being made. The fact that FOX News would actually publish that video is beyond me,” Carter said.