<p>Its been a half hour and I still cant stop laughing, Idad.</p>
<p>*** Yes, yes, realize it may be seen as insensitive and disrespectful, but its one class-A funny prank!!</p>
<p>Okay, I agree, insensitive and disrespectful, but I’m just that kind of person, so I am crying with laughter, in a very insensitive sort of way because this is hysterical. For those of you who are WAY too lazy to view the video, here is what the news report is, I know you can sound it out phonetically:</p>
<p>“Asiana Airlines just released the names of the crew in the B-777 accident in SFO”</p>
<pre><code> Pilot in Command: Captain Sum Ting Wong
Line Check Airman: Captain Wi Tu Lo
First Officer: Ho Lee Fu_ (fill in the last letter on that one, comes
after J)
First Officer: Bang Ding Ow
</code></pre>
<p>And she pronounces them so very clearly and carefully lol.</p>
<p>I am sorry. I must be a bad person. But I am still giggling…</p>
<p>Not quite so outrageous but in the same vein: A Chicago Sun Times (I believe) post-crash headline: Fright 214. That also prompted apologies…</p>
<p>I was feeling like a terrible person for laughing at the pilot name prank until I read this thread.</p>
<p>I still feel like a terrible person, but at least now I know I am in good company.</p>
<p>Some of the follow up articles on the prank are referring to the person at the NTSB as Sum Yung Intern, so I guess many are having a bit of fun with this [TV</a> News Station Airs Prank Crew Names that NTSB Confirmed at NYCAviation](<a href=“TV News Station Airs Prank Crew Names that NTSB Confirmed - NYCAviationNYCAviation”>TV News Station Airs Prank Crew Names that NTSB Confirmed - NYCAviationNYCAviation) I guess we are all terrible people.</p>
<p>Still giggling here!</p>
<p>Sum Ting Wong, heeee</p>
<p>If it had been SNL, it would have been amusing, because it was aired on ‘real’ TV it is more amusing</p>
<p>Thats CAPTAIN Sum Ting Wong, somemom… :D</p>
<p>Think SNL will do a take off on this tonight? That would be classic.</p>
<p>And katliamom-
thats sadly funny on so many inappropriate levels.</p>
<p>Wow, the newscaster didn’t bother to read the names out loud before she went live? I hope the prankster is banned from media reporting for a year.</p>
<p>So tying it back to a relatable situation…what if you found out it was your kid who had done it? A newly minted J-school grad from Northwestern or Missouri or perhaps NYU…what would you do?</p>
<p>It troubles me that this overt racism is seen as so funny. It’s offensive to many of us. Don’t understand why this is funny but slurs against other groups like Jewish people are objectionable. Can’t see any way this “news” is not terribly racist. People in HI are NOT laughing at this racism.</p>
<p>I don’t see the names thing as racist, any more than the list of funny names in the Car Talk credits are racist. (The statistician Marge Inovera, chauffeur Pikup Andropov…spelling mine, I’ve never seen them written down.) If the pilots had been from some other country, a person could just have easily have made up silly names in a mock version of that language that conveyed the same thing.</p>
<p>I would be horrified if my kid was dumb or cruel enough to actually do this by mistake or deliberately prank someone in public this way. Since he is leaving for J-school in a few weeks, I’ll have to ask him what he thinks of it.</p>
<p>@HImom: It is funny, the way the names were made up, how the anchor carefully articulated them, and the fact a broadcaster fell for it. The humor has nothing to do with the specific race - if it had applied to someone with names of a different culture, it would be equally hilarious. eg. there wasnothing wrong in making fun of the Weiner issue. To me the bigger issue is how thin skinned people are becoming.</p>
<p>edit: if I found out my kid had done this, my concern would have been how this would affect him professionally, rather than feeling troubled that he did it.</p>
<p>HImom, I am sorry you and people you know found it offensive. I guess I was looking at it as just a stereotypical, uninformed generalization about monosyllabic Asian names. I don’t think it’s “racist” to generalize about things that are true. (Apparently half of the population in Korea has the surname Kim, Lee or Park.) There was no ill intent toward Asians in the prank, as far as I can tell. It’s as if the prankster took a bunch of random words off a Chinese restaurant menu and threw them together. And no one thinks the incident itself–the accident–was funny. It was a tragedy that didn’t have to happen.</p>
<p>Everyone generalizes about certain things. I am English and have spent a lifetime responding to jokes about bad teeth, overcooked vegetables, and silly-sounding names (i.e., taking my name and turning it into Sally Moneygrumps Buggiewhipham or whatever). Juvenile? Yes. Mean-spirited? No.</p>
<p>Consolation, that was my thought too. I would be mortified if it was my kid and he let something like this go that far. Drafting the story and showing it to some pals off-air might be OK. Embarrassing the anchor and the station publicly is quite another thing.</p>
<p>One can always find offense, if they are looking for it. I say that as someone with an odd middle/maiden name that people have enjoyed twisting around over the years. And if we aren’t laughing, we’re crying, so I’m all for the gallows humor. Never stop laughing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Indeed. Then again, one can’t expect much from those who aren’t the targets of such “humor”. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This mentality is a problem. Most parents I’ve known with a decent moral/ethical compass I’ve known of all backgrounds in such a situation would be mainly concerned with went wrong as parents to bring up a child who demonstrated such a gross lack of sensitivity toward others and professionalism at work. </p>
<p>Concerns about professional prospects…that’s putting the horse after the cart. </p>
<p>Especially when if such lack of judgment is left unchecked, the child could very well end up in the news like this fool:</p>
<p>[White</a> Man Punched After Racist N-Word Tirade In West Village: Gothamist](<a href=“http://gothamist.com/2013/07/13/man_gets_punched_after_racist_n-wor.php]White”>White Man Punched After Racist N-Word Tirade In West Village - Gothamist)</p>