Chris and race

"I never really had anything against, uh, race or people, I never really did... I have nothing against black people or anyone else of other countries."

- Chris while talking to BraveryJerk in 2016, in spite of previous questionable depictions of race in his comics and videos.



The race of people is often considered a sensitive topic, a poor match for Chris, with his lack of social tact and tendency to take pop culture stereotypes literally. While Chris doesn't seem to hold deeply bigoted views or have irrational hatred toward people that aren't white (or at least not on the same level as his views on homosexuals, people with Asperger's Syndrome, and JERKS) he has been remarkably tone-deaf when talking about, or portraying, minorities in his comics and videos. The Miscreants group of trolls used race as ammo to mock and manipulate Chris.

Chris and stereotypes
Chris's views of other cultures can also be traced to the television he watches, such as the typical Adult Swim cartoon which includes gratuitous use of stereotype-based humor.

Blacks


Chris has been widely considered to be racist against black people since it was learned that his highly specific criteria for a sweetheart include whiteness and specifically excludes blackness. Chris tells this not only to trolls, but to black boyfriend-free girls in real life, that they do not "meet his standard criteria for a female companion" to their faces.

His stated reason for not being interested in black women is that his dream-prophecy of Crystal shows her to be white, which means her mother must be white as well.

Trolls quickly coined the phrase "No darkies" as a quick summary of Chris's criteria for a Boyfriend free girl, much to his chagrin – even though he previously approved of a notable piece of fan art with the phrase included prominently. This is essentially accurate; for example, on Chris's profile at The HooK Café he says that "smokers, overweights, blacks, and liars need not apply."

On the less-discriminatory side, Chris also has stated that he doesn't hate men who have black girlfriends, and doesn't consider them JERKS, so Chris may think it'll increase his chances of finding a white boyfriend-free girl.

Some teenaged black kids frequented The GAMe PLACe. Chris picked on them and acted like they wanted to steal from him, hiding his stuff when they were nearby. The official reason Chris got banned permanently from The GAMe PLACe was getting into a shouting match with one of these children.

Chris also once argued with a huge black guy named TJ while playing Yu-Gi-Oh. When they started talking about how Chris would never get laid, Chris yelled, "I'm going to smack your effing face down!" As TJ stood up like he was going to beat Chris's ass, Chris shrunk and whimpered "I mean your face down monster...."

He does an impression of the stereotypical black accent, which he apparently confuses with the Jamaican accent, in Mumble 4.

When Chris talked on the phone to Jackie's boyfriend Lars, he tried to bridge the gap between their different races by speaking in Ebonics, including referring to himself as a "nigga" (although not as a "niggo") and making statements like, "I enjoy the TV shows I get from the, from the black man, including The Jeffersons, and Bill Cosby, and Sanford and Son, all a' them."

On 27 June 2012, Chris posted in Facebook a photo of a black woman at McDonald's who he said discriminated against him, and demanded people not go there, and if they do to "throw newspaper in the damn old bitchy, black woman's face!!!"

In 2014, when Chris was infatuated with Catherine, he had a romantic rival by the name of Colin; he sent a message describing the light shining off of Colin's head in a photo as "poo light."

In 2016, Chris was asked by BraveryJerk what his opinion on the Black Lives Matter movement was. Chris seemingly had never heard of the movement, saying "Uhhh, Black Li – I have not heard of that. Well…Black Lives Matter. It sounds like it’s…uh…maybe people, black people are, sounds like they’re having trouble? But I feel…that, you know, to help any person in general, regardless of race or whatever. I mean, I’m for…the,uh…Black Lives forever."

Asians
In the comics, Chris portrays Punchy Sonichu as a kung fu master with slanty eyes, raised in a dojo. When a fan criticized this stereotyping, Chris claimed that Punchy was "NOT of Asian origin". Outside of the comic, Chris also misattributes the origin of kung fu to Japan, when in actuality it comes from China. He does a racist impression of a Chinese person, and claims Japanese and Chinese people sound the same. In a leaked series of e-mails, it is shown that Chris simply does not seem to know that China and Japan are not the same, as he calls the Japanese account Chinese, failing to realize that they are separate countries with different governments, languages, writing systems and currencies.

In Chris Calls Clyde Out, Chris pretends to be Clyde Cash while doing an imitation of an Asian accent. This is presumably a reference to Clyde's Asian ancestry.

In his real-life dealings, Chris seems to have a positive or at least a neutral view toward Asians. He has stated that he would not exclude Asian women from his Love Quest, and at one point believed Emily to be part-Asian.

Chris appears to believe that "Ching Chong" is an actual Asian name, rather than a racially insensitive mockery of the Chinese language.

Native Americans
As stated in the main article, despite claiming to have at least one Cherokee ancestor, Chris is completely ignorant of Native American culture. However, unlike other minorities, Chris's opinions and representation of Native Americans are a misguided expression of "pride" for his "heritage".

In Sonichu #2: Episode 7, Chris tries to tie in his "Cherokian" heritage with Sonichu lore. He depicts Cherokee characters in his work as white-skinned and blue-eyed, and wearing Ancient Roman-style armor (Joseph Smith would be proud). The Wasabi Clan unsurprisingly also bear no resemblance to Native Americans.

Chris has also embodied his ignorance of Native American culture in a physical form. For a brief time, Chris blurred his gender roles and began to collect and customize My Little Pony dolls. One of the dolls he crafted was the infamous "Cheroki-Chan", a Native American pony clearly based upon himself. While there is nothing overtly racist about this abomination, it is probably not how Native Americans want to be represented. In the end Cheroki-Chan is just another Mary Sue for Chris, and pales in comparison to Chris's most infamous portrayal of Native Americans.

Chris attempted to emulate what he perceives as "Native American culture" in a War Paint Video. In this video Chris wears water-washable paint (and a "muscle bra") and wields a plastic gun in an attempt to frighten trolls into submission. True Cherokee historically wore breechcloths and leggings most of the time prior to adopting modern styles, and there is little evidence to suggest they owned muscle bras. They also notably did not go to war with toy guns, but instead with bows and arrows, which Chris lacks the strength to use.

Jews
"I hope that God will forgive you for being so heartless and cruel Michael Snyder!... JEW!"

- Chris, demonstrating his boundless empathy for religious minorities

Near the beginning of Chris's unsuccessful attempt in April 2010 to be unbanned from the The GAMe PLACe, he casually pointed out that Michael Snyder was probably Jewish, using his last name as a point of reference ("Snyder" is a common Dutch surname meaning "tailor". It happens to be similar to the German surname "Schneider", which is sometimes used by Jews). After failing to convince Snyder to lift the ban, Chris angrily called him a Jew and bolted out of the store. In a later video (100 2178), Chris appears to restrain himself from calling Snyder a "greedy Jew". In an email to Katie Bay, he refers to Snyder as a "son of a bitch Jew" and a "pigheaded, stubborn Jew". This probably is moreso a misguided attempt to mimic Eric Cartman than the result of any deep-seated anti-Semitism.

Chris finally apologized for insulting Michael on 31 March 2018, after a 23andme test showed that he himself had 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. He characterized this as a "surprise." As of 2020 his 23andme results no longer include Jewish ancestry.

Funnily enough according to Chris's List of Chris's Adam & Eve purchases he had purchased "Nina Hartley's guide to sex toys", a pornographic video staring the titular porn star who just so happened to be a Jewish Atheist. Whether Chris knew or cared about the fact he was Mass Debating to a woman who's race/ beliefs he showed such a prejudice to remains unknown.

Hispanics


Aside from his rather tenuous grasp on the Spanish language, Chris has created a somewhat racist caricature in the form of Espanolic. It's a Grass-type Pokémon that resembles an anthropomorphized sombrero in front of what appears to be the flag of Bolivia or Ghana, and its main attack is confusing its enemies with its "strange language". Its evolved form, Vegaton, has an attack called "Spanish Fly", that puts its enemies to sleep.

Hilariously enough, Nintendo would later create similar Pokémon named Lombre and Ludicolo, which, despite being obvious stereotypes, were handled far more tactfully than Chris could hope to do.

So far, the only Hispanic character in the comics is Heather Iglesias, the lesbian nanny of Sonichu and Rosechu's children, and then Chris's self-cest children. Chris is probably trying to be inclusive here, but he isn't creative or intelligent enough to think of anything besides a stereotypical occupation for Hispanic women. It also does not help her sentences are random mixes of Spanish and English – and no, not by throwing in a random word or two of Spanish into her sentences, but switching from English phrases to Spanish midway in her sentences (which appear to be Google-Translated).

It is worth noting that Chris sometimes refers to people of Latin American descent as "Spanish". This is not unheard of, especially among older generations, but it is much less common that the terms "Hispanic" or "Latino".

Chris has shown in the past a willingness to befriend and date Hispanics.

Indians
When TheGamerFromMars took Chris out to eat at an Indian restaurant during the filming of The Chris Chan Conspiracy, Chris blurted out one-liners from The Simpsons character Apu (complete with the stereotypical Indian accent), much to the embarrassment and disapproval of his hosts. Despite that, Chris insisted on belting out another "Welcome to Kwik-E-Mart!" line before they sat down to eat, oblivious to the fact that he could have offended somebody.

"Turdijerk" from "Off-Target" has a vaguely South Asian appearance and the name may also be based on a stereotype of an Indian accent.

Other white ethnicities/cultures
Chris has not shown outright malevolence towards other white cultures, but is often ignorant of their customs and nations. In Tito Got No Luck Against We Brits, Irish and Scots!, Chris plays an Irish song while wearing a kilt and pretending to be Scottish, then mentions a shillelagh.

Chris has an extremely basic idea on eastern Europe and Russia; Sylvana was given a supposedly Russian accent midway through the comic for no discernable reason (although the way it was written made it look like a German accent instead).

Troll manipulation
"[giggling] No, say "niggers", you stupid twat."

- BlueSpike to Chris.

In the Julie Reveals Herself call, BlueSpike coerced Chris into saying "niggers"; Chris attempted to substitute niggos instead, but BlueSpike insisted and Chris gave in. The term niggos became an infamous CWC-ism.

Chris called Surfshack Tito a nigger on video and in email. Notably, he never used the term in this context either before or after his interaction with Tito, who is not even depicted as being a black person, suggesting Chris was manipulated by trolls behind the scenes into using the word.

In Jackie E-mails 14, sweetheart Jackie asked Chris to dress up as Mr. Popo on video - a character from Dragon Ball with black skin, red lips and a turban - while singing "You ain't seen no Saiyans on the fiddle, / No Saiyans on the fiddle like this." Chris complied, though he was aware the costume would appear like blackface and placed a disclaimer stating that "this video presentation is NOT meant to make fun of the Blacks or the Hindus."

During the Idea Guy saga Chris was manipulated into dressing up as a gopnik (bottle of vodka included) while spouting the phrase "A nu cheeki breeki" and "Davai" over and over again (in reference to the stalker games which Joshua was obsessed with), although like many things during that saga the whole meme probably flew completely over Chris's head and actually was led to believe that the chant was Cherokean instead.

Not a racist?
"And I am NOT racist, and I like Jews."

- Chris, in response to a rejected mailbag email

"Blacks [...] are good people too."

- Chris, in the disclaimer for his Mr. Popo video

Chris does not want to be considered a racist. He claims to respect blacks as equals, saying that in CWCville "they can even vote". Or if they can help him get his inane and idiotic video game made. He also genuinely likes two black actors: Kenan & Kel.

He did mention more than once that the reason he doesn't want black girls (but any other race is okay) is because he thinks God told him that his future daughter Crystal must be white, too. In an IRC, Chris said he has no problem with dating an Asian. Later, in Mailbag 35, he wrote he would date "Asian, Native or Hispanic women, as well as women of all other countries" (except the ones being black).

Chris's ethnic background
Influenced by his parents' claims, Chris has long asserted that he is of primarily English descent, with some Cherokee heritage on Bob's side and some French heritage on Barb's. However, in March 2018, the Idea Guys had Chris apply for a DNA test from 23andMe to determine his ancestry, which showed that he was of 100% European genetic background, with slightly over half of this being British and most of the rest from across Northwestern Europe. The test also indicated that Chris had a trace amount (less than 0.1%) of Ashkenazi ("ash-KEN-azi") Jewish ancestry. Chris was also led to believe that he had black ancestry because his paternal haplogroup lineage, like all human lineages, began in Africa (as a matter of fact both his paternal and maternal haplogroups point to European origin). As a result, Chris declared that he was "Fully Observant of [his] Jewish ancestry" and that he was "black too." He apologized for his past offensiveness regarding Jews and black people.

Sometime between 2018 and 2020 Chris's 23andMe results were updated. They now show no Jewish ancestry whatsoever, showing a somewhat larger component of Italian ancestry instead. They also show that he is of 0.1% Siberian ancestry, possibly the sign of a distant Native American ancestor as North Asian and Native American populations are closely related. Chris has yet to comment on these new results.

Minority characters in Sonichu
Chris attempts to add in characters of various races and religions with decidedly mixed results. Many of his non-white characters are one-dimensional or barely relevant but then again so is every white one who isn't Chris in his world full of rainbow hedgehogs. Virtually all black characters are depicted as criminals, villains, or undesirables. The ones that aren't so lucky are treated like crap by the other characters or used in race-related jokes.

In the Mailbag, when Chris is confronted about the lack of minorities in his comic he claims that all of his Electric Hedgehog Pokémon are considered "minorities" in CWCville, implying that he completely missed the point of the question. Despite being minorities, the Electric Hedgehog Pokémon group never experiences discrimination nor prejudices in the comic; that's saved for another minority in CWCville. Chris tolerated a Niggo Bubbles and Indian Magi-chan renditions in July 2020.


 * Kevin (Jewish, good but immature)
 * Ancient leader of the Cherokee Clan ( Paleface Native American, lawful good)
 * Wasabi Rival ( Caucasian Native American, evil)
 * Queen of the Cherokian Clan - ( white-washed Native American, good, probably the whitest of all Native American characters in the comics as she's not only blue-eyed but also blonde)
 * B-Manajerk (black, evil). A villain based off a real-life encounter. The B most likely stands for Black; the name was coined so that Chris could distinguish him from other Manajerks. This is quite similar to the way American black superheroes were named in the 1950-60s.
 * Barack Obama (half-black, half-arab). A cameo for the sake of a race-related joke. Bob told Chris a racist joke about then-senator Obama, which Chris illustrated within the pages of Sonichu #8. Chris removed the joke after Obama won the election, but he probably only did that because he respects Obama now.
 * Blake (black, evil turned good). A villain turned positive-aligned "bad boy". Black Sonichu/Blachu (whose name was later changed to Blake) was originally a villain, but switched sides because he's a recolor of Shadow the Hedgehog. In Sonichu #11 which were uploaded in 2015 Blake is mistaken as black, being wished a "happy Kwanza, brother" from an African American, and goes on an angry rant about how his skin in not "sunburn color", he is black because of a mutation.
 * CADD Chef (black, evil)
 * Florance Fisher (black, good). A girl whose sole purpose in the comic is to be rejected by Reginald.
 * Jerkhief (black, lawful evil). The Big Cheese of the Jerkops.
 * Occasionally other Jerkops are shown to be black as well. No other minorities are apparent aside from possibly Turdijerk (see below).
 * Punchy (East Asian, good)
 * Silvana (black, evil [said to turn good])
 * Turdijerk (drawn with brownish skin and brown hair, possibly Indian(?), evil)
 * Constable Louis Perez (black police officers who talk entirely in stereotypical black slang.
 * Inos (black, tobacky smoker). A homeless, intoxicated, diseased, drug-pushing, expectorating Jamaican with filthy dreadlocks.
 * Heather Iglesias (Hispanic, lesbian, good, never seen debuts in Sonichu #12)
 * Bill Schwartz (possibly Jewish, worked for Giovanni but later on changed sides)
 * Ching Chong (Asian, appeared in the Wedding Comic as a flower girl)
 * PHI Spring Break reporter (Black, appears in Sonichu #8) - despite only appearing in one panel, Chris manages to make her into a stereotype, addressing the audience as "sistas and brothas".