Chris and race
Christian Weston Chandler's racist tendencies can be traced at least partially to his southern heritage, but certain other factors seem to imply that the rest of his worldview on race comes from stereotypes depicted by popular culture. In some cases, however, Chris seems to be completely unfamiliar with even the stereotypes, opting to make up a bunch of bullshit off the top of his head.
African Americans
- Main article: Niggos
Chris demonstrates many instances of intolerance and racism, both intentional and unintentional. His racism comes from several sources: his father, his isolated formative years, television, and his complete ignorance of everything that isn't him. Black people, in particular, are a common target for his xenophobia, hence the word "niggo".
Asians
In the comics, Chris portrays Punchy as a kung-fu master with slanty eyes. While in a mailbag, he was called out on this and retorts by denying that he's Asian. Outside of the comic, Chris also misattributes the origin of kung-fu to Japan, when in actuality it came from China. He does a racist impression of a Chinese person and claims Japanese and Chinese people sound the same as shown in BlueSpike PSN Chat 3.5.
In his real life dealings, Chris seems to have a positive or at least 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. He also mentioned receiving a graduation gift from Reverend Shin of Chesterfield County's Korean congregation in the church audio.
"Turdijerk" from "Off-Target" has a vaguely South Asian appearance and the name may also be based on a stereotype of an Indian accent.
Ching Chong
In the Captain's Log, Stardate April 28th, 2009, Chris present us sincere apologies for having scared a small Chinese girl that Ivy tutored in art. The child, known only as Ching Chong is now traumatized due to her witnessing a video of Chris drinking his own "Navy" while innocently browsing Encyclopedia Dramatica. Chris never made a follow-up on the girl and never asked why her name was a known racial slur towards ethnic Asian communities. In the Wedding Comic, Ching Chong is seen as a flower girl.
Native Americans
- Main article: Cherokian Clan
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 are a misguided expression of "pride" for his "heritage".
In Sonichu 2: Episode 7, Chris tries to tie in his "Cherokeeian" heritage with Sonichu lore. He depicts Cherokee characters in his work as white and wearing gold armor (Joseph Smith would be proud). The actions and spirituality of the Native Americans in his comic have almost no resemblance to any actual people that ever existed.
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. 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.
In a shocking display of ignorance, 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 gun in an attempt to frighten trolls into submission. Instead, it served to illustrate his outrageous insensitivity and callowness.
Jews
- Main article: Christmas
In A Sonichu and Rosechu Christmas, Chris describes how Jews living in CWCville celebrate Hannukah. On December 12 members of the CWCville Jewish diaspora set up "Menorah candles" (the "Haunaka" Menorah candelabrum has 7 candles in it, while the traditional Menorah used on Hanukkah IRL has 9) instead of Christmas Trees, with dreidels lying under them. Since the candle-related symbolism is very much present in the RL Hanukkah rituals, it's in good taste to give CWCville Jews anything candle-related as a gift. E.g., when Sonichu's daughter Cerah Rosey baked cookies for her friends, she decided to make her Jewish friend Kevin a candle-shaped one. Because Jews surely love to be distinguished from other people on any occasions based solely on their faith, and would take deep offense in receiving a normal nothing-special-shaped cookie as a gift!
The interesting moment is that there actually is a tradition of eating specially baked foods on Hanukkah, and vanilla is one of the allowed ingredients used in making them. Not that Chris knows anything about this, mind you.
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, 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 a similar Pokémon named Ludicolo, which they did being far less blatantly stereotypical.
So far, the only Hispanic character in the comics is Heather Iglesias, the nanny of Sonichu and Rosechu's 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 may also be notable that often times, Chris refers to Hispanic people as being "Spanish". While not totally inaccurate, the word "Spanish" is usually reserved for peoples from continental Spain, whereas "Hispanic" is used for peoples from countries previously controlled by Spain.
Parental influence
Given that his father Bob Chandler grew up in the southern United States before the civil rights movement, it is very easy to assume that Bob harbors racist beliefs and has passed at least some of them on to Chris. It is possible Bob also disliked that Chris's high school basketball team had only three white players and the two waterboys were both white. This line of reasoning was cemented in 2008 when Chris began referring to his father saying that, if elected president, Barack Obama would "paint the White House black."
Chris and stereotypes
Chris's views of cultures besides southern white Christians can also be traced to the television he watches. The typical Adult Swim cartoon includes gratuitous use of stereotype-based humor. Chris takes The Boondocks' satire of black stereotypes at face value. He also portrays nearly every person of African descent that appears in Sonichu with bald heads and either round, bulging eyes or glasses that resemble such. Finally, he does an impression of the stereotypical black accent, which he apparently confuses with the Jamaican accent, in Mumble 4.
His exposure to anime fuels his misguided views on East Asians. Asians, in his views, excel at random-access humor and martial arts.
Chris, despite claiming Cherokee ancestry, doesn't seem to know what a Native American even looks like, as he portrays the Ancient leader of the Cherokee Clan as an overtly European person wearing Greco-Roman garb. He also tramples all over their actual rituals and culture simply to implement the Anchuent Prophecy into his comic.
Not a racist?
Chris does not want to be considered a racist. He claims to respect blacks as equals, saying that in CWCville "they can even vote", but at best he merely tolerates their existence so long as they stay away from him. Or if they can help him get his inane and idiotic video game made. However, he does genuinely like two black people: Kenan & Kel.
Also, Chris has probably never been told that the voice of Sonic in the animated series that he loves so much was Jaleel White (AKA Steve Urkel), a black man. If someone told him this, he would probably deny it. However, given that Chris managed to get respect for Stephen Fry...
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 because he's "Old Fashioned".)
Realistically, Chris is not considered a white supremacist type of racist but more of a xenophobic one. In other words, he's afraid of ethnic groups he's not familiar with. Like most things in his life, Chris has no real knowledge and bases everything off what he's seen on TV. Chris' perception of minorities is only what the TV shows him, since encountering them in real life is something that rarely occurs.
Improved race relations?
An image leaked on 26 September 2009 showing Chris having sex with three young ladies, including an African American woman. In the Captain's Log of 10 October 2009, Chris clarified that the woman with whom he's performing sexual intercourse is "Half And Half" (mixed ancestry). This proves to us that, even if he's ready to touch the genitals of a black woman, he is unable to imagine the sexual intercourse with someone not sharing white ancestry. In fact, there's evidence that shared ancestry may be a turn-on for Chris.
It seems that the futility of his love quest has lead Chris to lower his ridiculously high standards even further, as he did with fat chicks (which he dropped for Sarah Jackson), and red heads (as he did with Ivy).
Nope, no improved race relations
This just in: Chris is a bigot. If anyone had any misconceptions that Chris was anything short of the most horrible person on earth, he ended Sonichu Day by calling Tito the N-word "Chris Drops the N-Bomb", and in the Surfshack Tito Emails, making him an official racist. Repercussions of this event are yet to be seen.
Minority characters in Sonichu
- Kevin (Jewish, good)
- Ancient leader of the Cherokee Clan (Native American, lawful good)
- B-Manajerk (black, evil)
- Occasionally other Jerkops are shown to be black as well. No other minorities are apparent.
- Barack Obama (very black)
- Blake (black, evil turned good)
- CADD Chef (black, evil)
- Florance Fisher (black, good)
- Jerkhief (black, lawful evil)
- Punchy (Chinese-Japanese, good)
- Silvana (black, evil [will turn good])
- Turdijerk (unclear, drawn with tan skin, evil)
- Constable Louis Perez (black, TRUE and HONEST policemen)
- Inos (black, tobacky smoker)
- Heather Iglesias (Hispanic, lesbian, never seen)
- In the Mailbag, when Chris is confronted about the lack of minorities in his comic he claims that all of his Electric Hedgehog Pokemon are considered "minorities" in CWCville, implying that he completely missed the point of the question.
References
Chris and... |
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