Media Post 5

The Media shown is an advertisement, it is from the California Department of Health Services. It is telling people that they can stop their addiction to tobacco with help if they need it. The reason that I picked this is because of the American doing a karate kick to a cigarette and the caption saying "Kick your tobacco addiction!", this is showing some hidden racism toward Asians and their history of karate and traditions.
This media relations to our class is many ways, when we talked about Johnson and how one group has privileged and can do certain things and not think about it and also the reading by Frank Wu where he talks about racism is not just white and black. Wu shows that Asians are part of the equation and have certain things like Karate (which is seen in this media) as something they cant get away from and are assisted with all the time. Johnson talks about groups that are privileged and in this media that is the whites. When we look at this picture we see what is shown, a white man kicking at a cigarette and the slogan that says "Kick your tobacco addiction!". We do not see anything wrong with this but to someone that is of Asian decent they may feel disguised about this. When an Asian looks at this they may see something completely different, they may see someone who is making fun of karate which to them is a tradition is their heritage. Also Wu talked about this is his writing "Yellow", his experiences with kids doing karate kicks and chops behind him, which does not seem harmful at all but it relates to this media since it shows something that people just assume and relate to Asians right away. If this was seen as like soccer where someone is getting a running start and kicks the cigarette like it was a soccer ball people of any decent would not right away think Asians and karate.
My response to this is that it is a good way to stop smoking. It is a service that wants to help people stop their addiction and they do it in a way that is catchy. When I first saw this I found it to be cleaver and how it says "kick your...." and showed a man kicking a cigarette. But after thinking about it more in depth I can see how one may look at this who is Asian and be annoyed and think that this is offensive. I now understand what Johnson means by privilege since I never have to worry about racism toward me so I do not think anything about it at first but when I sit down and look into it I can see the flaws.