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1.30.2008

the band that won't go away: ching chong song

This article is a few weeks old, but it's worth mentioning... Ching Chong Song is back. It never really went away, I guess. Yes, the band with the obnoxious racist slur of a name recently got profiled in Time Out New York: The Chong show. They're alive and kicking and rocking the same name, and annoyingly unapologetic about it:
Of course, the most daunting obstruction blocking Ching Chong Song may be its name, a slightly anachronistic Chinese racial slur lovingly revived in recent times by Rosie O'Donnell. The musicians claim to have chosen the moniker simply for its onomatopoeic silliness—which was all well and good until they ventured onto a college campus. Last year, a show scheduled at Bryn Mawr was canceled following protests by a group of Asian-American students, while an NYU concert was picketed. "I really wish they had come inside and listened to our music," Gower, 28, says. "They would have understood where we were coming from. We’re full of love! We're totally not offensive." Oh, heaven's no! "I wrote an open letter to Bryn Mawr,” LaMendola says. "I told them, 'I would never call you a ching chong. I would call you retarded twats!'"
Yeah, that's mature. If you recall, last year they had a show at Bryn Mawr that got canceled following protests from Asian American students. Later, after another protested show at NYU, they claimed they were changing their name to "Church of Lurch." I guess that didn't stick, and they're sticking with the Ching Chong nonsense. That's racist!