Friday, October 25, 2013

Can a 6-year old joke?

WantChinaTimes.com

Knowing China through Taiwan

  • Saturday, October 26, 2013
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Kill Chinese to solve debt crisis, says child on Jimmy Kimmel show

  • Staff Reporter
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  • 2013-10-25
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  • 09:34 (GMT+8)
An episode of the US talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live has been pulled by US television network ABC which featured a segment in which children were asked to offer suggestions on how to resolve the recent government shutdown, with a 6-year-old suggesting that everyone in China should be killed so that the US government would not have to pay back its debts, reports the Chinese-language website of the Global Times, run by the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily.
This suggestion prompted the children taking part to debate whether the Chinese would want to kill Americans too and if Americans should build a wall to prevent Chinese from coming over to demand repayment. Kimmel found the discussion hilarious and wrapped up the show by teaching the children that people should pay their debts so that others would be willing to lend them money in the future.
The discussion created huge controversy and a good deal of anger in the US. A petition has been submitted to the White House's website to demand an investigation into the show. The petition said Kimmel and ABC should have realized that the show was inappropriate for broadcast because it would promote racial hatred and that the show had echoes of the rhetoric used in Nazi Germany. It blasted the episode for being distasteful and unacceptable, demanding the episode be cut.
The episode has also drawn the attention of Chinese internet users. A netizen who goes by the name "Wupeng" said US education must be terrible as the children did not seem to value human lives at all. Other internet users said people should not take the whole matter so seriously since the children were speaking in jest.

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