Brickbat: Reading Too Much Into This

Joe Sohm / Dreamstime.com

The state of Kansas is pulling hundreds of license plates containing the letters "JAP" after a complaint that this is an ethnic slur. Keith Kawamoto, who lives in California, made the complaint after seeing a Kansas car with one of those license plates near his home in Culver City.

Comments

[John C. Randolph]

Keith Kawamoto is a racist asshole. Who the fuck is he to demand that license plates celebrating Jewish-American Princesses shouldn't be allowed?

-jcr

[CharlesWT]

+1

[geometrydash01]

+1
http://geometrydashfree.com/

[perlchpr]

What's he got against the JA Prestwich (JAP) Industries Motorcycle Company?

The slur isn't typically written in allcaps, except by the Hinhswarm.

[loveconstitution1789]

...And the Japanese American Prisoner lobby is about to shake things up!

[loveconstitution1789]

BONZAII plates to get this over with.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The issue arose last year when Keith Kawamoto spotted a car with the Kansas plate in traffic near his home in Culver City, California, and took a photo of it. The 70-year-old California man wrote several letters to Kansas officials, including Gov. Jeff Colyer.

God bless them, it just goes to show you're never too old to find your outrage porn.

[Radioactive]

or to dispel the adage the age brings wisdom...

[Tom Bombadil]

Gov. Colyer would be my hero if he replied, "Fuck off, zipper head".

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

And people say one person can't make a difference.

[Fist of Etiquette]

When Abilene, Kan.-based JACL member Barbara Johnson read the Sept. 7-27 Pacific Citizen and learned that her state had issued an automobile license plate reading "442 JAP," she was outraged...

She's going to teach that motorist a lesson about honoring the 442nd Infantry Regiment, or anyone shortening the word Japanese down to one of the stupidest pejoratives ever perceived.

[Eddy]

But I hope I can still get a vanity plate celebrating my visit to Niger.

[Eddy]

Or my membership in the Democratic Association of Greater Oregon.

[Rat on a train]

Any Marlon Brando look alikes want to join a national association?

[Dillinger]

EGGPLNT fools the dmv.

[Anomalous]

Niger please.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Don't niggle about Niger, or someone might think you're niggardly with your nouns.

[loveconstitution1789]

Niger is my Niger.

[Tom Bombadil]

From this article, I can't tell if Kawamoto is a pussy, queer, fag, or douche.

[perlchpr]

E.) All of the above

[Hank Phillips]

In Texas, Kawamoto would be issued auto tags appropriate for a Whiny Oriental Gentleman.

[Tom Bombadil]

I read the article:

"The Kansas Department of Revenue said there are 731 active registrations containing that random letter combination on standard license plates. "

Random letters. Not JAP. Rather, J-A-P. For fuck's sake people.

As much as I despise Kawamoto, the Pubic officials in Kansas are at a whole different level.

[Hank Phillips]

Holy Truculence, Batman! Anyone can spot the innuendo once they notice that the Chief of the Kansas Department of Revenue has KDR-HAHA plates on his stretch limo.

[BigT]

Kawamoto was given a new plate: 080645

[Still Curmudgeoned (Nunya)]

I see what you did there.

[Anomalous]

Noice.

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

What about NIP? HUN? WOP? Let's get history cleaned up, nice and tidy for all to see. And BOO has to go as well. It's frightening, or degrading, depending on how your snowflake melts.

[Hank Phillips]

O can't recall if BOO was banned in the sixties. But POT-420 was definitely an unlicenseable NO-NO. LSD-250, on the other hand, miraculously failed to obtrude upon the notice of the Department of Offense Takings.

[Drave Robber]

It seems faux Cyrillic easily gets a pass.

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

CAT I'm allergic!
LOL Stop othering me!
BUT No excuses!
TEN Beauty is a male construct!
HAG Beauty is a male construct!
WAH How much for one of those?

[Jerry B.]

My Virginia plate starts with the random (I thought) letters WLU. Now I wonder if I'm propositioning everyone on the road.

[Hank Phillips]

God's teeth! California's Ministry of Truth has its work cut out for it censoring old newspaper microfilms for journalistic abbreviations, lazy typesetting and stinginess with ink as far back as the 1840s! They might as well begin asset-forfeiture confiscation of cars. Kawamoto's former allies are sure to notice Iowa plates like HUN-1914 and take umbrage over such callous displays of collectivist churlishness.

[Brian]

Stop trying to appropriate my Latin alphabet, Asia man!

[Deconstructed Potato]

Stop appropriating an entire continent, everyone ever called Asia up to and including the band.

[Deconstructed Potato]

You can take the man out of the shame culture, but you can't take the shame culture out of the man?

[loveconstitution1789]

All other 49 states besides Commifornia should issue temporary plates for visitors going to Taxifornia that are:

IH8CA

[loveconstitution1789]

I wish states issued plates:

MAGA

[Longtobefree]

They should have broken this story on the 7th - - - - - - - - -

[loveconstitution1789]

+100

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Thank you

[Rich]

I daresay *any* 3-letter combination offends *some* poor soul afflicted with dyslexia.

Shouldn't we move forward to barcoded license plates?

[Radioactive]

just barcode everyone, right across the forehead...be sure to include some of those 6 point stars for our Semitic friends.

[Longtobefree]

Yep. A series of three six digit numbers, maybe?

[sarcasmic]

down the street someone has a license plate that reads UNIGOAT

[Quo Usque Tandem]

I think it soon that the outrage culture will meet terminal nonsense, at which point nothing can be said or printed without causing virtual Armageddon. At that point we will either evolve as a culture and banish them to foolishness, or cease to operate altogether.

[Agammamon]

At the rate letter combinations are getting banned, we're going to need to start inventing new letters soon.

And they can't be taken from other existing alphabets because that would be cultural appropriation.

[LiborCon]

NUKEJAP

[loveconstitution1789]

JAPINFAMY

[LiborCon]

NANKING
PRLHBR
BDTHMCH
KMIKZI
CMFTWM
UNIT731
NAURU
I8

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

Jesus fucking christ. talk about LOOKING for reasons to be fucking outraged. I literally had to go to the article to figure out what even "JAP" is supposed to be a slur about

[Spartacus76]

Kali Keith Kawamoto needs to mind his own business & toughen up... The plate looks like my buddy's initials... John Alan Phillips... Just one more example of a self-absorbed, offensive seeking Progressive, who fails to recognize his own lack of significance in his own neighborhood, much less on this planet.

[MickinND]

North Dakota DMV has a staff of blue noses to ensure nothing risqu? or inappropriate ends up on custom plates. A couple years ago, all plates in the state were reissued. DMV decided that handicapped plates would be reissued with letter/number combos beginning with 'B'. Laughed out loud the first time I saw the State-issued and endorsed B008 and B0085.