There are eleventy billion Republicans running for Rob Portman’s senate seat in Ohio. One them is Mike Gibbons who according to the NYT at its primmest, “spoke offensively about Asians.” And that is why Mike Gibbons is malaka of the week.
I’d never heard of Mike Gibbons until yesterday but he’s apparently doing well in the polls. He’s a rich CEO type who chaired Trump’s Ohio campaign in 2016, He’s one of those guys who thinks government should be run like a business. Is that what the Kaiser of Chaos did? Who knew?
The Ohio GOP field resembles a crowded clown car but someone has done some superb oppo-research into remarks Gibbons made on a podcast 9 years ago:
“I’ve often thought that when I’ve run into Asians they’re all — you know, if you’ve ever read ‘The Bell Curve,’ it’s a book, a very controversial book, I can’t even remember who wrote, I think his name is Murray wrote this book,” Gibbons said in the Nov. 3, 2013, podcast, according to a transcript of his comments reviewed by The New York Times. He was referring to Charles Murray, a co-author of the 1994 book.
Gibbons continued: “And it said that the smartest people in the world as far as measurable I.Q. were Ashkenazi Jews. And then right below them was basically everybody in China, India and, you know, throughout the Asian countries.”
About a minute later, Gibbons, who earned a master’s degree from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, described being in a class with “mostly Asians” during graduate school.
“It was astounding to me how much they studied, how they were incredibly bright, but they memorized formulas,” Gibbons said. “And when we ran into a word problem — and you know, I think this is a function of the educational track they put them on — they got lost in the weeds.”
As the discussion continued, his co-host asserted that the Chinese education system did a poor job of teaching critical thinking.
“They’re very good at copying,” Gibbons added.
Where do we start? The “model minority” shtick is as old as the hills and much less picturesque. It’s the Asian American bigot’s equivalent of the “some of my best friends are” or “I haven’t got a racist bone in my body” memes.
Guys like Malaka Gibbons think it’s a compliment to praise Asians for being smarter than the average white boy. His podcast partner seems to think most Asians Americans are educated abroad: WRONG. I wonder if they discussed chopstick use versus forks. I use both but I’m better with a fork. Mike Gibbons can fork off.
In the pre-Trump era, these quotes would have sunk the Gibbons campaign. The problem is that there are MAGA types who will like what Gibbons said back in 2013. So what if it’s racist? Owning the libs is all that matters to these knuckle draggers.
Remember what I said yesterday in my Herschel Walker post:
Adrastos’ first rule of satire is always kick up, never kick down. Ape jokes can never be used against a Black person as that’s blatant racism.
That doesn’t apply here. This is a rich white dude with a simian name who deserves all the simian similes that can be thrown at him. I’m not going to monkey around with them or show my ass like a baboon. I wonder if Gibbons has ever done that? He’s certainly a buffoon, which rhymes with baboon. And that is why Mike Gibbons is malaka of the week.
The last word goes to a much better Gibbons. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame with Dion: