WEBVTT

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To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang.

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When you put me in your books, 
millions of Asian girls across America rejoice:

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Finally! A potential Halloween costume 
that wan't a geisha or Mulan.

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I mean, what's not to love about me?

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I'm everybody's favourite character!

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I totally get to fight tons of death-eaters

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and have a great sense of humour,

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and am full of complex emotions.

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Oh wait! That's the version of Harry Potter 
where I'm not fucking worthless.

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First of all, you put me in Ravenclaw.

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Of course the only Asian at Hogwarts' 
would be put in the nerdy house.

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Too bad you didn't have a house that specialized in computers and math and karate, huh?

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I know, you thought you were being tolerant.

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Between me, Dean, and the Indian twins

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Hogwarts' has like five brown people.

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It doesn't matter we're all minor characters!

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Nah, you're not racist!

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Just like how you're not homophobic 
cause Dumbledore is totally gay.

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Of course it's not mentioned in the books,

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but man, hasn't society come so far?

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Now gays don't just have to be closeted in real life,

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they can even be closeted fictionally!!!!

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Ms Rowling, let's talk about my name.

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Cho Chang.

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Cho and Chang are both last names.

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They are both Korean last names.

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I'm supposed to be Chinese.

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Being named Cho Chang,

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is like a Frenchman being named Garcia Sanchez.

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So [* loud crowd cheers* ] thank you for giving me no heritage,

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thank you for giving me a name as generic as a ninja costume,

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as chopstick hair ornaments, Ms Rowling,

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I'm either just the latest participant in a long tradition 
of turning Asian women into a tragic fetish

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Madame Butterfly: Japanese woman falls in love with a white soldier,

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is abandoned,

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kills herself.

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Miss Saigon: Vietnamese woman falls in love with a white soldier,

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is abandoned,

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kills herself.

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Memoirs of a Geisha:

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Lucy Liu in another schoolgirl porn,

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so let me cry over boys more than I speak.

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Let me fulfil your diversity quota.

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Just one more brown girl boarding(?) her white hero,

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no wonder Harry Potter's got yellow fever:

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we giggle behind small hands, and no speak engrish, what else could a man see in me?

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What else could I be but what you make me?

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Subordinate, submissive, sub plot, go ahead,

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tell me I'm over reacting.

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Ignore the fact that your books have sold over 400 million copies worldwide.

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I am plastered across movie screens, a best selling caricature.

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Last summer,

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I met a boy who spoke like rain against windows.

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He had his father's blue eyes.

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He pressed his wrist against mine and saying he was too pale,

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that my skin was so much more beautiful to him,

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I was Pacific sunset, almond milk, a porcelain cup.

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When he left me I told myself I should have seen it coming.

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I wasn't sure I was sad, but I cried anyway.

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Girls who look like me are supposed to cry 
over boys who look like him.

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I'd seen all the movies, and read all the books.

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We were just following the plot.

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[* crowd cheers...* ]