Asian American Advocacy Groups call on NBC to end ties with Jay Leno over his insensitive 'dog meat' joke about Koreans

Two Asian American advocacy groups Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Media Action Network for Asian Americans(MANAA) are asking NBC to cut ties with former late-night host Jay Leno over his insensitive joke about Koreans eating dog meat. 

MANAA's founding president Guy Aoki shared a statement that the organization is asking for "NBC to end its business relationship" with Leno. 

This is not the first time that dog jokes have been an issue between MANAA and NBC as Aoki notes that the group repeatedly met with NBC executives over the years, but in vain. "Media Action Network for Asian Americans has been well aware of Leno's habit of making these jokes about 'man's best friend,'" Aoki said in the statement. "Over a 10-year period, we and other members of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (which has met with the networks since 1999/2000 to push for better inclusion and depiction of Asian Americans) met and corresponded with NBC executives about this. Then-NBC executive vice president of diversity Paula Madison also had a confrontation with the then-Tonight Show host, but the matter only got resolved after the APAMC’s second attempt to go after Leno’s advertisers in 2012."

MANAA's statement also adds that despite multiple meets with NBC executives including "admonishment from a high-ranking NBC executive and two advertiser campaigns," Leno has "been an unrepentant repeat offender and still has a bizarre fixation with Asians eating dogs."

This comes as former host Gabrielle Union, who was fired from 'America's Got Talent' along with Julianne Hough, spoke out about instances of racial discrimination occurring behind the scenes of the show. 

She accused the producers of the show of allowing a white man to impersonate a black man during his audition. She was also apparently given notes about her hairstyles and outfits being "too black" for the show's audience. She claimed that Leno joked that Simon's painting of dogs could be found "on the menu at a Korean restaurant". Several Asian crew members were present when Leno made the joke. 

President and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice John C Yang also backed the fact that Leno is a "repeat offender". "Jay Leno is a repeat offender in denigrating a part of our Asian American community and it must stop," Yang said, pointing that racially insensitive jokes are "so toxic because it is intended to minimize a community and somehow make that community seem less civilized".