Michelle Li, a Korean American news anchor in St. Louis, drew shock nationwide this weekend, after sharing a voicemail from a viewer in which the woman complains that Li was “being very Asian” during her broadcast on New Year’s Day.
“This evening, your Asian anchor mentioned something about being Asian, and Asian people eat dumplings on New Year’s Day and [I] kind of take offense to that,” the woman starts out. “Because what if one of your White anchors said, ‘Well, white people eat this on New Year’s Day?’”
She continued: “I don’t think it was appropriate that she said that and, she was being very Asian and…I don’t know. She can keep her Korean to herself, alright? Sorry, was annoying.”
Li posted a video of herself listening to the message, which you can hear in full in the video below. Li did not react in a large way but simply sipped her drink as she listened.
The viewer also asserted that if a white person had said something similar, they would be fired.
Li did note on Twitter that she would “love to say something back.” On Instagram, she bit back a little harder, though, joking in the caption that “We should all be given the chance to bring our full humanity to the table.”
Li has since changed both her Twitter and Instagram bios to read “VERY ASIAN.”