Hundreds in San Francisco protest against ABC over 'Kill Everyone In China' comment

Hundreds of people, largely from local Chinese communities rallied on October 28 in San Francisco against American Broadcasting Company and its TV show host Jimmy Kimmel for the "Kill everyone in China" comment.

Protesters marched through the streets with all kinds of signs and pictures and chanted "Fire Jimmy Kimmel" and "Boycott ABC". Tina, a mother of two children drove more than an hour to San Francisco to take part in the protest. She said: "I feel angry when I heard Jimmy Kimmel saying 'it's interesting’ in the program. That’s not interesting. All the Chinese should stand out and make our voices heard."

On October 16, Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" , a late-night talk show that airs on ABC, gathered four kids to comment on current political and economic issues. During the program, Kimmel asked those kids how the United States should pay back its debt owed to China. One child at the table said that America should "kill everyone in China."

After hearing the answer, Kimmel chuckled and said "That’s an interesting idea." And then he asked "Should we allow the Chinese to live?" Once the program was aired, it drew outrages among different Chinese communities, especially those living overseas. Jieyu Yan, a Chinese in San Francisco asked on her microblog what if a TV program mentioned killing black people. "It's obviously racial discrimination."

Another protester who has been a teacher for 10 years in the Bay Area said: "I am not sure whether those words are just from the kid or the kid was told to say so. But as a media representative, Jimmy Kimmel should know clearly about his responsibility."

The protesters put forward three requirements: fire Jimmy Kimmel, cancel the live show and examine the whole event by the FCC to stop such event happening again.

ABC actually issued an apology on Sunday night to one Asian-American group saying "We would never purposefully broadcast anything to upset the Chinese community, Asian community, anyone of Chinese descent or any community at large." And the company had removed the controversial comment from all media platforms.

However, the Chinese communities in the United State did not buy their responses. Many protests have been organized in different cities to ask for a "sincere apology". The organizer of the protest in San Francisco said that if the company does not make a formal apology to the Chinese community, he will organize another protest in the near future.