Even after apologising for his racist remarks, there have been news reports that John Mangos was sacked by SkyNews on Friday, 17 June 2011.

This may have followed since his on-air comments on 3 June 2011 that would be regarded by many Chinese-Australians (and Chinese across the world) as inappropriate and offensive.

However, I am certain that John Mangos never meant to offend. He probably had an unexpected spare few seconds he needed to fill, the teleprompter wasn’t helpful, it was probably late in the night, and he was expected to fill the void. He miscalculated (he is human after all). And after the words came out of his mouth, his mind went “DOH!”

Like those/many of us of Chinese descent, I took no offence from this incident. Mind you, it was a stupid thing to do. I too closed my eyes, cringed, covered my face and thought “he didn’t just say that!” But was it a racist act with intention to hurt? No.

Multi-cultural Australia by-and-large is able to distinguish if a comment is racist with intent to hurt or not. And even though name calling can at times still hurt, there are also times when the same words are shared with uniquely Australian affection and not with cruel intent. This is the modern multi-cultural Australia of the 21st century. Yet, in this instant world of ours, with blogs and Facebook updates and Twitter tweets, we all have to be mindful more than ever of what we say because they can so easily be misunderstood and represented out of context, especially by those who don't know us.

I and other Chinese-Australians have put our names forward in a letter to SkyNews CEO, Angelos Frangopoulos, in context and in support of John Mangos. Other Australians who have lent their support include Channel 9 elder statesman Peter Harvey, former sports presenter now 4BC radio host Ian Maurice and former Sunrise executive producer Adam Boland.

Mr Frangopoulos has publicly confirmed that while no text message was sent to John Mangos referring him to an email in which his employment was terminated, he did say, “I spoke directly to John over the phone to tell him his contract would not be renewed. I thanked him for his contribution to Sky News over the years.”

Click here for the original blog written for the Chinese Australian Forum.