Letters to the Editor
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What happened to the stereotype of white serial killers and psychopaths?
I have to disagree with Paul Niwa when he says "A shooter can be white and nobody thinks that race played a part in the crime. But when someone nonwhite commits a crime, this society makes the person's race partially at fault."
As a Hispanic woman, I feel the same sense of inexplicable guilt and dismay when I hear of crimes committed by Hispanc people. Let's face it - when a person commits a crime, it certainly doesn't help their ethnic group to look good.
Personally, I have found this to be true of Hispanics, blacks (just had a coversation with a black coworker about this) and whites. My white boyfriend is tall, blue eyed, and has short light brown hair. When Timothey McVeigh's description was being circulated, he was a bit worried because the description fit him to a T. He doesn't actually look like Timothey McVeigh, but the description and sketch aren't perfect.
Here in the DC Metro area, I know that many people were stunned to find out that the sniper(s) were not white, since traditionally, serial killers are white men, like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, the BTK Killer, the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh. This is even documented, as on this page on North Carolina Wesleyan College's site: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/TOConnor/428/428lect06.htm.
So yes, other ethnic groups like Hispanics, blacks and even (gasp!) whites have to deal with the fact that race always seems to play a part in crime. Asians don't suddenly have a monopoly on dealing with that problem.