Letters to the Editor
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Interesting Perspective
The meditation on how mental illness is viewed in Asian culture was valuable and merits discussion. Certainly, from an American perspective, the parents should be considered responsible for recognizing that they had a mentally ill son --from all accounts, it was a hard thing to miss -- and seeking appropriate treatment.
As for everyone rushing in with racial generalizations about Asians -- come on. There's always some jackass somewhere who will burn an South Korean flag or whatnot, but has Cho's Asian-ness really been a big part of this story? The blackness of the Beltway killers, when it was remarked upon at all, merely engendered mild surprise. I think just about everybody had assumed that they were, in fact, white.
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"foreigners" make easy targets
The sad truth of the matter is that Seung-Hui Cho (and thanks Jeff for using the English language word order of his name rather than the Korean version which the mainstream media seems to be delighting in - shades of the obsession with repeating the exact Don Imus slurs on the Rutgers University women's basketball team, perhaps?) was someone who had severe mental and emotional problems.
This and the fact that he had ready access to hand guns one of which was an automatic, probably accounts for 98% of what we might think of as the Virginia Tech tragedy.
While it's human nature to look for meaning in incidents and it's equally part of human nature to be more alarmed by negative events that effect people with whom you feel a common bond, the media coverage of the tragedy seem to highlight questions of race rather than these other issues.
The mainstream media, like the society which it represents, would rather carp on race because this provides a way of externalizing "the problem" onto "those people" and absolves society and those of us who are in positions to do something about it from looking at more difficult shortcomings (the lack of adequate gun control, the failure of public awareness around mental illness and the tolerance of crippling levels of emotional isolation) within the system itself.
The other factor in "Asian Stranger Danger" rhetoric is good old fashioned racism. But I'm not so interested in talking about this since it's been a huge factor in the established internet discussion of this issue already.
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Interesting article about a topic that's getting flogged to death already...
"The degree to which these paired memes -- "smart but quiet" and "fundamentally foreign" -- are repeated in the coverage of these two crimes is striking."
It's sad to see any kind of racism, or stereotypical thinking, in our society...but for me, it's interesting to see how other minority groups view this kind of event. I can definitely say (from my own experience) that the African Ams. I know will look at these kinds of statements and basically shrug it off and say, "Well, at least it's not as bad as being black in America." My retort to this is typically "Then why don't you see more African Ams. go on killing rampages?" To which I get a response along the lines of because-that's-what-the-Man- want's-us-to-do,-and-we-won't-give-him-the pleasure...
The author does have a good point about how stereotypes are playing out in the media on this incident, though. For his benefit, I'll at least go so far to say that when I heard about the VT slaughter taking place, my first response (aside from sadness and concern) was: "Great, one of my cousins went insane again..."
Sign,
A White Guy
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I'm sure everyone says the same thing
There go those Sunni car bombers again. WTF is wrong with those dudes?
Yeah those Zulus decapitated another white family last night. Is it in their genes or something?
Those fucking Serbians just mass graved another village. Damn bloodthirsty pricks. We don't do that shit.
PKK mofos. What is it with those Kurds? Do they all grow up leading to chop heads off?
I always thought he was a rather quiet Hutu. Shame he went all beserko and killed those pregnant women.
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one of cho's room mates thought he was so quiet because he didn't speak much English ....
apparently he also told his room mate he was a Business Major ...
I'm still wondering why someone so good at math became an English Major and wonder if it was fall-back degree for someone unable to muster the requisite concentration and discipline to pursue math or engineering ... degrees much more likely to result in well paying employment.
Yes, the otherness of being shy, withdrawn, "supersmart" Asian probably shielded him from inquiries and closer scruitiny. "It's always the quiet ones"
There's a lot we don't know about his psychiatric evaluation ... he had a prescription bottle ... for what and how long did he take the medicine if at all? Did he consider himself "troubled" or just depressed? All sorts of people believe "mental health" problems are a sign of weakness, mental and moral.
Yes, I've heard of the HB1 (is that right?) visa ghetto of hard working foreigners who have virtually NO hope of promotion ... working almost like indentured servants until they can save enough money to go home and form a startup ... or defect and start a startup ... but used like a machine until they can leave.
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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.