Letters to the Editor
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Per your request, I just checked out angry asian man dot com
And it looks like just another blog from just another Internet nerd with way too much time on his hands. He makes a few valid points, and talks about a bunch of stuff that nobody else really cares about, but unless I missed the hidden "kill whitey so the asian man can take his place as master of the universe" message, it looks pretty tame. Another stupid website to ignore, in other words.
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re:Killer reflection
Whatever his communication problems were, he did attempt to communicate or if nothing else express himself inappropriately; and every time, even prior to college, reports indicate he was humiliated. It is almost impossible to understand how someone could get through school and college without speaking to or responding to anyone, he was obviously a very good listener. He is also described as acutely sensitive, (and apparently passionate about things as well), but really smart and quiet. A real Rambo kind of guy; like Clint Eastwood, he did not need dialog, he could grunt and gesture his way through, and then when he had enough, get really angry. In our society there is no shortage of positive role models for someone with communication problems and the world against them. Even huge doses of that Asian cultural phenomenon called shame could not save him or his victims. His social life is described as little more than a group of his peers standing around with sticks poking at something they did not recognize. A recipe for mental illness?
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Hey Paul
Gotcha.
Of course I know that shallow ungrateful brats exist, and likely far outnumber the dangerous, misunderstood loners.
I guess I concern myself less with those boys because...well...
*DISCLAIMER*
There's nothing funny about this tragedy, yet the comedy writer in me compels me to say the following:
...white boys with entitlement issues usually don't go on shooting sprees. They confine their illegal activities to date rape & securities fraud.
Ech.
Guess I've had bad news overload this week and my defense mechanisms are kicking in.
I think I'll go pray for peace or something.
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Re: To answer MyPrivateCaptain
I'm sorry but your sweeping generalizations are unwarranted and pretty darn vile. And you are totally self-contradictory. You dismiss people who supposedly try to lump all White Americans into a single monolithic group, and yet in the very next sentence you claim that a significant amount of second generation Asian males are socially maladjusted. There's no need to be make inflammatory comments to puff yourself up. Why are using stereotypes against others when you dismiss it yourself? As an Asian American male, who is well adjusted, educated, and informed, I resent your comments and your juvenile attempt to conflate one's race and a propensity for violence. They have nothing to do with one another.
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Emily
You said: My point is that young white males who are not EXPERIENCING their privelege (sp) are shamed for complaining that they feel marginalized.
Young white males are not marginalized. They don't have to be ashamed of their feelings, but nor should such feelings be vindicated. This whole marginalized white male thing is psychological fall out from recent advances in civil rights. The dominant class always feels diminished when marginalized classes are conferred basic rights that were once within the sole domain of the 'privileged' few; the air feels a bit rarer when you're not used to sharing it. Doesn't mean the feelings valid.
This tired old trope is particularly revolting coming from a woman.
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Since when did Salon Letters turn into Stormfront.com???
>>Second, there is a pervasive pattern of second generation Asian males with severe personality disorders. In their home culture, represented by the parents, they are little princes on pedestals who can do no wrong. In the greater American culture, they are considered nerdy, sexually undesirable, and socially inept.>>
Wow. Way to generalize an entire group of people. Why not quote from "Mein Kampf" or "Birth of a Nation" while you're at it? Why not talk about how Jews are greedy moneygrubbers or how African-Americans are lazy, ignorant welfare queens? Hey, don't forget the good ol' Latino stereotype of being drug-runners and willing to sell their sisters for sex. Any other racist ramblings you'd care to share with us, mypiratecaptain?
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hey candypants
I'm sorry you're revolted by my feelings of compassion for adolescents and for those who haven't quite managed to psychologically escape adolescence, even though they certainly should have.
Imagine if you will a young white male.
Say he's 18.
He thinks gay male sex is kinda gross, but can't understand why we should stop anyone who wants to get married from getting married. He thinks marriage is stupid anyway: everyone he knows is divorced.
He never lived in a world where black people rode in the back of the bus.
In his experience, the women pretty much order all the men around, and they all have jobs just like the men.
His Latino, Black, and Asian friends play the same video games and wear the same sneakers he does. They all call each other the same bizarre nicknames and generally act like awkward, occasionally over-aggressive boys who don't know what to do with themselves.
All he's ever done is "share the air."
No one's giving this kid a legacy scholarship to Harvard.
He goes to school and celebrates Black History Month and Cesar Chavez Day.
He knows about the Holocaust, and he's breast cancer aware.
But if he responds to Presidents' Day or being taught about Thomas Jefferson with:
"Hey, I'm proud to be a white male!" people call him a neo-Nazi racist.
And then he watches all his friends get first consideration at colleges because of their racial background.
OK?
Do you know this kid?
Now understand: I'm not saying he should "whine", I'm not saying he should shoot anyone, and I'm not even saying he should go home and throw a little extra thumb into the Grand Theft Auto.
Most of all, I'm certainly not saying life is objectively harder for him than for his friends.
It would be super-swell if he talked to a counselor, helped a little old lady across the street, and went on to cure cancer.
Lots of kids do, and they're better people than the kid I'm describing.
Anyone who wants to make that point wins: I agree that my theoretical composite kid isn't of exemplary character.
But this kid exists.
Lots of kids are this kid.
My kid could potentially be the "average" lower-middle-class white boy in a huge school.
Adolescence is ALREADY a time of feeling the occasional bout of powerlessness about the fact that you're kind of a grown-up, and kind of not.
You're full of awareness and desire, and yet you control almost nothing.
My entire point, from my initial post, has been that I can't personally respond to the boy I describe with "stop whining and be grateful, you little pussy" and think I've done my best to help him along the road to citizenship.
Because if I do, I have only myself to blame if he goes home and watches violent TV and plays violent video games and writes violent stories and draws violent pictures and no one pays attention except to tell him to shut the fuck up because his feelings "aren't valid" and then one day he buys a gun.
I'm a realist.
I can yammer all day about how young white males "should" feel or act, but I'm not going to be one of the people who ignores reality when it's in front of me.
Shaming kids with how they "should" feel won't stop their anger any more than shaming them about sex will keep them abstinent.
I advocate meting the problem where it lives, before it grows.
To me, that means HONORING - not cosigning or inflaming or ignoring - people's feelings, whether they are "reasonable" or not.
Anything else is irresponsible.
If left untreated, angry young white boys can turn into angry young white men trapped in suspended adolescence.
If we "silence" these kids and turn them loose on the world, their poor character starts to matter. There's nothing diverting them from shooting people, kicking dogs, beating women, and starting wars in the Middle East.
As a "white" woman, I'm like a black Latino Asian woman in that I don't want any more of that shit on my head than is absolutely necessary.