Let It Be Some Other 'Asian' (The Nation)

[marmar]

article | posted April 17, 2007 (web only)
Let It Be Some Other 'Asian'
Andrew Lam


EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared in New American Media.

All across America, no doubt, non-Korean Asian-Americans are now heaving a sigh of relief. "Asian," after all, was the four-alarm-fire word we saw throughout the day after the shootings that took the lives of 33 people at Virginia Tech. The shooter was "Asian," the news reports said. But who was this "Asian," exactly?

Before the news identified the killer as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea, all ethnic backgrounds were up for grabs. A friend from a small college town on the East Coast, who is Chinese, called to say: "Please, please let it be some other Asian. We'll be in deep if it's Chinese."

In a popular Vietnamese chatroom, Vietnamese college students were writing to each other to speculate. One said, "I have a bad feeling. It might be Mi't (Vietnamese slang for Vietnamese)." Others wrote in advising each other on what to do.

The blogosphere buzzed with speculation on the identity of the killer. The waiting game was as tense as waiting to find out who the next American Idol might be. On another blog, debbieschlussel.com, Schlussel speculated that the shooter could be a Muslim Pakistani. "Why am I speculating that the 'Asian' gunman is a Pakistani Muslim? Because law enforcement and the media strangely won't tell us more specifically who the gunman is."

A Muslim Pakistani friend, an engineer who refused to have his name mentioned, emailed me to say, "If he's a Paki and Muslim, we might all just pack up and go home. I'm praying that he is some other Asian."

Let it be some other Asian! This was the prayer among so many Asian-American communities. And not just Asians.
...(snip)...

In the end it wouldn't have worked for very long. To be a minority in America, even in the 21st century, is to be always on trial. An evil act by one indicts the entire community. Whoever doubts this need only look at the spike in hate crimes against Muslims and South Asian communities after 9/11. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070430/lam_2

[jakem]

1. Hard to believe it matters...

when most Americans can't tell the difference- even with a map and a menu...

[BlooInBloo]

2. The standard way to put it is "it takes 10 'atta-boys' to make up for 1 'aw shit' "

[Berry Cool]

3. Debbie Schlussel is an idiot

And how unfortunate that various ethnic Asians should feel they have to sit around praying that the killer was not of their ethnicity, just so that people won't start taking it out on them.

I'd like to think we have come further as a society than that, but I guess not.

[LearnedHand]

4. We HAD come further

but this Administration has taken us right back to the HUAC era.

[Radio_Lady]

5. Re: Schussel. The first time I've read her stuff was tonight... I'm sorry that she is Jewish.

Makes it worse for us Jewish women liberals. I wonder if her father (a Holocaust survivor) and mother are proud of her.

[Radio_Lady]

6. Berry Bush, for those who are younger or not as knowledgable...

HUAC = House Un-American Activities Committee.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhuac.htm

[Karenina]

7. PLEASE, let the shooter be anything but

BLACK!!! That the clarion cry EVERY TIME!!! We knew one deranged black assailant would result in EVERY black kid being strip-searched before being allowed in school from the age of 9 up. The fear was REAL.
My heart goes out to ALL who have been touched by this tragedy.

[Mike Daniels]

8. As a white man, I always hope in cases like this that the suspect is white

because I know that if the suspect is anything other than white the ignorant mouth-breaters will start looking for any other excuse to start administering beat-downs.