Should Virginia Tech suspend its Korean Student Association?

[LostinVA]

The Virginia Tech Massacre, which occurred on April 16, 2007, is the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history, on or off a school campus. Many of us who lived in Virginia when this happened call it our 9/11. The horror and shock of that day has never worn off. All over Virginia you see VT Memorial Ribbons in Hokie colors. I have one of my own car. Very few Virginians weren't touched by this tragedy in some way. One of my employees lost her best friend in Norris Hall to a murderer's bullet.

32 Americans were targeted and killed that day, and many more were wounded, and a whole community shattered and traumatized. Finger pointing immediately began, laws were changed, and international figures as diverse as Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict XVI sent their condolences.

So, should the Korean Student Association be suspended? After all, the killer was Seung-Hui Cho, a Korean immigrant, and Tech has many Korean and Korean-American students on campus, including many in the Engineering program. Engineering classes are still held in Norris Hall, the site of 30 of the murders. Is it disrespectful to the memory of the dead to have an organization LAUDING and PROMOTING the very culture, religion, and history of The Killer? How must the friends and family of the murdered feel, walking across campus, hearing Korean spoken, seeing the Korean flag on posters, just generally having salt rubbed into the never quite healed wound.

To answer my own question asked in the OP: of course not.

Even though Seung-Hui Cho wasn't Osama, anyone who saw both his tapes and Bin Laden's know that all the murders of all the innocents was fueled by the same irrational hate and anger. Seung-Hui Cho does not bloody the head of the Korean and Korean-American students at Tech any more than Osama bloodies the hands of every other Muslim in the world. Tech is the "Mosque Scandal" in a microcosm.

I'm sure some posters will call my analogy stretched, and that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I also want to laud Tech on what it has done with Norris Hall. It's an example the US Government and NYC should emulate: The west wing of Norris Hall was closed after the shooting, although the rest of the building was open to students and faculty. On April 10, 2009, it was reopened, and is now the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention. It was not left a closed, moldering hulk. It wasn't turned into some hands-off sacred site. Instead, the students, faculty, staff, and administration of VT refused to let the killer win and steal a part of their campus and their community forever. They ultimately won by advocating life and peace where death and terror had invaded.

[unpossibles]

1. and the Christian churches across the street from the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

those should be torn down also, apparently.

I wish I could say I was amazed when the right does this crap, but for some reason I never am.

[LostinVA]

2. Oh absolutely!

Only non-Christian places of worship should be allowed within at least several blocks of the Murrah building, even though Christians were murdered that day. And any YMCAs. We all know what that "C" stands for, no matter how they try and hide it.

[unpossibles]

3. McVeigh was also a gun nut

and there's a steak house near there too. Does that count? </joke>

[RainDog]

4. Churches are allowed to build near schools

even tho some priests have abused children and the church hierarchy has worked for years to hide this abuse and to refuse to admit it has cared more about the reputation of the church than the lives of children.

...and yet, there are millions of Catholics who are in no way connected to those who are pedophiles or pedophile protectors.

[LostinVA]

5. Exactly -- whose knows what priest may go off at any minute?!

It's all so ridiculous, and tarnished the memory of all who died.

[RainDog]

6. Palin is using this mosque issue to rile the fascists

She is as hateful and repulsive as any Nazi spewing invective at a Jew in pre-war Germany.

And those who align with her on this issue show their true colors.

[LostinVA]

7. She really is a brownshirt rabble rouser

Even conservatives I know can't stand her.

[madmom]

11. Build near schools hell, they are allowed to HAVE THEIR OWN SCHOOLS!

[LostinVA]

13. That's actually a really good point

[slackmaster]

8. Only if students of European descent are allowed to form a European Student Association

:hide:

[ret5hd]

10. There already is. It's called "The Student Association"

[slackmaster]

12. Are non-Europeans barred from joining it?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[TZ]

16. geezus

Nobody is barred from joining these groups. However, if you are say a Jewish student joining a Greek Heritage Group you might not have any knowledge to contribute.
I hate this "oh woe, theres a group I have nothing in common with, so I'm going to WHINE about not being able to join it".
White priveledge is such a burden ain't it? :sarcasm:

[LostinVA]

18. No public university can ban someone from an official university student group

Jeebus, what does that have to do with the VT Massacre???

[slackmaster]

19. You've done an amazingly thorough job of attributing thoughts to me that are not mine

You must be a Physic or something.

[Seneca]

21. We're not 'Physic'

But if force x mass = acceleration, you're going downhill fast.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Great post!

Kicked and Rec'd.

[LostinVA]

14. Thanks, TC!

[TZ]

15. Great Post

I also think that all the Catholic Churches near any Holocaust museum should be razed as disrespectful...:sarcasm:
This whole holding a whole group responsible for a few nut jobs is ridiculous.

[LostinVA]

17. Oh, that analogy is truly appropriate

:thumbsup:

[Posteritatis]

20. Don't forget newspapers. We all know who invented the printing press, after all! (nt)

[Igel]

24. Depends.

If you're into block printing, the Chinese.

The "Islamic science" contribution seems to be the possibility of using tin instead of wood. That's not entirely clear, although if you look at some Muslim-biased sites they all but invented not only woodblock printing but wood itself.

Well, the extent to which block printing was used in an actual press is a tough point to show. They both probably did.

If you're into type than can be set, then that would be the result of "Christian science": Gutenberg. Took the Ottomans quite a while to adopt the idea of the printing press; it was viewed as dangerous to their rule as photocopiers were to the Soviets.

[Posteritatis]

31. Logic has no place in my deliberately-bad analogies! (nt)

[amandabeech]

27. You'll have to look at every Lutheran church as well,

because some of them were started by German immigrants.

You can't just dump them all, because some were started by Danish, Norwegian and Swedish immigrants. Each of those countries showed some resistance to the Nazis and the Holocaust in its way, even though both Norway and Denmark were attacked and occupied and Sweden was surrounded.

[LostinVA]

29. We can keep the Scandinavian Lutheran churches then

The Danes also protected and rescue literally almost every single one of their Jews. So, they can stay!

[VMI Dem]

22. Grrrr. I'm rec'ing your post...but

I can't stand Va Tech.

[LostinVA]

23. I know you can't

I was working at their big rival when this happened! It was very weird to see students wearing Hokie Red shirts in tribute for the rest of the semester.

[Recursion]

25. The Nats played the rest of that April in Hokie caps

I liked that. I lived in Blacksburg for years, though I haven't been back since the shooting.

[LostinVA]

26. Ah, hadn't heard that!

[CreekDog]

28. good illustration

:hi:

[LostinVA]

30. I just thought of you -- for real

I went outside and gasped at the humidity.