Adair: Taking the VT massacre personally
By Jeff Adair/Daily News columnist
GHS
Fri Apr 20, 2007, 12:19 AM EDT
The responses seemed strange. A legislator in Washington, a student in Oklahoma, an insurance company owner in San Diego, and a government official and many others a continent away.
This week, all felt the need to apologize. But they didn't do anything wrong, so why apologize? They all happen to be of Korean ancestry, like the Virginia Tech gunman, Cho Seung-Hui.
"It hurts me deeply," Paull Shin, an orphan adopted by an American after the Korean War, and now a state senator in Washington, told his colleagues Wednesday. "This is not the way to pay back the blessings we received."
"As a people, we take a certain amount of shame even though we didn't know this guy," said a co-organizer of a candlelight vigil in San Diego.
"I think there's a lot of closed-minded people and people would automatically associate his actions with his race," Naht Nguyen, an Oklahoma City Community College student told the school newspaper.
It seemed strange.
Then of course, it's not new. I'm sure right after the Oklahoma City bombing, when initial reports pointed to a Middle Eastern man, those of that ancestry felt the same. I'm sure right after 9-11, Arab-Americans felt society was blaming them.
Strange, isn't it?
Not really. Not for those of us so-called minorities. The D.C. sniper attacks and the Carol Dimaiti Stuart murder in 1989 (police were looking for a black man, but later discovered her husband was the culprit) are two examples that stand in my mind. The minute the crimes hit the media, I said to myself, "I hope it's not a black man."
Maybe we're paranoid. "Everyone's looking at us," we say.
Maybe we grow tired of the stereotypes. We don't want to hear the critical, often wrong analysis of our communities.
Maybe we see a double standard, as Mercury News writer L.A. Chung put it in a column this week, "I can't say I know a single white male who read about Jeffrey Dahmer's serial killing and thought, 'Oh, no, another white guy' - FBI criminal personality profiles notwithstanding."
Dr. Kermit Crawford, a clinical psychologist and professor, told me that as recently as January, he felt the same way, crossing his fingers, hoping that the fatal stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury High was not committed by a black person.
The director of the Center for Multicultural Health at Boston University, Crawford said such feelings are rational in the sense that we all take ownership for our culture, whether we want to or not.
That's not to say people should feel guilty, he said.
He said in discussions with many people the past few days, including some who are Korean, it seems there's more of a collective fear, than collective guilt.
"The greater concern is that there might be retaliation," he said. "There's a fear of them being blamed because they are Korean or Asian."
The information from the Virginia Tech case points to Cho Seung-Hui as a very disturbed student, to put it mildly. Therefore, in my opinion every right thinking person should agree with Crawford that race had nothing to do with it.
"Some people are sick," he said. "Some are just evil."
Still, the apologies are made. According to Time.com, South Korea's Ambassador to the U.S., Lee Tae Shik, pledged to fast for 32 days to show his sorrow.
That seems strange. Doesn't it?
Jeff Adair is a Daily News writer and editor. He can be reached at jadair@cnc.com.
--
Original Source: Framingham, MA - The MetroWest Daily News
<a href="http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/x416900269">http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/x416900269</a>
Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.
Jeff Adair / The MetroWest Daily News
2007-06-01
Brent Jesiek
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
eng
Local colleges look at own safety plans
By John Hilliard/Daily News staff
GHS
Wed Apr 18, 2007, 12:07 AM EDT
After Monday's Virginia Tech massacre, several area colleges and police departments expect to take a closer look at their plans to grapple with a future emergency.
"It's safe to say over the next few days every college around the country will be reviewing their current (safety) procedures," said Peter Chisholm, spokesman for Framingham State College. "We will review what we have in place."
Framingham and FSC police coordinate on training, he said.
In an e-mail sent yesterday, FSC President Timothy Flanagan asked faculty, staff and students to report any suspicious activities and review the school's emergency response plan.
During an interview, he said campus police and Framingham Police have a close working relationship, and campus security can call on the town police for support when needed.
Flanagan met with campus leaders and security officials yesterday to discuss emergency plans following the shooting in Virginia.
"We're not isolated, we're not cloistered" as a campus, said Flanagan.
In Waltham, home to Brandeis University and Bentley College, police Detective Sgt. Timothy King expected to discuss emergency plans with both institutions.
"I'm certain we will be talking to administrators for the schools," said King.
He said city police are familiar with both campuses, but would not comment on any training the city and the two schools' campus security departments undertake.
"That incident is on the same level as a terrorist event," for which police have trained, he said. "We do work closely with both (campus police) departments."
Franklin Police Deputy Chief Stephen Semerjian said his department has a good working relationship with Dean College. The two institutions also have plans in place to ensure "communication is good and fluid," he said.
In Weston, Regis College held a prayer vigil yesterday for the victims as a statement of "solidarity and community," said M.J. Doherty, a former professor and special assistant to the college president.
She said the Catholic school is working on ways to address the needs of any isolated students and "bring that person out of isolation before they can get trapped on a tragic path," she said.
According to published reports, the Virginia Tech shooter was student Cho Seung-Hui, who was described as an isolated loner by some law enforcement officials, and committed suicide after killing the 32 victims.
Regis has a close relationship with Weston Police and does not arm its campus officers, said Doherty. Since 9/11, the school maintains its own disaster plans for emergencies.
"Every workplace, every campus, every situation is vulnerable," said Doherty.
(John Hilliard can be reached at 508-626-4449 or jhilliar@cnc.com.)
--
Original Source: Framingham, MA - The MetroWest Daily News
<a href="http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1352188768">http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1352188768</a>
Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.
John Hilliard / MetroWest Daily News Staff
2007-06-01
Brent Jesiek
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
eng