The fact that God repeats those words - with every hardship comes ease - is a much needed emphasis for those suffering, just in case they miss it the first time. By Tarik Trad, April 17, 2007 All day long, I had this sinking feeling in my stomach. No doubt, I've felt it before - after the Murrah Building/Oklahoma City Bombing, the first World Trade Center attack, the horrors of 9/11, the Anthrax letters, the DC Sniper - now today. While horribly sickened and saddened by the senseless loss of fellow Americans shot and killed on campus at Virginia Tech, I couldn't help but think: What if the shooter was a Muslim? I'm not trying to sound selfish. First and foremost, my thought are with those families and friends. Their pain and grief must be overwhelming. During difficult times, I am reminded of the verses from the Qur'an (94:5-6) that state, "With every hardship comes ease. Verily, with every hardship comes ease!" The fact that God repeats those words - with every hardship comes ease - is a much needed emphasis for those suffering, just in case they miss it the first time. It is part of His mercy and compassion. I usually share these words with friends who have lost loved ones. Today, I am sharing them with all those affected by the tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia. They need them as much as anyone else in the world. That said, I wonder if anyone else was thinking the same way or can relate to what I was feeling? Was the entire world waiting to hear a similar outcome? Am I paranoid or should I have a genuine concern about the fate of American Muslims should another attack on our country come from our so-called co-religionists? When the first video was played on CNN today, the name on the screen was Jamal Albarghouti. My heart sank, only to realize later he was the one shooting the video. When I first heard the shooter was Asian, I thought, "What kind of Asian - South Asian? Afghani? Pakistani? Indonesian?" Should I feel better now that I know he is of Korean ancestry? Should I feel better that he is not a Muslim? Now that we know the identify of the shooter, I don't feel any better. In fact, the pain in my stomach won't go away. Personally, I'm sick and tired from carrying a burden that isn't mine, as if the shooter were a Muslim from my local mosque. Whether some sort of paranoia or a personal defensive mechanism, it's my own self-imposed form of guilt-by-association, and I hate it. I've got enough to worry about with my wife and kids and all the other important things in life. We need to be able to live our lives and not always worry about whether or not such events are going to happen again. Because they will. That is our test, our challenge, and our struggle. How we react to these tests and challenges and struggles is how we are defined, both on earth and the Hereafter. It is part of life. For the most part, we live in a free and open society. With all the division between left and right, between race and religion, rampant drug and gun use combined with easy access to public spaces, malls, universities and houses of worship, I'm shocked we haven't had more Columbines and Virginia Techs to deal with. Logically, of course, this was simply a random act by a lone, heartbroken gunman not affiliated with any group. Logically, of course, I shouldn't feel good about the situation. Logically, of course, we cannot control the acts of every zealot and madman intent on death and destruction. Unfortunately, in today's reality, there is no logic - just more tragedy. But I will make sure my kids and friends and co-workers and anyone else who will listen will know, despite all the hatred and negativity that surrounds us, there is always hope for a better world. After all, with every hardship comes ease. Tarik Trad is a Muslim community activist based in Los Angeles, CA. -- Original Source: altmuslim.com http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1902_0_25_0_C Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0.
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 1.0
Korean students afraid of backlash on campus
By Ilya Blanter Princetonian Senior Writer After the gunman in Monday's Virginia Tech massacre was identified as being of Korean origin by several news networks, members of Princeton's Korean community voiced apprehension over potential national reactions to the news. But students and alumni had mixed opinions about on-campus repercussions. "My parents ... are fairly concerned about other people trying to revenge their family's death or relative's death on Korean families," Jae Hammet '09, whose parents live in Virginia, said. Hammet added that he is not worried about his classmates associating him with the Virginia Tech killer, however. "I think that Princeton students will understand that one person is not representative of the Korean community," he said, "and I think that most people here see that student as an outlier and not as a [typical] Korean person." The 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui — who shot himself after taking the lives of 32 people — immigrated to the United States in 1992 from a Seoul suburb, along with his parents and older sister. News outlets have reported that he dealt with personal mental issues, including depression, a penchant for isolating himself from peers and a fascination with gore that manifested itself in two bizarrely violent screenplays he wrote, which have since been posted online. In contrast to Cho's struggles, his sister Sun-Kyung Cho '04 graduated from the University with a degree in economics. She now works for the State Department. Princeton has a strong relationship with South Korea, with a consistently large contingent of students from the country matriculating at the University each year: The Princeton Facebook lists 20 students from Seoul alone. University trustee Y.S. Chi '83 is of Korean descent, and Un-Chan Chung GS '78 — a former president of Seoul National University — is widely thought to be considering a run for the country's presidency. Despite these connections, John Lee '06, president of the Korean American Student Association (KASA) in 2005-06, said that he fears Monday's tragedy will taint some Princetonians' attitudes toward their Korean classmates. "I would have liked to think that the Princeton community would be mature/intelligent enough to be an exception to this kind of racial antagonism," he said in an email, "but from what I have heard from my friends back in Princeton, it does not seem to be true." Hyeon Keun Kim '10 echoed Lee's concerns, saying he has found "that in Princeton, Korean people are a little isolated ... I think some people might react harshly to Koreans [following the shooting]." So far, though, he personally has not experienced any negative repercussions, he said. Many Korean students said they think the national media has inappropriately emphasized the shooter's Korean identity. For example, the Associated Press story identifying Cho as the killer noted his South Korean nationality in the article's first few words. Cho, though a resident alien, had lived in the United States since the age of eight. "He's almost American," Jay Jiyong Kwak '09 said. "I'm a little annoyed that the press has emphasized his Korean-ness," Youngho Ryu '07 said. Many in the Korean community added that news coverage of the tragedy should not emphasize the race of the shooter. "I hope it doesn't become a racial issue because the truth of the matter is, 33 people died," said Grace Kim '07, who just stepped down as KASA president but specified that she no longer speaks for the organization. "The focus shouldn't be so much on the racial aspect but how to step back from the situation and how to prevent it from happening again and help people recuperate." Students also said their parents have been the ones expressing anxiety, while they themselves remain relatively unfazed. "It's a little embarrassing, but a lot of Korean-American college students are fleeing the campuses because their parents are concerned about them," Kim said. "My parents called me to see if I was okay, but I just kind of laughed at them because I don't think I'm a target for racial attacks," Kim said, noting that her parents' generation has had more direct experience with racial discrimination than she has. To address possible concerns among students, KASA has planned a forum for its members and anyone in the Princeton community tomorrow afternoon, Julia Yoon '09, the organization's current president, said. "We're deeply saddened and really shocked by this event," she added, "not just as Koreans, but as fellow college students." — Princetonian senior writers Kate Carroll and Michael Juel-Larsen contributed reporting to this story. -- Original Source: Daily Princetonian - April 18, 2007
April 19, 2007 UPDATE: Thanks for the various thoughtful comments, thoughtful commenters - I'm sure you know who you are. First off, I do acknowledge that I was a little snarky and "aha!" in the initial reaction to things, and I agree that it just puts people in a bad mood. But, I could have easily erased what I said, and not because I think it was wrong to have the thought, but because it distracted so much from the majority of the stuff I was really trying to say. Yet, I would somehow feel it dishonest to do so, and the reason I write is to organize my thoughts and logic for people to see; I just wish people in general, and not just over the past few days, could read this blog as one man's thoughts in motion, as opposed my final thoughts on matters. I have strong opinions, but those thoughts wend and weave according to other good opinions. That said, I also know I write a lot. Loooong posts. Opinionated posts. Wordy posts. And that's off-putting as well. I know that, but it would take me forever to get this stuff out if I had to condense it down, distill it, make it simpler. And since the vast majority of blogs out there write in short form, I don't feel like I'm adding to a trend in need of reversal - on the contrary, I wish there were more thoughtful people who tried to think carefully, put in the time to express their opinions fully, and really engage with difficult subjects. So I think that perhaps the blogosphere is better off with a few wordy fools who try to think aloud and in the sense of intellectual full-contact sports. As for race, I think the media is talking about it pretty minimally, as I assumed they would. And looking at this from primarily an American perspective. I'm inevitably looking at this from a Korean perspective, because it is here in Korea that I sit, live, and work. It's here that I have worked with a lot of kids who look just like Cho in background, culture, and personality. I thought that I'd be one of the few people talking not about there necessarily having to be some "cultural angle" on this, but that there should be room and though given to the possibility. If anything, the problem isn't that the American media is focusing on his race, because it really isn't, and even if it did, I don't think it's bad to talk about possible cultural specifics, if done appropriately. However, the real problem is that the American media should have been talking about: - why is it that only males are serial killers and mass murderers? - why are they mostly white? - when they aren't, what's the reason? Instead of shutting down a conversation about the profiles of these kind of people, we should be opening it up. Were there some factors about extreme Christianity that led to this? Does this have nothing to do with the fact that some of the most outspoken and extreme Christian groups among American youth are of Korean descent? Is this question "wrong?" I don't think so, if we are also asking, "Why are serial killers almost exclusively white?" There is a serious racial undertone to ALL such murders, in that the perpetrators are almost always white, as well as the overwhelming presence of gender, in that they are always male? This is as obvious as the hand in front of my face, yet when I was asking these same questions in Columbine, no one wanted to go there. And nobody did. Instead, we look at Marilyn Manson, video games, and other things that were obviously not determining factors, since I'd engaged in all above activities, but don't go around killing people. I loved me some NWA, and they were actually TALKING ABOUT going and killing white people. Yet, I didn't "go get my AK." I guess it WAS a good day. I'm saying that this whole brouhaha stems from the fact that Americans still have amazing difficulty talking about culture and race, in what is supposed to be the most diverse and multicultural society in the world, where anyone can be a citizen. We're getting better at it, but we're still not good at it. So now, we're told to believe, before anyone even knows anything, that Cho's particular pathology could have had nothing to do with any cultural malaise, or that some of the roots of his alienation may not have had to do with being Asian. I'm not saying there necessarily are, but to meet such a question with "this question is irrelevant. culture has nothing to do with this. conversation over" is equally un-productive. And as for people saying that my ideas can be "co-opted" for the "other side," I just say that this is thinly-vieled intellectual cowardice talking, because I'm not a hillbilly in a pickup truck talking about shooting the next Asian I see because he took daddy's factory job away. If you think that's what I'm saying, or you confuse what I'm saying with that, you're more paranoid than you think you are. People should be talking more about aspects of masculinity here, because all these killers are MEN. What's up with that? People should be talking more about whiteness because the vast majority of these people are WHITE. And when they so shockingly and brutally aren't, we might ask the question "what traits did he share with the Columbine boys?" (which the media is already asking), but we also might look at "what traits might have been different that also got him to the same place of being able to commit mass murder like this?" And if we're going to be comparing to Columbine, while never even really having an intelligent about the fact that the politics of whiteness as an identity, masculinity, and feeling of extreme alienation seem to lead to something, if we can agree to talk about all these things with the Columbine boys - IF - then in Cho's case, we'd have to also talk about the one thing he did NOT share with them and the MAJORITY of the rank of the killers he has so infamously joined, that being his Asianness, Koreanness, or whatever - in any case, his non-whiteness. That makes the case of the DC snipers ALL the more interesting, all the MORE remarkable. If you were a criminal profiler for the FBI, or a clinial psychologist, or an administrator in charge of schools, I hope these people would find such questions interesting. If someone held an academic conference about it, I'd hope they'd attend, rather than close one's ears and boycott it. But that seems like what most people want to do. I don't fear some imagined backlash against Asian men; sure, there may be a few idiots out there who do something, but overall, it's probably for any particular Asian male right now to die in a car accident, or of lung cancer. So buckle up and stop smoking - I don't think anyone has to hide in their houses. But the disappointing reaction is, "Stop talking about race! He was just some crazy fucker!" No, he wasn't. No, all the killers weren't. There are clear patterns here. Start with the fact of maleness and extreme alienation, along with feelings of victimhood and desire for martyrdom. Then work your way down to identifying any overarching cultural patterns in white or Asian (Korean) socialization patterns, similarities in self-identification, all that stuff. I'm not a psychologist. But if I were, I'd be licking my lips over this stuff. Has there been no one who's written a doctoral thesis about "The Role of White Identity, Disaffectation, and Constructions of Masculinity in Serial Murderers"? Maybe that's a wack topic, and it's not my field. But seriously - has no one done research on this? Come on? Is this really such a taboo topic, even to a research psychologist? Anyway, mums the word. All the serial killers were just crazy fuckers. Let's just leave it at that and act all surprised AGAIN when this happens AGAIN, which it will. And for all those imagined white guys who are cutting out eyeholes in sheets to go get that Asian male grad student who took that last fluffy donut from the tray in the cafeteria (those BASTARDS! they're really taking everything!), don't worry: The next mass murderer, statistically and historically speaking, will probably be a white guy, anyway. So what's everyone worried about? At least the imagined heat will be off Asians, right? Whew! -------------- ORIGINAL POST -------------- Over the last 24 hours, it's been suggested that even broaching the issue of possible cultural issues when looking at the case of Cho warrants being labeled "racist." Salon.com has linked to a previous post from this site that relays the story that several university administrators in Korea with whom I spoke when Fulbright Korea hosted a tour here expressed concern about the fact that they saw a pattern of Korean students studying in the US having trouble adjusting, and that those students were almost exclusively male. This was several years ago. Or read this: Although Asian Americans were at relatively lower risk of homicide in the 1970s and 1980s, they have experienced increasingly higher risk since the 1990s. From 1970 to 1993, the homicide rate for Asian Americans in California increased 170%.13 Asian immigrants are also at significantly higher risk of homicide than Asians that were born in the United States. The growing trend of homicide among Asian American communities coupled with the increase of Asian American youth violence thus poses an urgent issue of concern for Asian Americans. Whence these racist, cultural arguments? Another, from the same source: Despite the model minority myth that Asian Americans as a whole are economically and academically successful, delinquency among Asian American youth has actually been on the rise in recent years. In the past 20 years, the number of API youth involved in the juvenile justice system has increased dramatically, while national arrest trends for Black and White youth have decreased. Arrest rates for Southeast Asian youth (Vietnamese, Cambodia , Laotian), are the highest within the overall API population. Studies have shown that peer delinquency is the strongest predictor of adolescent delinquency. Other suggested risk factors for adolescent delinquency among Asian Americans include personal experiences of victimization, acculturative conflict, family conflict, and individualist versus collectivist orientation. More racists? Or how about a report on "Violence Affecting Asian-American and Pacific Islander Communities", compiled by Masters candidates at the Michigan School of Public Health? But wait? For me to pose questions that perhaps young Cho Seung-hui could have had "personal experiences of victimization, acculturative conflict, family conflict, and individualist versus collectivist orientation" that maybe, maybe could have played a role in his pathology... How did I become "racist? for asking the same questions? Here's what I wrote in the original post, which was fired off in the heat of the moment, upon the initial revelation that the shooter was of Korean descent: A group of American university administrators whom Fulbright hosted nearly 10 years ago, when being a tour of Korean universities, asked the staff, "Why is it that out of all our international students, Korean males have so much trouble?" To my surprise, all of the university officials cited incident after incident of Korean male graduate students who seemed to have trouble adjusting, often got into fights with other students in the living spaces, and were often the source of trouble in dealing with romantic relationships gone bad or women in general, especially when they involved Korean females dating non-Koreans. In the longer post, I continued asking questions that were pretty basic and acceptable before two days ago, pointing out that many Asian and Asian American males often face cultural pressures particular to the Asian cultures that they come from, as well as socialization as an Asian male in the greater American context as well. How dare I say such a thing? Funny how the raison d'être for community organizations such as the Koreatown Youth & Community Center (KYCC) can talk about: ...programs and services...specifically directed towards recently-immigrated, economically-disadvantaged youth and their families who experience coping and adjustment difficulties due to language and cultural barriers. Yet when someone points out that perhaps some of Cho's pathology had to do with being an Asian male, subject to possible culturally-determined pressures as well as that of being subject to socialization/discrimination as an Asian male - all of which where conversations going on within the Asian American community until just two days ago - this is now out of bounds? So asking the question before this incident was OK. Asking it after Cho's bloody rampage is now grounds for arguing that one supports an ideology of racial superiority. That's especially funny since my mother is Korean and I have younger Korean cousins in college now who've been through the educational meat grinder here, and I have been involved in just such community organizations as the ones mentioned above when I lived in the Bay Area. And the other sad thing about the sudden "off-limits" status of this issue is the disappointing fact that Americans of all "colors" still have such difficulty talking about the overlapping boundaries of race, nation, and culture. Pointing out before this incident that Asian/Asian American males had specific identificational and cultural concerns, especially when one is talking about 1.5 generation Korean Americans (which is how Cho is generally being referred to now) was OK and actively encouraged in multicultural settings, especially since this was expected of anyone who wanted to convey one's real cultural sensitivity as an professor, teacher, counselor, social worker, or psychologist working with a variety of people from diverse backgrounds. I have worked with and am familiar with a few community-based organizations when I was back in Oakland, and had many Korean American friends who work in orgs related to specifically "meeting the needs" of Asian American youth, dealing with the issue of domestic violence in the Korean American community, and was familiar with several other non-profit orgs that dealt specifically with problems of reducing participation in gang activity among Southeast Asian youth, issues specific to that community, organizations based in Chinatown, as well as other places around the East Bay. I have friends who've worked deeply within many organizations that held the assumption that "culture matters" and that Asian/Asian American youth had specific needs that should be recognized in the larger community. I know people who stayed up long nights applying for city, state, and federal grants to operate such projects, programs, and organizations that took the relevance of disaporic culture and its effect in Asian kids in the US as a central assumption of their reason to exist. Now, after this incident, culture not only doesn't matter, even broaching the topic is grounds for being labeled a "racist," even when one is working well within a set of affective connections to a community for which such issues have been stated concerns for years - nay, decades - before Cho Seung-hui walked into a Virginia Tech classroom and started his rampage of death. Yes, of course he was an individual, and he is fully responsible for his actions. But Korean culture now stops at the airport? Or with a green card? That's certainly news to me. I guess I didn't get the memo. And I guess I should also be expecting my KKK membership card in the mail any day now. Thanks, Salon, for declaring such talk as mere "instant prejudice." Funny thing is that I, as well as the university administrators mentioned in my initial reaction, Asian American community organizers, and a whole lot of other people were thinking in these terms for years before this. Now, some would have us go in the opposite direction: As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people. The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage. I feel that point of view, but much of the popular reaction has been to link mentioning culture or nationality with "racism" itself. And the many Asian and Asian American commenters who've written in, saying that my apparent status as "white" or a "neocon" or a "loser who can't get women at home" or far worse names. Yep. There I am. That's why I live in Korea, why I learned Korean, why I write these incessantly long posts, and why I conduct my research. But when I pull out my Korean-mom-racial-membership card, does that mean I'm a self-hating Korean American? Do I only hate half of myself? Or maybe my Korean "half" hates my black "half" and we are in eternal conflict. I think I have to go beat myself up now. It's interesting that the mode of even calling me "racist" relies on racist slurs and categorical assumptions. My point is that I shouldn't have to pull out the "my mom's Korean" as a magical shield in order to say what wasn't unreasonable to say until before this incident. I should have to play identity politics as a qualification to talk about identity at all. That's one of the thing that makes this whole thing get more and more ridiculous. Does anyone forget that the film Better Luck Tomorrow, which touched on Asian American identity, socialization, alienation, violence, and other facets of Asian American culture - especially from the perspective of Asian American masculinity? So after the fictional violence witnessed in the narrative, we can talk about such issues - which is what I assumed the filmmakers wanted when it went mainstream and didn't merely screen in art house theaters? But after a real incident that could be seen to touch on similar issues, now that real people are dead and dying, broaching the subject gets you lumped in with the Klan. I better remember to tell my mom that I hate Koreans now. That should be a fun conversation. And just as I said, here are some of the conversations people are having now in Korea, from a look at the Korean press. From The Korea Times (which has masked its URL, so no link is possible: "I couldn't believe that someone like me was really involved in this brutal murder," a netizen (ID hahaha) said. Other people showed the same response as they said they have begun to feel more responsibility for the case when they found out that a Korean was involved. Others said that the case looked similar to some cases happening in the Korean military where young soldiers try to desert from their barracks out of love or relationship issues. I'm not saying that they're right or wrong. But these are questions people are asking. Are Koreans "racist" for asking these questions, which a lot of us are thinking about as well? There are also questions raised over studying abroad at a very young age _ quite the fashion in Korea at the moment. As domestic media in the U.S. referred to Cho as a "loner," people are now questioning whether sending their kids abroad for study would be good. There were constant reports of children feeling lonely and causing problems with drinking, doing drugs or having sex problems, but the massacre has triggered the debate on whether such studying is really needed. Cho flew to America when he was a little kid, and is said to have not made himself accustomed to the different culture. ``I think his being alone made him a loner, and made him do something horrible. And would you still say that won't happen to your child?'' a blogger grandchyren asked. From The Korea Herald, as I grimly predicted, and as is all too often the case when extreme shame from one's relatives or persons within one's realm of concerns brings shame to your or your organization, both his parents attempted to take their own lives, the father apparently "successfully": Los Angeles-based Radio Korea reported Wednesday morning that Cho's parents attempted suicide, according to neighbors. Cho's father reportedly slashed his wrist after having learned of his son's alleged killings at around 1 p.m. Tuesday, Seoul time. Cho's mother attempted to commit suicide by taking toxic drug, Radio Korea said. She was quickly transported to a nearby hospital, but is listed in critical condition according to the report. No, culture isn't a factor at all here, and it should most certainly not be talked about, right? No one was surprised a couple years ago when a scandal ensued in a high school over a student who had been physically abused, which, upon reaching nationwide proportions, the principal took a leap off into the Han River. No one in Korea was really shocked by this, although the incident is unfortunate. I'm not talking about ancient, fetishized elements of a Hollywood movie about samurai over a swelling soundtrack - I'm talking about real people. And I guess me having expressed the concern that his parents would immediately attempt suicide in a similar way was just me being "insensitive," rather than observing that such a thing is not only not unusual in a situation like this in a Korean context, it's not at all surprising, however unfortunate. And in my head, when the leading cause of death for Korean teens and twenties in South Korea is suicide, most often caused by culturally specific forms of stress, isolation, and social factors that are not factors in different cultures, and I see a Korean kid - and again, I am of the old-school Asian American assumption that culture doesn't stop with a green card, but I guess I'm old-fashioned and "racist" in the post-Cho Seung-hui era - who struck me as possibly influenced by similar concerns...why is it suddenly inappropriate to raise the notion of culture? Just because it makes us uncomfortable now that it's real, raw, and in the nation's face, as opposed to the more hidden back rooms of our ethnic communities? This is not saying that there were no factors related to Cho being American. Surely, obviously, naturally - there were. He wasn't an exchange student who got off a place last September. He lived and socialized and breathed and experienced life in America. And yet, even without getting into the fact that Korean culture doesn't stop at the airport terminal when a kid is 8, and that he's generally considered by even Korean-Americans as a "1.5er," let's not forget that he was Asian American; in other words, he was not white, and most likely did not see himself (and I'm going out on a limb here, as many of the people who adamantly insist that Cho was and could have been "American") as "just another kid." A similar attitude of non-reality surrounds the fact that no one asks the question of what aspects, if any, of whiteness or white identity itself informs the fact that in most such incidents, the perpetrators are white, middle class males? A few people poked at the question after Columbine, but most people chose to toss that hot potato. I'm not saying being white cause you to kill people. I am saying that it should be OK for us to ask certain questions about what peculiar concerns there just might be in terms of socializing, identifying, and being labeled as "white" and male in American society, especially in the midst of America's "culture wars," major shifts in norms and role expectations with regard to not just race, but class, gender, sexual orientation, and perceived amounts of privilege? These are some questions that people in Whiteness Studies ask, which is a new and necessary branch of inquiry partially related to Ethnic Studies. It recognizes that "people of color" do not just exist a blank backdrop of nothingness, but that "whites" are "raced" just as much as "Blacks" or "Asian Americans" or "Latinos" or any other recognized (and socially constructed) racial group in the United States. Yet still, some people think Whiteness Studies must necessarily be a group of people trying to assert "white rights" or be secret Klan members. Yet, when a dated-but-smart film such as John Singleton's Higher Learning deals with the journey of a white kid who feels alienated, ostracized, and actively victimized as a white man, who then goes to a high perch with a high-powered rifle to start a killing spree, it's lauded and applauded. Until some white kid(s) actually commits such an act in question, at which point asking certain questions is out-of bounds again. Generally, as a doctoral student and young scholar in Ethnic Studies, I've noticed the tendency to confuse talking about race with being racist. This is frustrating to no end. And in the case of Cho, it really wasn't about race, but more about nationality and culture, and asking the question of the extent to which Cho's obvious inner pain and turmoil just may have been culturally specific and valenced. But again, if the shooter had been an "Arab terrorist" I think the cultural argument would help us humanize him - who was he? How did he get caught up in this? What were some personal frustrations as a poor, Palestinian (for example) boy with few future prospects that might have made him an easy recruit? Is this line of questioning "racist?" Then I guess, so is it all, including the Harvard School of Public Health, where a conference convened around a very similar issue in 2004: Faculty, students, and fellows interested in disparities in health care due to ethnic and racial differences convened at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Friday (May 7) for a symposium seeking to translate research into practice. Topics discussed at the all-day event, the Second Annual Symposium on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Research in the U.S., included Latino and Asian mental health, the increasing presence of minority researchers in the field, societal determinants of health, quality of care, and politics and policy as related to ethnic and racial health disparities. The "racism" continues: Among the wide variety of topics discussed was new research on the mental health status of Latinos and Asians in America. Margarita Alegria, director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at the Cambridge Health Alliance and a visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard, presented preliminary research from the National Latino and Asian American Study, begun in 2002. The study, conducted in five languages, is a broad survey of Latinos and Asian Americans across the country and aims to fill in gaps in the information available on the mental health of those two ethnic groups. The study so far shows that Puerto Ricans have a higher incidence of mental health disorders than other Latino groups, which also include Mexicans, Cubans, and a category for other Latinos. It also shows a strong trend of increasing mental health problems for Mexican-born immigrants the longer they are in the United States. To a lesser extent, other groups showed a similar correlation of increasing mental health problems with time in the United States, until they had lived 70 percent of their lives in the United States at which point the trend levels off. For Asians, Vietnamese show a lower incidence of mental health disorders than other groups, which include Chinese, Filipinos, and other Asians. Alegria said researchers couldn't yet explain that low incidence of mental health problems for Vietnamese. Alegria said the survey shows considerable regional variation, with mental health disorders increasing for individuals who live in parts of the country where their ethnic group is not concentrated. For example, she said, Mexicans, who are concentrated in the Southwest, had higher mental health problems when living in the Midwest. Cubans, who are concentrated in the South, had greater problems when living in the Northeast. "Where you live really makes a big difference in your risk for psychological disorders," Alegria said. One possible explanation for the higher rates of mental disorders among Puerto Ricans, Alegria said, is selective immigration. Alegria said more Puerto Ricans than other groups reported that they had immigrated because of health reasons. In addition, she said, there may be a demoralizing factor at work. Puerto Ricans, unlike members of the other ethnic subgroups, are U.S. citizens. They also report higher levels of English fluency. Alegria said Puerto Ricans may expect to be more socially mobile after arriving in the United States. Alegria said the survey provides an important starting point for further research. Among important questions to be answered are the higher rates of disorders among Puerto Ricans, the lower rates among Vietnamese, the roots of geographic differences in different parts of the country, and the connection between length of time in the United States and rising incidence of mental health disorders. There are a million questions I'd ask the kid if me and Cho Seung-hui were sitting in a room and he had agreed to talk to me. The first one would have been "Are you feeling frustrated for any particular reason?" Another might be, "Are you feeling any academic pressures, any stress from you parents?" Who knows? These are perhaps overly direct and useless questions, since I'm not a trained mental health care professional - but if I were, I sure would be attentive to issues of his cultural background, especially if my file on him indicated the possibility of that perhaps there might be more going on here than just your standard, John Doe pysch services referral. It's a place to start. But he's dead, and that'll never happen. But to imply it's racist to ask these questions, to even think about the concerns of Korean American youth like Cho, who may well find themselves precariously placed along pressure points between family, friends, and school as defined in cultural, educational, linguistic, and pscyhological terms - this just boggles my mind now. Posted by Michael Hurt on April 19, 2007 -- Archived with permission of author. Original Source: Scribblings of the Metropolitician http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/04/on_the_forbidde_1.html
April 18, 2007 [Update: I stand by my piece, which is mostly a bunch of questions, rather than statements linking race and culture in the explanative way it is being taken. I merely pointed out that as an American working deeply in the education field for years now, and having identified just such problems (and seen them connected in the Korean-language media for years), that perhaps questions about culture, as related to specific conditions that surround child-rearing, education, being educated overseas, the taboo of discussing mental health in Korean society, etc. might not have played some role here, on top of the fact that many Asian and Asian American males indeed might have specific ways of feeling alienated in "white society." Obviously, to even broach mere questions is deemed "racist" by many readers. Fine. I don't delete comments (unless they are abusive) and people have a right to come in and say what they want - that's why I blog, after all. Yet, before we start flinging around the "R-word" I hope people actually think about what I'm saying, and remember that what I said was that cultural context may be helpful as far as looking at context, but that "Korea" and the rest of the world should look at him as an individual. I spend half my post saying that, and the two need not contradict. And yes, when it comes to the fact that most serial killers have been/are still white men, it does astound me that America seems to have trouble talking about this obvious fact, and mums was the word when Columbine happened. Yet, broaching the topic is going to get one accused of saying their horrendous acts were committed "because they were white," which would again, be not what I said. But pundits of all kinds of backgrounds have license to talk about the concerns of "black youth" as it relates to drugs or violence for years. I don't call doing so "racist" although some strains of it certainly can be. For those who call such explanations as this "back-tracking," well, I guess you can call it what you like. I feel that despite the obvious difficulty anyone can have theorizing culture as a backdrop for what are undeniably individual actions, people are only reading one side of what I am actually saying, even after I have carefully delimited the extent to which "culture" can be expected to lead to culpability. I speak as an educator who watches (and inevitably participates in) the nearly inhumane grind of the education system here, the extreme testing regime these kids are expected to endure, the harsh penalties meted to those who can't, the sudden skyrocketing of youth suicide due directly to mental health problems linked to academic achievement, and myriad other pressures that quite often lead to education in the US as a goal for Korean kids. And even in the Korean American community, the culture of such processes, as well as the patterns of culture do not necessarily end with a green card or an American address. So, in that context, this does frighten me, and I think this incident, while extreme, does warrant reflection on some serious structural shifts in Korean education, the family, and other factors between which Korean kids get crunched in the middle. If you want to call such efforts or lines of thinking "racist", I can't stop you. Yet, I think it's significant, from this side of the water, to think about the fact that yes, he is not a white kid from Colorado, especially against the backdrop of what's been happening in Korean education in recent years, as well the socialization of males in Korea and Korean culture. And since mine is an identity partially shaped AS an Asian American man, as well as an African-American one, I have a more direct interest in asking these questions. And if you think I am saying I lay claim to all the answers, I want to make very clear again that I don't profess to have them, and I don't consider culture as responsible for his actions here. But to assume from the very beginning that "it doesn't matter," when I think it may be worth looking at, especially given the copycat nature of high-profile suicides in Korea over just the last couple of years, I would hate for there to be a similar effect over there. Call it "racist" if you will, but mental health professionals have been saying for years that there are cultural factors when it comes to mental health concerns, especially in communities in which such talk is considered taboo. I guess to raise such issues in this context, no matter how carefully prefaced or qualified, is taboo as well. So, are all Muslims terrorists? Clearly not. Are the vast majority of terrorists in recent years Muslim? Clearly, yes. I don't confuse the logic, yet it's easy to do. Yet, the mainstream media talks about the mindsets and motivations of many of the young men who get recruited up into horrible acts. To talk about "culture" as some generalized, essentialized force would indeed be "racist;" but to talk about the factors of poverty, religion, and the motivations for entering such groups isn't; they are reasonable questions. Do they dismiss the actions of individuals? No. People are all responsible for their actions. Just as we talk about the "culture of poverty" or in more recent years, have more elevated conversations about African-American culture and what often leads black male youth to join gangs, or commit crimes in ways that white males generally don't - I also don't consider that "racist." But is a black gangster responsible for his acts? Damn straight s/he is. I find it unusual that it can be legitimate for me, as a student back at Brown in the 1990's, as an active Asian American and "multiracial" on campus, to listen to job candidates for the Psych Services position talk about the "special mental health needs of Asian American youth" and for Asian American campus reps to sit there and nod approvingly while they talked about educational and familial pressures, relate those to Asian American notions of masculinity and femininity, and a lot of factors that I mention in this article as clearly relevant, but merely broach the subject now is completely out of bounds. Unlike the mainstream American media, or whichever talking heads are on TV right now in the States, I've been thinking about something like this happening for years now, in a Korean context; I've actually wondered when and if something like this might happen, and how this may play out. I come at this from someone who lives and works in South Korea who works with kids in high schools, college, and alternative schools daily. And as I look at this both as an Asian American and an American living in Asia, I don't think cultural pressures and patterns can be so easily discounted out of hand, as mere "racism", and suddenly unworthy as points at least worth thinking about. In the end, Cho wasn't just another white kid who committed yet another school shooting. But he also isn't the representative of Korea, nor his diasporic nationality, nor his supposed "race." He was a warped individual. I am simply saying that perhaps there are factors in his "warping" that may have had cultural aspects worth thinking about, especially for those of us concerned about the mental and spiritual health of both Asian and Asian American youth. And that's where I'll leave it. If you're looking for "answers," keep looking, and don't think you'll find them here, or blame be either for professing to have them, or not having them. I don't, and don't claim to. I lay out some things to think about below, but mostly ask a lot of questions that I think are worth asking. And I am somewhat surprised that even broaching the topic, no matter how tentatively or awkwardly, is somehow "racist."] This is sort of a followup piece to "The Walking Wounded" post that clearly is spurred on by the recent events at Virginia Tech, with the mass murder-suicide of Cho Seung-Hui, the worst in American history. As I try to formulate a response, I do so while trying to stay true to my own intellectual convictions, while trying to make sense out of something that is far more complex than any single person can make out. How will I interpret this? How can I? I can't profess to know the mind of the killer, nor work from information that I don't have. And the media speculation will go on and on, while the Korean media will work in "national shame" mode that is the necessary flip side of the extended "national pride" that is taken in anyone of Korean descent who does anything of note overseas. I'm of two minds about this, but I don't feel my impulses are in conflict. On the one hand, I feel like this incident makes it worth looking at some of the social factors that very well could have helped determine one man's actions; on the other, we have to remember that Cho was an individual, and that the faulty logic that "Korea" is the bearer of collective guilt over this incident is just as flawed as Korea taking full responsibility for a member of its "own" who had been socially cast aside, as was the case with Hines Ward. My posts on the issue: "Korean Folks Don't Like Black People" "Hines Ward - Lost in Translation" "Hines Ward - Nail On the Head" "On 'Korean Blood," Social Policy, and the Dangers of Race-Based Nationalism" "Where Do Koreans' Ideas About Race Come From?" "Hines Ward - What If?" "The Gates of the Minjok" í˜¼í˜ˆì¸ 내가 'ì›Œë“œì‹ ë“œë¡¬'ì— ì§œì¦ë‚˜ëŠ” ì´ìœ (in Korean) 한국 ì˜ì–´ì‚¬ì „ì€ ì¸ì¢…íŽ¸ê²¬ ì „ì‹œìž¥? (in Korean) More interesting to me than the details of all this and trying to figure use the blunt tool of structural arguments and social psychology to tease out the subtle and complex motivations of an obviously troubled individual, are the implications this will realistically have for Korea tomorrow morning, when this hits the Korean public when it gets up to read the paper or catch the news over coffee and the morning commute. This is a big moment - and I am thinking mainly along these two lines. There will be a lot of things worth thinking about, social problems worth looking at - but at the end of the day, Cho was an individual. And "Korea" can no more be held "responsible" for this horrible crimes than it could have been for Hines Ward winning the Super Bowl. On the issue of someone like Hwang Woo Suk, the folly of setting him up as a hero and the irony of his inevitable fall was much more of a marker of the society in which he lived, because his status as a public figure depended on the collective mind and will of the public. He was not a true individual, but rather a figure created according to the needs of a government, media, and public who created him. The shooter in Virginia was a Korean (the extent of his ties here having yet to be determined, regardless of when he apparently gained residency there), but he was also - and importantly - an individual. That is something that will be hard, but necessary, to remember over the days and weeks to come. Cho Seung-hui will live in the national identity of Koreans forever. He is the anti-thesis of all the national "heroes" whom Korea imprudently lauds as extensions of the national character (again, Hwang Woo Suk), as somehow expressions of the positive character traits imbedded into the genetic material of Koreans itself. Now, after this horrible affair, perhaps the faulty logic of those connections will be apparent. I wonder if the move will be away from that logic itself, or an ongoing circus show of national shame. I do hope that the logic of not performing the latter will be apparent. Strategically, the best thing to do would be for the South Korean government to express its remorse and regrets, make meaningful yet symbolic gestures expressing those sentiments, and move on. If an American did this while studying in another country, I would expect the same from my government. "That crazy dude has nothing to do with me." But that's not the way this is going to go down, is it? At least at first. There is going to be serious national shame, expressed through the shock of this "representative of the culture" - even if the kid had been living in the States most of his life. There will be Korean media pointing at the parents, expressions of shock that "a Korean could do such a thing" (despite the fact that violence in the schools and against women are actually rampant in Korean society), and the glee that many people here in South Korea have at pointing out "American" character traits whenever horrible things happen in the US will be inevitably tempered. Because the flip side of the logic now applies, like a mofo. Let me just say that I don't know the details right now, besides the basics of the shooter having been identified. Nor does anyone else at the present time, really. I'm writing, getting a million Messenger messages a minute, and don't have time to closely scan the papers as I write this, not that there's a lot of information, anyway. In a way, I don't want to, as I want to write what I write clean, before the details make the issues temporarily more obfuscated, as they surely will. But in the end, will we ever know why Cho did this? Like the Columbine shooters, we'll speculate forever. Even when if and when we realized a concrete motive, how does one truly know when or how an emotionally fathomable rage becomes a horrible, inexplicable madness? So I'll go with what I got, which is a lot of opinions about South Korean society, education, and social problems involving youth, education, and women in this society. I will say right now that I am extrapolating far too much from this incident from the git-go, but I think my lines of argument will tend to make more sense than the Chosun Ilbo or Hangreoreh will, or most "explanations" of this horrible incident. In a nation that wants to crack down on the rash of gang rapes and ongoing sexual violence committed against girls and women by launching a campaign against foreign porn sites as the main solution and logical conclusion, what, oh what, sense will the media make of Cho Seung-hui? Let me just start by saying that I see a lot of social factors converging that might offer a social context - not an explanation - to this situation. It's also an excuse to talk about some social issues in Korea (since this is, after all, what this blog is about) and do some more productive hand-wringing than I think the mainstream Korean media will. I wouldn't even be surprised if this is used as more ammo to show just how much America can "corrupt" good Korean youth. Just like Western porn is responsible for Korean boys (and girls!) conspiring to rape and sexually extort the victims that have made the news in a couple of pretty scandalous cases over the last few months. And since my posts can tend to go on quite a bit, let me just list these topics, in no particular order: This isn't new (HT to reader). Several years ago, I was with a group of university administrators being given a tour by the US State Department, hosted by Fulbright Korea, and being given a tour by a respected mentor of mine when several of the administrators stopped to ask a question that seemed to be burning at them for some time. "Why is it that Korean male students seem to have the most trouble adjusting to life in the US?" Kind of surprised, but yet not, I and my mentor pressed further, and they explained that the students who had the most disciplinary problems of all their international students were Korean males. These representatives of large state universities all then cited incident after incident of Korean males threatening Korean students seen walking with a foreign man (a graduate student walking with her black professor - she received dozens of insults and death threats on her answering machine), physical conflicts with other graduate students over simple matters, and a some domestic violence in cases of Korean couples living on campus. In that conversation, what came out is that many Korean men felt displaced and disempowered as males who lived in a society that catered to them, while in the US, those forms of automatic power and status - being male, rich, or having come from Seoul National University - mean nothing. And at the same time, Korean women experience a social liberalization compared to where they would often be in Korea; many Korean female friends and colleagues of mine who studied in the US cited how they felt constricted and uncomfortable (부담) when a Korean male would end up in a seminar with them, because often, the man would expect them to acknowledge or "respect" (ì¸ì •) them. When they didn't receive it, and often were dressed down by people younger than them or female, or by the professor in front of the class, they often felt particularly frustrated. And that has been a big issue and has led to social conflict and trouble before. And that is just about all I'll say on that. Then there's the interesting fact that the record holder for the worst shooting in world history, Woo Bom-gon (우범근), is also Korean, this time a Korean national who lived in Korea. That's not in the least bit interesting? From about the only other site on the Internet I could find on this subject (there is exactly one I could find through Korean search engines, and that's a pretty weird site): South Korean spree killer. Has argument with girlfriend. Being a police officer, Woo Bum-Kon robs the police armory and goes on a drunken 8 hour shooting spree through three villages, leaving 57 dead and 35 wounded before he suicides with two grenades in Uiryong. The Korean interior minister resigns. (28 Apr 1982.) Sound familiar? So the top two spots for shooting sprees in history are now held by two Korean men. Hey - I just find this interesting. Is this information not somewhat relevant to the issue at hand? Don't know why the Korean media isn't picking up on this. Or maybe it will? This is another interesting fact to throw in with the others. Even The New York Times had a piece on it back in 1982. Well before this incident, and with the high number of suicides and actually pretty gruesome serial murders that take place in this country without guns - and I've heard Koreans joking about this as well - people wonder what Korea would be like if guns were legal and freely available here. Given the recent spate of violence and suicide in the schools here, I also give a shudder. Suicide is rampant in South Korean society. It's the #1 cause of death in people in their 20's and 30's in Korea. And since I consider these incidents of mass murder as actually horribly violent forms of suicide - "take a few with you" - I think it's something worth thinking about. I've blogged about this extensively, especially as it's related to the education system. How do you add up the affects of parental, societal, and other kinds of pressure on Korean youth, the extent of which few American kids I know even come close to feeling? I've already said enough about this that doesn't need to be rehashed here; it's better to just read them directly. "The Walking Wounded" "On Suicide in Korea" "On the Korean Obsession With Educational Success" "Podcast #27 - The Korean Education System" "EPIK as Case Study: Why Korean-Style Management Sucks" "Attack of the Clones" "The Phantom Menace" Violence against women is endemic in Korean society. What would be called stalking or considered inappropriate is often standard practice here in terms of dating, sex, and marriage. I often cite the case of when I saw a man slap his apparent girlfriend as hard as he could, sending her head back with visible shock. In front of a police station in Chungmuro, where, as a photographer, I had made my haunt. I immediately walked over, shooting away with my motor drive, saying that "you can't do that" and that I witnessed it. He looked annoyed and ignored me, at which point I walked to the police station about 20 meters away and informed the older officer on duty of what I had seen, in fluent Korean. He seemed annoyed, but obliged to get up out of his chair, and he went over to the door, cracked it, observed the couple still fighting, and said, "It's OK. They know each other." After I asked him if "this is all cops do in Korea" and "shouldn't he go check?" he just told me to go home. He never even asked if she was in trouble. That's a lot better than the incident, circa 2004(?), when a group of boys from some small town outside of the capital were convicted of serially raping 2 high school students (they had been in middle school at the time, if my memory serves) after one boy had had consensual sex with one of the girls but had videotaped it and used it as a weapon to make her sleep with other boys - up to 30 or 40, I recall - and also impress her friend into similar sexual service. When this was discovered, the girls were berated by police as having run a prostitution ring, and were called sluts and whores, while the parents of many of the boys as well as members of the community gave death threats to the girls' mothers for "ruining their sons' lives." And such stories keep popping up again and again here, while the tendency is to not punish the men at all, if possible. I personally attended a small protest around a large police station in relation to this issue, which many Seoul residents and the more enlightened did, to their credit, find reprehensible. But the level of violence against women here, as many Fulbrighters have heard as they lived with Korean host families all across the country, in apartment complexes where you regularly hear women being viciously beaten and screaming at night - no one calls the cops, except for me, it seems - and the many times I've seen women just straight slapped around in public...the level of violence against women that is readily apparent if you live here is undeniable. I can't speak for all foreigners here, but this is something I hear again and again and again. And yes, there is sexual and domestic violence everywhere in the world, but this is a place where I can't even count on two hands the number of times I've seen a women slapped down in public. And no one does anything. How much is a woman's body really worth here? Other factors? In the end, we just can't know. So it's not even clear how much time Cho spent in the US, although it appears he has spent a considerable amount. The information is changing by the hour. How does one sum up one's connection to culture(s)? But I do think it is worth at least mentioning the factors that often affect Korean men living as foreign students in the US, the pressures that come from living in one of the least happiest developed societies in the world, where I argue that the mental violence of the repressively harsh developmental dictatorship has finally started to find expression, even as the pressure cooker that is the failed Korean education system sends more and more Korean students overseas at an earlier age, to experience more stress and even higher parental expectations. What can we make of this? Well, it just strikes me that the motive for a male Korean student to commit this heinous act apparently includes being feelings of revenge against his girlfriend and was precipitated by a fight with her. Beyond that, one can't really speculate. One can only talk about factors that might illuminate. But speculate and make specious extrapolations the Korean media will, and I assure you, dear readers, that they won't stop at mere speculation around social factors, but there will be a slew of culturally essentialist assumptions that lead to really suspect "conclusions" as to what the "real problem" was. It will get more complex if he turns out to have lived most of his life in the US. Then, the onus of cultural responsibility can and will be shifted to "America." If his ties to Korea are stronger, then perhaps his parents will be blamed for his actions. They will be anyway. Although it is not a nice thing to foresee, I wouldn't be surprised if other suicides out of shame come from this, especially if "national blame" gets shifted to the individual, and by extension, the parents. In Sum But sometimes, we just can't "know." The pathology of the individual isn't something nations should be responsible for, because this isn't a logical or fair thing to do. If I go out right now and kill all of my officemates and then blow up a building, much will be made of my political leanings, little "signs" from the scribblings on my blog here, and most likely the anger I had after Katrina and talking about the song "Bin Laden Didn't Blow Up the Projects." But maybe it was me. Me who was crazy, me who wanted to take out my anger in a horrible way. Is my nation responsible? Is Bush? Are my parents? Was it because I played Sniper Elite on my Xbox, or Halo 2? When the process of going over Cho's life with a fine-toothed media freakout ends, I'm sure we'll see a lot of such explanations. But in the end, I don't think we can ever know. How does one know the face of madness like this? If we could, wouldn't it be easy to spot and prevent? However, this incident leaves a lot to think about. Not the least of which is the fact that the linking of "national pride" is just about as useless as the linking of "national shame", but the cultural logic of this is far from out of favor. Perhaps if one positive thing comes out of this, it will be a national discussion of a lot of these issues, and if we're lucky, people will be even asking the question, "Does 'Korea' even really need to feel responsible for this?" One might even see an angry rejection of this "national shame" - which in some ways, I think would be healthy; psychologically, it may be useful and hence, inevitable. In the end, this will be the beginning point for a lot of different discourses around culture, race, and nation. People can and should now talk about all the things that very well may have gone into influencing one Korean man's way of expressing his anger, however inappropriate that may have been. There are cultural patterns to things that are caused by clear and present structural influences, customary and culturally-informed modes of interaction, and a great number of things. But that doesn't mean "Korea" is responsible. Thinking about both factors will involve walking a subtle line that will be very, very easy to cross. I just hope the conversation can be more elevated than some of the things I can imagine being said about this incident, this one troubled man, and the culture of which he was, to some extent, a part. A few more thoughts... And on the American front, things are still swirling. How will race, gender, and sex play into this, as well as the stereotypes of Asian Americans in general and Korean Americans specifically? One thing that occurred to me was that I'm sure Arab Americans are breathing a sigh of relief that the shooter was not of Arab descent or Muslim. That's the last thing the Arab community needs in the States. I'm sure most people were expected the shooter to be a white male, as almost all mass murderers in recent years have been. What is interesting is the fact that the mainstream American media has never made much of the fact that serial killers are almost exclusively middle-class, white men. The FBI and criminal psychologists have this as a base assumption; interesting that in the public mind, this is not even a question. Imagine if nearly all serial killers were Korean; or Arab; or black; or female. Then, it would mean something, right? The gun control lobby will have a field day with this, while the NRA will likely emphasize (thanks, Jacco, for changing my mind about this) the kid's immigrant status and the fact that it wasn't the gun who killed those people, but an immigrant on a visa. Yes, people kill people, and it's not just the guns; but is sure is easier with a Glock 9mm with a low trigger weight that pops off bullets as fast as your index finger can flex. And back in Korea, I really hope that after the nation has gone through the expected paroxysms of guilt and shame, that some South Koreans will tire of it and say, "OK, enough. Why do I have to feel bad about some crazy kid who cracked? It's not my problem." And I think I'd feel the same way; I'd have to agree. From there, if that happens, the real interesting questions and debates can begin. More than anything, I hope that this might be what it takes to partially break the foundations of national identity into smaller and more interesting parts, ones that can be digested by a logic other than the dichotomy of "pride and shame" and into something more complex. An even more unlikely hope will be for the Korean media and by extension, a large part of the populace, to move past the crude and problematic stereotyping and categorical thinking that defines a lot of the discourse around foreign others, and even Koreans themselves. Perhaps now, the logic that because the murderer who dumped a girl's body in Ansan Station turned out to be Chinese means that "Chinese are dangerous" will now become suspect. Or that "Arabs are dangerous and terrorists" if the shooter in this case had been Arab, or that "America is dangerous" because of this incident, when it's much more likely that you'll be killed in a car accident than shot by a Crip in a driveby or even a crazed killer in a school. Because by extension, that would mean that "Koreans are dangerous killers" who should be avoided, or "are all about to snap." I doubt Koreans would accept that, as well they shouldn't. I just hope that this can translate into the realization that the logic is equally flawed the other way around. Posted by Michael Hurt on April 18, 2007 -- Archived with permission of author. Original Source: Scribblings of the Metropolitician http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/04/the_politics_of.html
reflections on virginia tech - 2 months later
Beauty and Depravity | eugene cho's blog [eugenecho.com] weeks have now passed. perhaps, it's become an afterthought for many. personally, a day hasn't gone by without some thoughts of the virginia tech tragedy. the tragedy exposed a great deal - it exposed what we all already know: we live in a broken and fallen word. it was never meant to be like this. i say that not for it to be an easy exit or answer but to illuminate the deep nature of jesus' redemptive live, death, and resurrection. it also exposed the reality that "race matters" and that race is something the human collective will never fully understand, grasp, and elevate. in addition, i was exposed. one poorly written post attracted about 16,000 hits in a span of two days. it wasn't the kind of notoriety i was hoping for but this blog became one of the most visited wordpress blogs during that span. local papers called [eventually had a chance to write a guest column for the seattle pi]. churchgoers called. friends around the country emailed. and like many, i found myself glued to the TV until i had to just pull the plug. because of the high traffic through the blog, i received my share of some interesting emails - those that were thought provoking and those that were downright scary. i sort of freaked out because of some of the emails which prompted me to go through the blog and delete all pics of the family and kids. it also exposed my depravity. this was a snapshot of the progression of some of my thoughts: "wow, how could this have happened? what a tragedy. i must pray for these folks." "what? they think an asian man did it? that's impossible. asians don't do stuff like that. but just in case, i hope it's not a korean person." s#@t. it is a korean person. why do the news keep insisting he's a foreigner?!? there's going to be backlash. do i send my kids to school today? as i shared in the message i taught at my church the sunday after the shootings, amidst many things, the incident exposed my self-centeredness. while i do still believe the concerns i raised are legitimate and important conversations, it's so easy to park your thoughts on the SELF. the truth is i am a selfish, self-centered, wicked, and depraved man. thank God for his mercy and grace. only through Him can i see hints of the beauty i was intended to embody. anyway, i ran across this article from christianity today entitled, "nightmare of nightmares: virginia tech's korean christians wrestle with the aftermath of a massacre," and was particularly intrigued by the following quote: In the meantime, Korean Americans continue to grapple with the massacre. Korean Baptist's Chung quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote, "The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." Kang said the fundamental issue is the problem of evil. "We ask, 'Why does God allow these things to happen?'" he said, "rather than seeing this as the natural consequences of sinful society that Christ came to redeem. "Western Christians struggle to make meaning of what happens in America because we're insulated. It's a dying and degenerate world. We're [experiencing] the consequences of sin." [read full article] april 16, 2007...it's been nearly two months. how are you processing the events of virginia tech? any thoughts on the article or the quote above? This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 -- Archived with permission of the author. Original Source: http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/reflections-on-virginia-tech-and-new-article/
seattle PI guest column on the tragedy of virginia tech
Beauty and Depravity | eugene cho's blog [eugenecho.com] Here's the guest column I had the privilege of writing for the Seattle Post Intelligencer [published for Tuesday, April 24, 2007]. I've also included some other reads I have personally found very moving and insightful. I was limited by time and a word count, but hoped that this 'guest column' would be a source of healing, deeper understanding, and blessing to many. I wish I did a better job, [and given them my own title], and spoken from a larger Asian perspective. One clarification I want to make - while I and other Koreans/Asians grieve and feel pain and 'shame' over Seung Hui Cho, we are not the victims in this tragedy. My hope was to convey that no matter who or what we are, we are all connected to one another - not just because of our ethnic identity but our larger human collective and narrative. Because of the invitation to address the larger Washington readership, I chose not to be preachy. Much of this editorial comes from some initial thoughts shared in a blog entry from last week entitled, 'Making Sense of the Senseless.' Worthwhile Relevant Reads: Cho Family Statement [Sun Kyung Cho], Guilt, Shame,and Corporate Identity [elderj], To Blame is Human [James Choung], A Lesson in Your Apology [Philadelphia Enquire Editorial], One of Our Own [Bo Lim], Nikki Giovanni Convocation Address [N. Giovanni], Making Sense of the Senseless Comment [rk], Va Tech Victims Pics & Stories [NY Times], and Silence of a Murderer's Mother [Diana Bass]. If you have a lot of time and are bored, here's the mp3 of the sermon [57.12] I shared last Sunday at Quest Church. I preached from 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Isaiah 1:17, and Matthew 5:9 entitled, 'Love Wins.' Yes, it is very long but I also have to stay true to my preaching nickname: 'Fiddy.' Here's the direct link to the Seattle PI column: Like everyone else — here (Seattle), there (Virginia), West (United States), East (Korea) and everywhere (the larger world), I have been shocked and horrified over the Virginia Tech shooting. I have been trying to make sense of something that is senseless. Personally, the emotions have been even more convoluted because of my bicultural identity. I was born in Korea, immigrated to the United States at the age of 6 and thus am Korean American. I am also a U.S. citizen; I am a Korean American male immigrant and even share the same surname as the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho. Once I discovered that the gunman was Korean American, I had some initial fears of racial backlash. As a proud citizen of this country, I do not believe there will be any overt backlash. It would be nonsensical for people to associate the heinous crime to Koreans or Korean Americans simply because of Seung-Hui Cho's ethnicity. In that same vein, it would have been preposterous and unjust for us to place blame on African Americans for the actions of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo in the Beltway Sniper attacks of 2002 or to ask white Americans to share blame with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombings of 1995. But in the days after the identity of the gunman was revealed, many in the media and larger culture may have been perplexed by the responses of Koreans and Korean Americans. Many Koreans expressed embarrassment, shame and even guilt. State Sen. Paul Shinn fought back his tears as he apologized to fellow lawmakers. Even despite being reassured by others that an apology was not necessary, he continued. Although I personally don't feel the need to directly apologize for the actions of Seung-Hui Cho, I understand why Shinn and others feel the need to do so. Although not apologetic, I share in deep pain, embarrassment and shame. I share in the deep pain because when I see images of this young man, I don't just see a "crazy Asian killer," I also see someone whose life story sounds very similar to mine. Such words as lonely, isolated and quiet were often used to describe my younger life as I struggled to fit in as an immigrant. I share in embarrassment and shame because I see Seung-Hui Cho as a part of my larger community. As Koreans or Korean Americans, we share not only similar life stories but also a communal bond. Contrary to perhaps the more "individualistic" worldview of Westerners, Koreans have a certain communal identity. One can contend that to be Korean is to be communal. No one is an island to themselves. For that reason, Koreans tend to rejoice and mourn on the successes and failures of fellow Koreans. We rejoice with individuals such as James Sun ("The Apprentice"), Michelle Wie (LPGA golfer), Yul Kwon ("Survivor: Cook's Island), Hines Ward (NFL player) and Yunjin Kim (ABC's "Lost"). And because we are a communal culture — not only as Koreans but also within our Korean American immigrant experience — we mourn and feel deep pain and shame over Seung-Hui Cho. Last week, someone asked me "Why am I mourning? Is it because of the one or the 32″? For me, and many Korean Americans, the answer is both. We are mourning because of the 33. We are mourning because great pain and harm have been inflicted upon the lives of 32 individuals and their loved ones — each one with beautiful lives, stories, dreams and futures. We are mourning because the one, Seung-Hui Cho — a part of us — chose to commit a horrible act of violence and devastation. Last week, my wife and I have broken down in tears in random situations. We cry and pray for the 32, their families, the students and community at Blacksburg, but also cry for Seung-Hui Cho and his family. We cry because in him, we see a younger brother. And so, we grieve for the 33. Although I know that it is not necessary to apologize, I do want to share these words. On behalf of Koreans and Korean Americans, I want to extend our deepest condolences and love to all the families of those affected by the tragedy at Virginia Tech. It is my sincere hope and prayer — that no matter who or what we are — we grow to understand we are all connected to one another. The Rev. Eugene Cho is lead pastor at Quest Church, a multiethnic church in Seattle (seattlequest.org);(eugenecho.wordpress.com). May each of us take to heart the ministry of reconciliation, the pursuit of justice for the oppressed and 'other' and be peacemakers. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you. 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 -- Archived with permission of the author. Original Source: Beauty and Depravity | eugene cho's blog [eugenecho.com] http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/seattle-pi-column/
Beauty and Depravity | eugene cho's blog [eugenecho.com] Like everyone else - here [Seattle], there [Virginia], West [United States, East [Korea], and everywhere, I am trying to make sense of something that is simply - senselesss. Personally, the emotions have been even more convoluted because I am Korean-American. I am a Korean immigrant [immigrated at the age of 6] and understand the immigrant experience; I am a Korean-American Immigrant Male [who even shares the same last name - 'C-H-O' - as the gunman]. I am a Christian pastor involved in the institution of Religion that Seung Hui Cho criticized and expressed disappointment. For these reasons, many have asked, called, IM'd, and emailed asking me to share some of my thoughts - as a person, a Christian, an immigrant, a pastor, but especially as a Korean-American man. I'm sharing some thoughts [some which are still in vomitaceous process] in hopes that we can dialogue here - that it may serve as part of the healing and redemptive process. Monday night was an incredibly eerie day for me. After watching the news with incredulity and horror, I posted a blog entry about the tragedy in Virginia Tech. About 9pm [PST], I began to literally have over hundred people instantaneously get to my blog in a span of two hours. Search Views | seung cho blog 18, cho virginia tech myspace 17, virginia tech shooting cho 17, cho 15, cho virginia tech 15, virginia tech cho 13, cho virginia 9, virginia tech student shooter Cho 9, virginia shooter cho myspace 8, Sung Cho Blacksburg 7, virginia tech blog cho 7, blog virginia tech 2, cho seung virginia tech shooting 2, Cho, Korean, Blacksburg 2CHO, virginia shooting korean 2, Virginia Tech Myspace Cho 2, Cho myspace virginia tech 2, Cho Seung virginia tech 2, virginia tech cho shooting 2, Myspace Cho Virginia Tech 2, "Cho" Blacksburg 2, viginia tech cho korea shooting 2, "Cho" virginia tech korea myspace 2, cho virginia tech shoot 2, korean virginia tech cho 2, pastoral health 2, quest eugene cho 2, cho virginia tech shooting 2, virginia cho 2 As I examined my dashboard through wordpress, it was fairly obvious to me that while the news wouldn't be shared to the larger world until the next morning, there was strong suspicion - perhaps through authorities or through some of the student body - that the gunman may have been someone named Seung [Hui] Cho. I was speechless, ashamed, angry, and afraid. [You can also add 'guilty' because of my selfishness. Like others, I felt "pathetic" in wishing the person wasn't Korean or Asian...I became more self-focused rather on mourning with those who have suffered in the tragedy]. Some vomitaceous thoughts, questions, and reflections: 1 We need to remember, foremost, that lives have been dramatically impacted. 33 people have died. 32 who were completely innocent. Each person that died or was severely injured has a name, a story, a family, a passion, a dream, and a life. Let's not forget that in the midst of the media frenzy. This is a must read. 2 It's clear that Seung Cho was unhealthy, unstable, disturbed, ill [schizophrenia?], angry, lost, and [place your words here]. But that's the only clear thing. I needed the turn the TV off because the 'stretching' for information, analysis, scrutiny, and answers to who, what, where, when, and why was overly speculative. Compare the reporting of Fox News and BBC News... While I understand the need for 'why,' we're simply not going to know the full picture. While Seung's action were horrible and evil [and premeditated], we must remind ourselves that he too is a human being - as difficult as that might be. Knowing some of the dynamics of the Asian/Korean culture and the synthesis of pain, guilt, and shame, I am sincerely worried for his family - particularly his parents. They, too, are victims in this story. Update: read the statement issued by Sun Kyung Cho and her family. One thing that the media won't touch is the simple and painful matter: Evil exists in our world. There is a spiritual dimension that the media won't discuss but the church must engage. As much as we seek to create a perfect world [and it is a worthwhile pursuit], this will not be the first nor will it be the first murder or tragedy. 3 why do the media keep calling him 'cho'? he has a first name... maybe it's me, but i'm tired of hearing and reading my last name. couple folks actually emailed me [from other parts of the country] through the blog to ask if i'm related to seung. 4 Will there be racial backlash? Do Asians and Koreans need to fear? On the most part, I do not believe there will be overt backlash but there are always going to be pockets of people that will be stupid and do stupid things. It would be nonsenical for people to associate this violent act to Koreans or Asians simply because of Seung Hui Cho's ethnicity. In that same vein, it would have been preposterous and unjust for us to place blame on African-Americans for the actions of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo in the 'Beltway Sniper attacks' of 2002 or to ask White Americans to share blame with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma bombings of 1995. But the question must be asked. How is the media influencing the construct of the national consciousness? That's a worthwhile question for me. In the early reporting, I was perturbed that Seung was being referred to as 'the Asian killer' and 'the Korean killer.' While he is Asian and Korean, the media needs to be more responsible in their sensational reporting. What do you think? As one commenter replied in an earlier posting: i definitely wish/ hope that most would not see the shooter as representative of all asians, but in america, if the person in question is not a white, heterosexual, protestant, middle class, educated man, then their race, creed and color seems to always be part of the equation. he has been marked as the resident alien from abroad who came into our land and terrorized us, and with our heightened fear of the other, this situation seems to be full of potential for type casting and APIA caricatures. and i think if these kinds of caricatures flourish (as they did with mid-easterners post 9/11), then it's not unreasonable to fear violent reprisal. and so while i certainly hope that people can view the event as isolated, i know that it's very difficult for our culture to separate media representations of people groups from 'reality.' 5 Why are Koreans/Asians afraid of backlash? My hope is that in the midst of this tragedy, a small glimpse will be captured of the Asian-American [immigrant] experience. Asians and particularly, Korean-Americans are xenophobic. Historically, Koreans have been invaded, pillaged, and exploited...one of the foremost Korean historians Ki-Baek Lee refers to Korea as "the prostitute of Asia." From an immigrant experience, two very formative events in modern Asian American history impact our responses as Asian-Americans - particularly those who are older. In my opinion, the most significant event in modern Asian-American history is the story of Vincent Chin - a Chinese American man beaten to death by a baseball bat by two white auto industry workers - outside of a club during his bachelor party. Even worse, the white men were acquitted. For Korean Americans, the most significant event in their modern history is the LA riots and specifically, Sai-I-Gu (4/29). The United States is an incredible country and I am a proud citizen of this country; but it's not a perfect country and while I believe there won't be an overt backlash, I do worry how it will impact the individual and larger [White] collective view of Asian-Americans, Korean-Americans, "foreigners," "immigrants" and such. We should agree: if one Asian or Korean is bullied as a result of this, it's one too many. If one woman is bullied because of her gender, it's one too many. If one gay person is bullied because of their orientation, it's one too many. 6 As we mourn for those impacted, we must ask the question, "Why am I mourning?" Are Korean-Americans and Asian-Americans mourning because the perpetrator was Korean [because of shame and/or fear] or because of the larger tragedy? Are we mourning because of the 1 or are we mourning because of the 32? For Koreans, the answer is likely both. We are mourning because of the 33. This is important to understand. To be Korean - culturally - is to be communal. Koreans are interconnected in a communal culture. We rejoice and mourn with the successes and failures of our fellow Koreans or Korean-Americans. We cling and rejoice with individuals like James Sun [The Apprentice], Paul Kim [American Idol], Michelle Wie [LPGA golfer], Yul Kwon [Survivor: Cook's Island], Hines Ward [NFL Football], and Yunjin Kim [ABC's Lost]. And because we are a communal culture - interconnected - not only as Koreans but also within our KA immigrant experience, we mourn and feel deep pain and shame over Seung Hui Cho. For the larger Anglo worldview, the question must also be asked: Is Seung Hui Cho an "Asian Killer" or "the Korean Killer" or is he a Korean-American [emphasis added] or an American that committed an evil crime? What is the demarcation of what it means to be an American? He immigrated at the age of 8; grew up in Detroit; moved to the suburbs of Washington DC; educated in the States; and was an English major in Virginia Tech. A great definition of community (Romans 12:15) is when [or if] we choose to "mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice." As Asian-Americans, we must mourn with those who mourn not simply because an Asian was involved in the crime, but because our larger community - our country - is in mourning. This is also our country, our people, our college community...this can't be their tragedy. this is [must be] our shared tragedy. 7 Why are we so violent as Americans? Should we discuss gun control here? Where do we start? What is our Christian response? Why are so many Christians so adamant about the right to bear arms? Where is that found in the Scriptures? I can cite tons of places about mercy, humility, justice, the oppressed, the poor, the widows...but why such obsession with arms and yet, such silence on the items listed above? How are we as Christians and as consumers feeding the violence acceptance of our culture? Insert pop culture here. 8 The lives of those who have perished must be remembered, cherished and celebrated. Period. But today alone, nearly 200 people were killed in Bahgdad. It is estimated that approximately 30,000 children will die today because of poverty [according to UNICEF]. That's 210,000 children this week; a little under 11 million children [five and under] each year. While this is a horrible tragedy, [one life lost - is one too many] we must commit ourselves to the elevation of the sanctity of life. each person - with a name, a story, a family, a dream, a beauty... Let's remain in prayer for those impacted in this shared tragedy; let's mourn with those who mourn; hope together; and work - whatever faith, ethnicity, country, political affiliation - for the shared responsibility of being a good neighbor. _________ One last note. As a Korean-American Male Cho Immigrant Christian Pastor, I do have another response: God is love. Because He is Love, He created order out of chaos. His purpose was love and shalom. We were created for beauty - created in the image of God. Shalom was violated and marred. Our image tainted and cracked. Jesus came to redeem and restore. Invitation is extended to all - including the lonely, the outcast, the marginalized, the rich, the debaucherized, and such. And lest we forget or bathe in our righteousness, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. We are confronted by our depravity. We all need God and thanks be to God, the Lord is not far. He is near. This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 -- Archived with permission of the author. Original Source: Beauty and Depravity | eugene cho's blog [eugenecho.com] http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/making-sense-of-virginia-tech/
Some thoughts on the Cho identity and mass murder
April 18th, 2007 by Ryan Lanham I know very little about profoundly deviant behavior of this sort. It has never much interested me. I tend to turn off the channels where it is dealt with. I have extended familial ties to some protracted and difficult cases but rarely anything profoundly deviant like this. I have also had many friends and acquaintances who cope with various forms of mental illness in their relationships both near and extended. But this seems to be of a different sort...I think. I so far believe it isn't a "9" on a scale where many folks are showing up at the mental health center with a level 4 or 5 problem. But on that I may be sadly wrong. Things erode rapidly sometimes. Tear out hope from people and prospects go decay in a hurry. But people are usually self-destructive first...not outwardly destructive. Something is different when people need to spread a blight. It seems to me that the Virginia Tech murderer reached several cross-over points. For example, he constructed an identity of persecution. I am sure he had opportunities to back out of this, but he chose not to. He wanted to be persecuted. I notice this desire in many larger groups...sometimes whole nations. It is a need to be selected as a target of unfairness. At some level we all feel it. It is very hard to look for a job, for example, in academia without some sense of constant rejection. Maybe it is luck to get help or a positive turn, and some folks just aren't lucky. Maybe Cho never got cut a break. But it seems like he did get at least a few breaks to hear it from his roommates. He CHOSE to not find happiness. Perhaps that paranoia is an element of a broader delusional identity, but all that sounds annoyingly redundant. I must say that the psychological descriptions of these things feel inadequate. It is as if there are things unsaid or said as categorizations that seem deficient to offer any insight beyond a label. There is a Peanuts cartoon with Lucy psychoanalyzing Charlie Brown's fears. She says that if we can find out what he is afraid of..."we" can label it. It ends there to some ironic comic effect. The label is all Charlie Brown is going to get. DSM IV is my sister-in-law's bible on these things. I have seen her read it at length. But from what I have seen of it, it is often very uncertain and highly generalized in its descriptions. Can anyone be paranoid on a given day? I often wonder whether people who are less than nice all the time carry the burden of common labels. Identity is profound in all these cases. Universities clearly gather many people who are loners, focused, obsessive, and often politically extreme. But violence is not the usual outlet, so far as I can tell. I think I have read that suicides are typically higher amongst graduate students than the norm, but that might be also readily expected from the stress. One sees faculty and students alike who demonstrate all sorts of unsual forms of expression or self-awareness. Sometimes it comes as a rarified sense of aesthetic or insight. Other forms come as a need to be "in" or considered "bright." Some thrive on power or influence over others as a teacher or mentor or special peer. Still other forms come as a need to be considered of a particular ethical purity. Usually it is exacting in my experience. There is a need for precision far beyond what could be taken as usual or appropriate. This sort of intensity is a form of boundary spanning that can be innovative if benign. Or it can be destructive, and often minimally policed. Given the general collapse of collective standards in the academy, I think these sorts of explosions are my likely than we'd like to think. I also think they are playing out in mini versions all too often. But people find means of coping and controlling themselves. Here that control was not present. An artist or innovator must also loosen the bounds of control, but there is a commitment to not hurt. It is almost like the difference between the responsible community business person and the naked aggression of a self-serving capitalist. There is a different...ethic. But is there a different psychology? And what would that mean? The identity is formed as it encounters situations. Context is everything...but also not everything. We must know actors, actor prior states, and contexts. But perhaps we must also know context prior states. It is difficult to say the least. Original source: http://ryanlanham.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/some-thoughts-on-the-cho-identity-and-mass-murder/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
by J Lee | April 19, 2007 When I was growing up in the 80s, it often seemed that the world was holding its breath, keeping its fingers crossed to prevent some sort of nuclear disaster. The apocalypse that I imagined then had to do with the world going up in a mushroom cloud, because of polarization along national and political lines. But this next generation's experiences (as E Wesp pointed out in his comment) have been punctuated by violence of a different type, enacted by one or a few individuals and relatively low technology. I want to pick up a few threads of conversation, starting with the comment by ms which addresses the idea of narrative and also points out that we have started this conversation with race. In our discussion and in many of the blog comments I have been reading on this side of the world, the use of the label "Korean" has been hotly debated, some arguing that the shooter's ethnicity may offer clues to his motivations, others charging that to invoke the term is racist. I am curious about how this label "Korean" gets deployed and what meaning it has. In other words, does it matter that he was Korean? What are the conditions under which someone's ethnicity becomes "visible" and how it gets worked into the stories we tell about why something happened, about who is responsible, and about our emotional relationships to the subject? In a basic way, the label "Korean" subverts the popular stereotype of the angry white middle class male shooter. It provides a potentially different kind of explanatory factor, complicating questions about Cho's mental health, his upbringing, ideas about the expression of masculine anger, etc. What I find interesting from our own discussion as well as other articles is how minorities have reacted. Personally, I heard "Korean," "parents own a dry-cleaning business," "sister at Princeton," and "Centreville, VA" and unconsciously began constructing my own narrative of Cho's life, filling in the blanks with my own experiences growing up not far from Centreville (in a similar kind of suburb) and the experiences of friends. Parents sacrifice themselves for their children's education, teaching their kids to value educational success above all other types and in doing so lower their own status in their children's eyes. Cultural divides open between the generations. The children don't quite fit into mainstream American life but have lost touch with and respect for their parents' culture. The alienation I imagine him to have felt confirms and strengthens my sense of my own alienation and my distance from what I see as the cultural center (however imaginary that notion of a cultural center may be). And on and on... In trying to understand his actions I construct for him an entirely fictitious reality which makes me feel (as he has become an extension of myself, my brothers, my sons, etc.) empathetic, invested, responsible, and guilty about the whole thing. I think there's a certain extent to which these incidents become cautionary tales to support our individual and cultural fears: video games inducing violence, fears about repressed male emotion, xenophobia, education without moral center, etc. We all explain the world in the terms we understand, I suppose. But, for the more difficult task... how does the label of "Korean" function on a cultural level, particularly here in Korea? This is a hard question to address, and I am a little hesitant to try to answer it, to (by virtue of having my little soapbox and being in Korea) seem like I have the answers. But, as E Hayot says (sorry to quote you here, E) "pontificating wildly about stuff you barely understand is what the internet is all about!" So here goes, my attempt to create context for you all out there. Kids, don't try this at home. Why the ownership of this man as Korean by those here in Korea? Why not the urge to dismiss him as Americanized, or as a deranged individual, why the urge to place him within the boundaries of the label "Korean"? I'll throw out three contexts here. Context 1: Koreans abroad (read: anyone with Korean blood), on the international stage, function in the popular imagination here in Korea in a way that Americans may find surprising. The average American probably doesn't know who Park Chan-ho, Hines Ward, Hwang Woo Suk, or Ban Ki-moon are, but they are important figures in the public imagination here, evidence of Korea's place in the global order, for better or for worse. I was in the bookstore a few months ago, shortly after Ban Ki-moon was named the new UN Secretary General, and there was already a biography of him written for children, using his life as an inspirational example of what kids could achieve. Where does this mentality come from? From a genre of history writing in which Korea is the passive victim of stronger foreign powers (China, Japan, the U.S.)? From some Park Chung-hee era idea of self-reliance? From some notion of the purity and homogeneity of Korean culture and language? From media which constantly rate Korea's performance in any number of arenas to other world powers? From the strength of the notion of blood? From a sense of social responsibility? Context 2: The educational system here is under a lot of fire for various reasons which I won't go into. Many parents feel they have no option but to send their kids abroad, often alone or with only one parent. There has been a lot of discussion recently on the various pressures these families and kids have to face at a young age. Cho came to the U.S. in elementary school, with both his parents. Any speculation about the pressures on him as a foreigner, on difficulties adapting to life in the U.S., and about the potential reasons for his mental breakdown and feelings of alienation are going to flow towards the grooves already cut by the larger social worry about educational pressures and the education diaspora. Context 3: I think the fear of reprisals against Koreans and Korean-Americans in the U.S. has to be read against the incidents of U.S. military personnel violence against Koreans in Korea. Every time a U.S. soldier is involved in an act of violence (rape, murder) there are protests and reprisals here (not widespread, from my experience, but I don't live near the army base). When an English teacher is caught using drugs or sexually assaulting a student, it is big news here, followed by calls for more regulation of foreign teachers. I think there's a kind of logic that is created by the way these cases have been treated here that would shape the expectation of what will happen to Koreans in the U.S. Thus Koreans may imagine, consciously or subconsciously, that Americans will similarly judge/ demand/protest against Koreans as Koreans do against Americans, if not in action then in belief and idea. When it comes down to it, we have to accept that something about Cho was an aberration, an anomaly; we have to talk about his mental health. Mental health itself is, I think, inseparable from environment and personal history, but the fact is that very few people ever do something this horrendous. But an act like this, like the boogeyman in the closet, has a way of heightening and illuminating our fears and discomforts. And, to go back to the question ms asked: What kind of story will we make him a part of? And how does the label "Korean" play into that story? -- Original Source: http://www.printculture.com/index.php?itemid=1365 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0