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Let It Be Some Other 'Asian'
As the country waited to learn the identity of the killer at Virginia Tech, Vietnamese-American writer Andrew Lam says all ethnic Americans held their breath, waiting to see if they would shoulder the spillover of blame for the acts of an individual. Lam is a writer and editor with New America Media and author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora".
SAN FRANCISCO – All across America, no doubt, non-Korean Asian-Americans are now heaving a sigh of relief. “Asian,” after all, was the four-alarm-fire word we saw throughout the day after the shootings that took the lives of 33 people at Virginia Tech. The shooter was “Asian,” the news reports said. But who was this “Asian” exactly?
Before the news identified the killer as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea, all ethnic backgrounds were up for grabs. A friend from a small college town on the East Coast, who is Chinese, called to say: “Please, please let it be some other Asian. We’ll be in deep if it’s Chinese.”
In a popular Vietnamese chatroom, Vietnamese college students were writing to each other to speculate. One said, “I have a bad feeling. It might be Mi’t (Vietnamese slang for Vietnamese).” Others wrote in advising each other on what to do.
The blogosphere buzzed with speculation on the identity of the killer. The waiting game was as tense as waiting to find out who the next American Idol might be. On another blog, debbieschlussel.com, Schlussel speculated that the shooter could be a Muslim Pakistani. “Why am I speculating that the ‘Asian’ gunman is a Pakistani Muslim? Because law enforcement and the media strangely won’t tell us more specifically who the gunman is.”
A Muslim Pakistani friend, an engineer who refused to have his name mentioned, emailed me to say, “If he’s a Paki and Muslim, we might all just pack up and go home. I’m praying that he is some other Asian.”
Let it be some other Asian! This was the prayer among so many Asian-American communities. And not just Asians.
“Every time there’s an incident like this, every ethnic group is on pins and needles,” said Khalil Abdullah, an African-American colleague. An Anglo shooter may be an individual, a loner, but God forbid if a person of color goes on a shooting rampage. His whole tribe would be implicated. “I still recall my aunts when President Kennedy was assassinated. They were praying that it wasn’t a Negro.” Many ethnic communities do not feel that they belong to the core of the American fabric, Abdullah added. “The action of an individual can cancel out the good image of an entire group.”
More
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=e3b9c4941f9d849f9358ddb3dbbbe5a3
Before the news identified the killer as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea, all ethnic backgrounds were up for grabs. A friend from a small college town on the East Coast, who is Chinese, called to say: “Please, please let it be some other Asian. We’ll be in deep if it’s Chinese.”
In a popular Vietnamese chatroom, Vietnamese college students were writing to each other to speculate. One said, “I have a bad feeling. It might be Mi’t (Vietnamese slang for Vietnamese).” Others wrote in advising each other on what to do.
The blogosphere buzzed with speculation on the identity of the killer. The waiting game was as tense as waiting to find out who the next American Idol might be. On another blog, debbieschlussel.com, Schlussel speculated that the shooter could be a Muslim Pakistani. “Why am I speculating that the ‘Asian’ gunman is a Pakistani Muslim? Because law enforcement and the media strangely won’t tell us more specifically who the gunman is.”
A Muslim Pakistani friend, an engineer who refused to have his name mentioned, emailed me to say, “If he’s a Paki and Muslim, we might all just pack up and go home. I’m praying that he is some other Asian.”
Let it be some other Asian! This was the prayer among so many Asian-American communities. And not just Asians.
“Every time there’s an incident like this, every ethnic group is on pins and needles,” said Khalil Abdullah, an African-American colleague. An Anglo shooter may be an individual, a loner, but God forbid if a person of color goes on a shooting rampage. His whole tribe would be implicated. “I still recall my aunts when President Kennedy was assassinated. They were praying that it wasn’t a Negro.” Many ethnic communities do not feel that they belong to the core of the American fabric, Abdullah added. “The action of an individual can cancel out the good image of an entire group.”
More
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=e3b9c4941f9d849f9358ddb3dbbbe5a3
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if a white guy rampages, he's still white, he cant ''denature'' the white race and interbreed and make whites ''less intelligent'' and wont be able to keep the machines running.but another whole race is always blamed , when one particular individual does anything whites dont like. in other words, ''those inferior african genetics'' could wipe out our whole race!!'' no other way to explain the pathology of white fear of any individual african genetic person. how eklse to explain the ''one negro in the neighborhood is the downfall of the whole race!'' its genetic fear reaction. ''keep whites pure so we'll be able to still think up great machines to hold the polanet earth hostage""...
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