I read that some Korean Americans are afraid that they will somehow all be tarred with what Seung-Hui Cho did at Virginia Tech earlier this week. One woman said that upon hearing the killer of 32 students and faculty members was Asian, she said something like, "Please don't let him be Korean!"
I know that prayer. I've said it any number of times when something horrendous happens. "Please don't let him [or her] be Black!" I've said.
But I've come to realize that I'm not responsible for evil acts of other Black folks. I feel no racial guilt that a Black man named
Robert Williams apparently raped, tortured and tried to kill a Columbia University student who lives in my neighborhood in Harlem. If all that's been reported about him so far is true, this con is scum. This is how The New York Times reports what the NYPD Police Commissioner has said of what happened after this man forced his way into the student's apartment:
"Over the next 19 hours, [Commissioner Ray] Kelly said, the man tied the woman to her bed with computer cables and taped her mouth closed, raped and sodomized her repeatedly, burned her with hot water and bleach, slit her eyelids with scissors, and force-fed her an overdose of ibuprofen or a similar pain reliever.
"At one point last Saturday afternoon, Mr. Kelly said, the assailant took the woman’s A.T.M. card, withdrew $200 at a bodega on West 141st Street and returned to her apartment. A few hours later, he set fire to the woman’s futon and left her, unconscious, to die, Mr. Kelly said. She woke up to the smell of smoke, used the flames to melt the cable that bound her to the bed frame, and escaped, Mr. Kelly said."
Those of Korean ancestry -- whether citizens or legal residents or visitors -- need feel no special guilt about Cho. Nor should misguided avengers hold them accountable.
But all of US should empathize with Cho's family. Sun-Kyung Cho, his sister and a State Department contractor, said on behalf of the family: "We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person. We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
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4 comments:
I can see the value in cautioning others against taking their frustrations with one Asian, Black, or short person out on all Asian, Black, or short people, but I'm not convinced that we don't or even that we shouldn't represent more than ourselves.
In this context especially, what does that mean to "represent more than ourselves"?
It's each of us contributing to our respective groups' collective identities, reputations, etc.
From that perspective, "vicarious guilt" is somewhat understandable.
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