When I heard of the shooter at VT, I didn't think... oh... what ethnicity was he or she? I just thought what a gruesome horrible thing to happen. I grieved for the students, the families.
When he turned out to be Korean, I didn't think that it was a slap at the entire Korean culture. Yet obviously, many in their community do.
In one editorial and two articles in the Los Angeles Times, they've talked of a collective losing face, of feeling responsible. I think it's slightly off the mark. In not one article or op-ed piece do they speak of mental illness. No reporter has inquired how mental illness is perceived within their community (it could be argued that this would be a valid question, given that they feel compelled to show a collective remorse). Not one. Yet, the proof is all there. Cho was mentally ill. It wasn't because he was Korean that he shot everyone, it was that his neurotransmitters didn't function. If they really want to make a difference in their community, they'll support efforts to erase the stigma of mental illness and to seek diagnosis and treatment. Not just within the Korean culture, but everywhere.
notes: On the NAMI website today, their Medical Director, Ken Duckworth, M.D. offers a disappointing statement that "the shooter in the tragedy, may not actually have had a serious mental illness relative to other diagnoses." WHAT? This guy had been stalking people, his behavior was disruptive, he'd been in a psychiatric hospital. I think he's wrong. All evidence reports that there was something seriously wrong with him. True, you can't force someone into treatment, but he slipped through so many cracks and in the end, took his fatal steps that led to this tragedy.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
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I agree that this has nothing to do with the fact the Cho was Korean and everything to do with the fact that he was mentally ill. But I can understand the reaction of the Korean community all the same.
When I was living in Japan, any time an American committed a crime there, I keenly felt it -- as did other Americans residents of Japan. Intellectually we knew it had nothing to do with us, but there was always an uncomfortable feeling that some people would identify us with a crime perpetrated by one of our fellow nationals. Every negative characteristic of Americans, real or perceived -- our comparative wealth, arrogance, tendency to own guns, violence, etc. -- all of these things were suddenly brought to the forefront of public consciousness when an American had committed a crime.
Some people need only the tiniest reason in the world to be racist, and some don't need any reasons at all and will happily manufacture their own. I suspect that expatriate Koreans sense this, as I did. They know that they have nothing to do with Cho, the killer, apart from superficial things like a common country of origin and a shared language, but they know they will be identified with him and perhaps his insanity all the same.
In Arcadia, California, an acquaintance of my sister's was shot dead shortly after 9-11, by a couple of teenagers who wanted to 'get even.' He was an Egyptian and an Orthodox Christian who had come to the U.S. because he felt he could worship there more freely, but his crime was 'looking Arabic.' You can see how minorities might get a little sensitive, given reactions like that.
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