Hate Crime? Or Just Murder?
On July 31, an Asian-American (specifically Vietnamese immigrant) plunged to his death in Lake Michigan. Although the Chicago Police Department initially thought this was a hate crime, it was later shifted their assessment to classify it as a random, heinous murder. The reason for this is that no epithets were used during the attack.
The murder occurred when after an all-night drinking binge, a bunch of hooligans invaded the popular fishing location at Montrose Habor. One of the people was John Haley, 31, who announced that some of the fishermen looked hot and need to cool off before shoving Du Doan into the water. Whether it was racially motivate or not, this guy was obviously an idiot and his actions were infuriating.
Fortunately, the attorney was swift to charge Haley. Yesteryear, this might not have been the case, but it seems that minority rights are making progress in the US.
Most of this was extracted from an article from the Chicago Sun Times written by Laura Washington in which the article itself exposes some ignorance. She learned about the event when her Caucasian friend asked if she heard about the “Chinese man” who drowned. Sheesh! Just cause the guy is Asian doesn’t automatically make him Chinese.
She does expose the fact that a reporter does use the term “Oriental” which is considered a slur to Asians (although this may have been ignorance more than anything else).
Anyhow, the last part that really made me want to write about this was the last line of her article: “Look out for the Chinese fortune cookie that says: ‘Beware: Big success can cause jealous reaction’” in response to the fact that many Asians fear a backlash due to the economic growth in Asia, especially China.
??? Did you not just write an article about racism??? To refer to a fortune cookie to make her point is just completely idiotic especially given the context of the article. And it’s not just a fortune cookie, but a Chinese fortune cookie. Intentionally savage? Probably not, but it shows that more education is needed.
Laura is in fact a minority herself, as she is an African American so she is probably sensitive to race issues.
Original article: http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/549479,CST-EDT-laura10.article
Her email is on the left column if you click on the link above if you want to provide some feedback, but PLEASE make any comments respectful.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
