My Korean roomate is freaking out right now...

[Bicoastal]

He's worried that the entire country will begin to surrepititiously blame his culture for our country's worst civilian bloodbath. He's a resident of Seoul, a very nice, intelligent guy, and a big fan of America; unfortunately, perhaps he knows enough about our country's history to realize that we have a tendency to scapegoat innocent people during our darkest hours.

What should I tell him?

[karlrschneider]

1. Tell him to say he's Japanese.

...

[Bicoastal]

3. Not funny

Besides, as a Korean, he's pretty much dead-set against anything Japan-related.

[kwolf68]

37. Hey dude

I think the joke behind that comment is those who would hate your roomie would NOT KNOW THE difference in Korean and Japanese. these are the same idiots who get Indians confused with Iraqis.

I think the joke was hilarious because of how it painted those who would seek to do your friend harm, but I detected no ill-will at all toward your roomie. Peace bro.

[jollyreaper2112]

59. get over it

I tell people I'm Canadian and we Americans have a lot to hold against Canada. They sent us Celine Dion after all. Alternatively, you could have him tell people he's mexican. This country is so culturally illiterate, it's not like most would notice.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. You owe me a keyboard!

:rofl:

[Xenotime]

35. Agreed...that is funny

[Ganja Ninja]

5. Sew a Canadian flag on his backpack like American's going to

Europe.

[depakid]

Don't laugh, but I actually do that when travelling abroad

stickers and the maple leaf on my pack.... Being from the Northwest, I already sound passably Canadian. Just add in a couple of extra "ehs" here and there.

[KG]

22. how revealing.

[karlrschneider]

36. Revealing?

I was not trying to be funny.

[jollyreaper2112]

60. ah, you've now been tagged as a closet racist

Welcome to the club, t-shirt is in the post. I think at this point I've been labeled as bigoted against whites, blacks, marsupials, the color-blind, and leprechauns. Very revealing.

[LSK]

52. huh???

[CatWoman]

28. wasn't that a popular song in the 80's?

"turning japanese"?

[dysfunctional press]

57. rumor has it that "turning japanese" has a slightly different meaning in that song...

supposedly it's about masturbating- kinda like "putting on your O-face" from office space...

[Bluebear]

2. Tell him we're not all boors.

I love Koreans!

[nam78_two]

61. Its such a pity more people are not like you Bluebear

:hi: :hug:

Unfortunately a lot of people never seem to consider even those of us who are second or third generation immigrants "real Americans" -let alone the first gen.

[mainer]

6. He's right to be worried. Scapegoating is sure to come.

Most mass murderers in the US are white males, but whenever a white male does it, every other white male in the country doesn't get collectively blamed for it.

It only happens if you're a minority.

[coffeenap]

7. Tell him to come here to DU and get some love and support!

:grouphug:

[TahitiNut]

8. His fears are reasonable, to some degree.

Such a reaction by the socially-impaired isn't unique to the US. Every easily-discernable demographic attribute of the shooter will act like bait to the already-biased. He was male - attack males. He was Asian - attack Asians. He was in his 20s - attack 20-somethings.

The only rational response to such conditions is to take additional precautions but not be ruled by fear. Keep company of allies and friends - a solitary individual is vulnerable to cowards and bullies. Carry a cell phone. Keep provocative behavior to a minimum.

[crispini]

9. Well, many people do, BUT,

the decent people will not do that. When I think of Korean culture I will think of kimchi, bulgogi, and the kindness of my dear Korean friend's parents and her brothers. Oh and also my Korean acupuncturist who is a good and healing man!

Give him hugs from us and show him this thread.

[Marrah_G]

10. tell him not to worry

I don't think there are many anti-korean mobs forming. I think most people realize this is a case of an individual mind snapping.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Um, he's right. America really IS that stupid and bigoted.

EDIT: And taking white folks who say "there's nothing to worry about" is simply asinine.

[mainer]

14. I agree. White people have no idea what it's like to be a minority.

There's a good chance that a few Korean grocery stores will be attacked. And Chinese restaurants too, because white people can't tell the difference.

[BlooInBloo]

17. And we have a vested interest in playing down any such threat...

... (white folks are always keen to play down how racist white folks are.)

My point being: It's at least as much *deliberate* as it is *ignorance*.

[johnnie]

30. Deleting

Because

[bcoylepa]

12. tell him to keep breathing

and to keep his friends around him
this kind of tragedy brings out the best and worst in people
be there for him and I would suggest he write about how he is feeling-maybe even a letter to the school paper
it helps to know how this impacts people
peace in our hearts - peace in our world

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. He doesn't need to. There are millions of Asians in this country

and most Anglos can't tell a Korean from anyone else.

And besides - he is not responsible for the behavior of one very disturbed individual.

Now if that shooter had been a student from Iran there would probably be big trouble.

[BlooInBloo]

16. lol! All asians looking alike to white folks doesn't make HIM any safer.

[leftyladyfrommo]

31. I'm in Kansas City.

There are lots and lots of Asian people living here but I don't think anyone gives a fig where they come from. They are just an integral part of the weave of our population. We have lots and lots of Hispanics, too. And they are just part of our culture.

[BlooInBloo]

33. Aawwwww! Kum-bay-yah!

[maxsolomon]

19. i don't know where you live

but in seattle most anglos can recognize the specific ethnicity of any asian person.

i can recognize the difference between cambodians & laotians.

[mainer]

25. I think Seattle is a little unusual. In a good way!

When I envision violent attacks against Asians, somehow, I don't see it happening there.

[fujiyama]

55. Unfortunately

I recall reading about one very violent attack in San Francisco of all cities, after 9/11. I'm sure Seattle had several hate crimes as well.

Attacks against minorities happen everywhere. Big cities have their share of idiots.

[BlooInBloo]

26. Completely false. I've lived in Seattle for over 20 years, and that has NEVER been true.

[Bicoastal]

27. BTW, the Freepers were hoping the gunman was Muslim...

...up until the very end, even going so far as to research the number of mosques in China.

If we lived back in Puritan days, you can bet that the Freepers would be the ones holding the torches and pitchforks and crying "Wiiiiiiitch!"

[BlooInBloo]

29. Of course - xmas for them is a mulsim terrorist killing Americans IN America.

[pink-o]

43. The second-best choice for freepers...

...would be a Latino Immigrant--legal or illegal.

O'Reilly and Dobbs would have creamed themselves if that had been the case.

Racist pigs.

[roamer65]

15. Escort him around campus as much as you can.

If you cannot do it, find sympathetic friends who will. When I was in college, I had a couple of evening classes and would escort women back to their dorms or other housing.

[whoneedstickets]

18. Take him down before he goes postal too...

...quickly, we can't trust any of 'em at this moment. :sarcasm:

[coalition_unwilling]

20. The alleged shooter was a permanent resident of the U.S. who had

lived here since he was 7 years of age. The shooter was no more or less Korean than Saddam Hussein is (or was).

[BlooInBloo]

56. Yah... THAT matters....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_Internment

[KharmaTrain]

21. Koreans Are A Very Communal Society

Chicago has a large Korean population and for several years I worked with members in that community. These people were very ambitious, intelligent and worked in a strict hiarchachal structure. You could see the pressures to excel and to conform at the same time...this along side the pressures of American society.

Unfortunately a majority of people in this country couldn't tell you the difference between a Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese person. It's interesting that the initial reports were that this young man was Chinese and on a visa (this came out of Michael Sneed (a woman) from the Chicago Sun-Times and Keith O. cited it last night)...we now know that report was false or planted (Sun-Times is owned by Conrad Black).

Hopefully you're in a big enough community where he can find people who look beyond the skin and the surface and at the person. Sadly, I'm sure we'll get some kind of immigrant bashing out of this...but it only brings up what was already there...not a bad thing for him to know.

Please tell him to be proud of who he is and look at those who attempt to stereotype or belittle him as sad, pathetic fools.

Peace...

[ScreamingMeemie]

23. As a resident of Michigan, living almost smack dab in the middle of

the largest arab population outside of UAE... I don't blame him. Some of the stuff witnessed here after 9/11 was downright disgusting.

[seabeyond]

24. What should I tell him?... that we love him, dont blame him and the majority

of the nation is able to recognize the act of one single individual, ... and a small percentage of prejudice will use this for hate. that i am sorry, and hope it does not come to his door. but if it does, know, most all of us are bettr than that, stand behid, and support him,.... and all the best

[Bluerthanblue]

44. wow- yes, please tell him what Seabeyond said- and say it for me too-

that summed up what I'd like to convey as well. - perfectly-

thanks-



blu

[Penndems]

32. You can tell him that he didn't pull the trigger

This was ONE madman who HAPPENED to be Korean-American. That isn't an indictment of an entire race of people.

If the murderer had been another race, another gender, another ethnicity, it wouldn't have changed anything. A mass killer is still a mass killer. There is good and evil in every group.

[leftofthedial]

34. tell him to leave the country

or pretend to be a Mexican. No, wait. That might get him lynched too.

Could he pass for a white guy? If so, don't let him post on DU, but otherwise, he'll be fine.

[treestar]

38. Point out that the shooter came over to the U.S. at age 8

Grew up in, educated in the U.S.

[librechik]

39. tell him most Americans are tolerant and understanding

unlike we are portrayed

[Lisa]

40. my dad says to tell him -- "this too shall pass"

My family is of Japanese extraction (and we were "extracted" and living in North America decades before WWII). Dad remembers the whole mass internment thing (and at least some things have changed enough that the government didn't succumb to the right-wing loonies and repeat that particular experiment). They let him out of the camp in the spring of 1945 (even at a time when they weren't sure how long the war would go on, perhaps because it had become evident that the Japanese-Americans and Canadians weren't the problem they'd been made out to be). Dad says that he spent VJ Day in his apartment with the door locked, just in case ... but he adds that things did get better from then on.

It will take a whole lot more than one loony -- or George W. Bush, for that matter -- to get the whole society thinking that Koreans are evil. Remember, Reverend Moon and the Kim dynasty have been around for decades, and no reasonable person thinks any less of Koreans because of them. I know that the "unreasonable" ones will probably be saying dumb things -- but they likely can't tell Asians apart anyway, and they have a very short attention span. When I do have racist slurs hurled at me from passing cars, I take some comfort in the fact that they always use the wrong one .... the c-word or g-word, not the n-word ... I mean, the OTHER n-word. (And the last time this happened, I started running after the car, yelling, "that's 'nip', you ignorant honky!" -- he was so scared that he floored it.)

Anyway, this is just one of those things that happens ... if your roomie is still stressed by next weekend, why don't you have a nice little dinner with a few friends, to cheer yourselves up? It's almost BBQ season, and I happen to know that Korean BBQ is some of the nicest around. One of my Korean high-school classmates (she's a doctor in Toronto now) gave me her mom's recipe for "kalbi", the type with Coca-Cola and ripe pear, and it's always the first thing to be gobbled up at potlucks.

[HughMoran]

41. Relax

In time all this crap will fade.

I'm done with it myself - no more of it is allowed to beam from my TV...

[MoonRiver]

42. I've been wondering about that.

But I really think the public's attention will focus on easy access to guns. Even freepturds will have to concentrate on how easy it should be for all those foreign "evildoers" to get wmd.

[JVS]

45. I'd tell him not to worry too much.

I don't think people are connecting this guys ethnicity very closely with the crime. There might be a little bit of people making bigoted jokes connecting it with the stereotype of asian students as being high-strung or stressed out from familial pressures, but Americans are good at recognizing a crazed gunman for what he is rather than assuming it's part of some kind of global movement.

[BlooInBloo]

46. I wonder if any of these tut-tut-there's- nothing-to-worry-about white folks will admit...

... being "mistaken" if we hear about an uptick in crimes against asian folks in the coming days/weeks/months.

[JVS]

49. Sure. But I see a lot of dissimilarities between now and post 9/11

not only in magnitude but in situation. Has Fox news shown footage of people celebrating this in Seoul? Has this young man been linked to an organization that views itself as part of a war of cultures between traditional Korean values and the West? What has been the reaction in the past when members of other minorities have commited school shootings? I don't recall reports of a wave of violence against black people in the aftermath of the school shooting in Flint Michigan.

[Catherine Vincent]

47. His best bet is to stay far away from freepers.

You will have to show him how to seek out the freepers. :)

[Dukkha]

48. my Korean girlfriends is the same way

and she has been attacked by skin heads in the past. Our region have some very scary racists and is a well know KKK hq. We'll have to be very selective on where we go for a while.

[BlooInBloo]

50. And I highly recommend ignoring all white folks who say "everything's ok".

[tammywammy]

51. My co-worker says he isn't worried

He's Korean.

Maybe it depends on where you live.

[flying_monkeys]

53. I would suggest he not go around alone for a week or so.

Safety is in numbers.


(I have no doubt the freeper types would love to jump him or any other Asian for this event. People have been jumped for less - - so tell him to keep his wits about him, don't go around alone and steer clear of any place where Bubba and the boys/Freepers might be having a brew over the weekend.... And remind him it will pass.... )

[fujiyama]

54. Anyone blaming immigrants for this is fucking stupid

He could just as well have been a white guy like many of the other shooting rampages.

Plus, this guy was here since he was 8 years old. He's likely a product of American culture.

But I also worry for the thousands of "loner" Asian students...and whether people will wonder if they're also ready to blow up like Cho.

I don't think this incident has anything to do with SK, South Koreans, Asians, or immigration. It has to do with one guy who was very fucked up in the head.

[jberryhill]

58. Relax

The last time that Koreans got together and started shooting, they killed 54,000 Americans.

We made a comedy television show out of it that lasted 11 years.

Seriously though, the US made a tremendous sacrifice for the freedom of South Korea. One nutjob doesn't change that.

[nam78_two]

62. He would be ok except for about 29% of the populace

You know who they are...

I made the mistake of going over to Freak Republic to see what they are saying. I don't think the entire country would be that stupid, but Freepers yeah :-/...
Long reams of speculation on whether the guy was "obsessed with Caucasian women etc." :puke:...Its scary how close some of those people are to outright skinheads :puke:.

[StarryNite]

63. Sadly there are people

who would blame his culture for the bloodbath. Look how many people still blame the Iraqis for Sept. 11 and not a one of those terrorists were Iraqi. There is a lot of hate in this country and a lot of people just looking for excuses to hate. It makes me sick.