The VTech Massacre might lead to racism!

The Korean newspapers have reports that the Korean communities all over America are concerned with the possible backlash of this horrifying incident, citing the aftermath of 9/11. Personally, I have met people of Indian, Pakistani, Arabians background who described how they were hassled in the streets, sometimes threatened with physical violence by fellow Americans just after 9/11 - as if they had anything to do with this.

Not possible here, you say!? Well, there was another thread in DU where someone was asking about the Korean culture as a major contributing factor! Racism begins with generalizations, and U.S. history has proved this time and time again - i.e. the Vincent Chin incident being just one.

I believe that we need to make everyone in America aware that the shooter's ethnicity/nationality is not relevant, i.e. it is not something inherent in the Korean cultural that caused this incident. So I ask all of you out there to make sure that the sins of one person is not applied to an entire racial group. To allow this would be a far greater crime!

:grouphug:

A country that can celebrate Freedom Fries deserves no respect anywhere in the world.

can bomb a defenseless nation back to the Stone Age deserves no respect anywhere in the world. Anyway, that's the way I look at it.

I agree....mental illness, as far as I know, transcends racial/cultural/national boundries. What sets us apart and makes these tragedies almost uniquely American, is easy access to guns.

...this is the sad reality of the American culture. However, it's not just the easy access to guns! There is something within the fabric of our culture that seems to continue to produce such horrors! I believe there is a more fundamental question to address here: Why does the continue to happen?

This mass murder is not a factor of Korea or how Koreans were raised.

But the potential problem is that this may become a reason for others to retaliate, especially to the Korean communities in the U.S. This is a concern expressed within the Korean media, and clearly there is good reason.

After 9/11, anyone who may have even remotely looked like they may be from the Middle East were hassled and threatened by others, even when they were Americans.

When the Gulf War happened, many Iraqi immigrants and Iraqi-Americans were harassed, even though they had nothing to do with what was going on.

In the 1980's many Asian-Americans were hassled and even attacked because they were blamed for the "Japanese" car makers taking over the American markets - i.e. Vincent Chin incident.

My concern is that this may happen again because of this incident. I've already heard of people saying things like "College admission rates for Koreans and Korean-Americans may go down next year." This is far more racist than stupid comment that Don Imus made!!!

Now, THAT is sick.

And remember too when France didn't want to send troops to Iraq jerks were pouring French wine into the gutter. People are SO STUPID.

racism will affect them. The Koreans have been racist to the African Americans and have remained silent re the attacks on Muslims. Maybe I should post this on one of their MBs.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

While there have been a few incidents of people of Korean ethnicity that have been prejudice, there have been many more instances where Koreans and Korean-Americans have been the victim of bias crime. The only difference is that these incidents are never publicized. In fact, if you check the crime statistics, Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans are the top victims of bias crimes in the U.S.

As far as your comments about the attacks on Muslims are concerned, while the Korean government may not have been able to condemn these attacks due to delicate relationship with the U.S., but many Koreans have been protesting against the whole situation in Iraq, especially when that Korean translator was decapitated some time ago.

Just because you haven't read or heard about it, doesn't mean that these things haven't happened. Also, African-Americans are not the sole victims of racism and do not solely own this problem!