blur
so, the day was blurred. i did not watch any news, but by reading my daily blog fix, i still learned stuff about the tragic virginia tech massacre and i am still shaken.
i don’t know if i would have reacted this way if i am not a mother. i don’t know. i mean, i look at my 4 and 2 year old boys, and i want to cry. you know, it is just so unthinkable. you look after them like they are more important than life itself, and then, just like that, they can be gone. reality is just getting scarier by the minute.
then, there is another thing. yesterday, when they did not give out the shooter’s name yet, we were at the edge of our seats waiting for a name. “just a name”, everybody kept saying. “we don’t have to see his face, we’ll know by his name, and maybe then we can relax a little bit”. i was quiet, but i will be lying if i will say i did not pray “please let it NOT be a filipino. PLEASE.” because i did, maybe more than a hundred times. i didn’t exactly know then, but i know now.
i was talking to a friend on the phone tonight. and she blurted out: “buti na lang hindi siya pilipino, kasi kung pilipino, ano na lang ang mangyayari sa atin dito?” (it’s good he is not filipino, because if he is, what will happen to us here?) to which i answered. “i know, it’s good.”
i am embarassed that i said that, that i agreed with my friend’s sentiment that “it’s good”, but it is the truth. it is not good, but i was looking out for myself. no matter how multicultural and open america is with immigrants, this is still not our home, and we will never belong here in the purest sense of the word belong. the truth is, this situation will hurt the koreans just as much as it will hurt the filipinos if the shooter happened to be a filipino. there is no cure for generalizations and judgment, and there is no way there will be no repercussions involving race, based on this tragedy. now that i realized i have this huge selfish ideas, i feel worse.
but my mood will clear up, right? i have seen worse things than this. i have had worse self discoveries than this. i have been more shaken than this. it will pass. eventually, it will.
It is sad when the actions of one individual (or a small group of individuals) define what many Americans feel/think about a certain race or ethnic group. As someone who is half Latino, I always cringe when I see reports where the perpetrator is a Latino man or woman. You are not the only one who feels that way May. I understand exactly what you mean.
Comment by Student Nurse Nancy — April 18, 2007 @ 4:59 am
I did not even think about it that it might have repercussions against other immigrants. To me it is the person, I think people are smarter than to blame all immigrants for something that one of them did. (I’m an immigrant too by the way). I can imagine though that it would really hurt if a fellow countryman had done this.
Comment by annemiek — April 18, 2007 @ 6:14 am
I understand what you say about being glad it was not a Filipino. What you say about race is sad but true. Only rich white males are not judged by the color of their skin.
Comment by Lisa — April 18, 2007 @ 7:24 pm
I never imagined that people thought this way. I never would have thought that someone would blame an entire “race” based on what ONE man does. Never. I can’t imagine thinking that way either.
And for the record I think LISA’s comment about “ONLY RICH WHITE MALES ARE NOT JUDGED BY THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN” is an ignorant statement.
I guess I choose not to label people or see them by the color of their skin, but by their actions as a human being. How dumb of me to assume we’ve come so far…
Comment by kimmyk — April 18, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
I agree with kimmyk. The Unabomber killed lots of people, the guy that blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City killed lots of people… and they were both white. We did not condemn all white males. We did, however, heavily judge those two men for their actions.
AND THEY WERE WHITE MALES.
I can certainly think of other white males, even rich ones, that were judged very heavily for their actions. Kenneth Lay, Bill Clinton, that one Congressman who was all wound up in kiddie porn… Rich, white, and heavily judged.
I think the reason that Muslims were treated poorly after 9/11 was that the terrorists claimed to be acting for Muslims in the name of their religion, therefore an entire culture/religion was wrongly ostracized by many ignorant Americans.
However, the shooter yesterday was not acting in “the name of Koreans,” so I don’t think people (even the ignorant ones) can judge the entire race. I don’t agree with how many Muslims were treated after 9/11 at all, and I don’t think the majority of Americans will look at that man and condemn all Koreans, nor would they condemn all Filipinos if he had been Filipino.
I explained this theory to my husband and he brought up the point that we live in a very Asian dominated and generally tolerable region of the US. This is true, I guess. I hope the rest of the nation doesn’t go the way of what happened after 9/11.
Comment by geena — April 18, 2007 @ 7:53 pm
i actually also felt relieved that the shooter wasn’t a filipino…. but hey, we don’t easily fall into depression
Comment by Rygel — April 19, 2007 @ 6:02 am
just to clarify:
it’s not the big things really. it’s the small things like: you introduce yourself to your patient or anybody for that matter, then they ask where you came from, then you say “i’m a filipino”, then they will ask “the guy who killed all those people in …he was filipino, right?” then, you are clueless as to where the conversation should go…and why it even went there in the first place, or what is the relevance of the question at all, if not to imply that therefore, i too am a killer, because i too am a filipino.
i guess it’s not just any particular race, it is just that as human beings, there are a lot of times when we speak first before we think. i am quite drained when conversations like these are going on, even if it is pointed to a different race…just the usual feeling of tiredness towards generalizations and judgment, just because one came from the same place or race. i am just emotionally tired of all these i guess.
thanks for your comments….
Comment by may — April 19, 2007 @ 8:00 am
Because I teach, I remain an optimist. We must do a better job of education so that stereotypes lose their influence. I work at accomplishing this goal every day and I am cheered by recognizing that I am surrounded by teachers who do the same.
Onehealthpro
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