By now, most everyone is aware of yesterday’s tragic events as well as much of the aftermath, including the identity of the mass murderer as Cho Seung-Hui.
While more information will continue to surface, we’ll leave the “breaking news” to other outlets who have full-time staff covering the events.
Speaking of professional journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) issued a media advisory yesterday urging media to use caution in how the suspected shooter’s ethnicity factors into any coverage.
Here is an excerpt of the original statement on 4/16:
As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people.
The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage.
We further remind members of the media that the standards of news reporting should be universal and applied equally no matter the platform or medium, including blogs.
A second, follow-up media advisory released by AAJA on 4/17 says the following:
Now that the identity of the suspected shooter at Virginia Tech is known, AAJA cautions the use of his heritage or immigrant status in news coverage.
We understand the need to research the background of Seung-Hui Cho (first name is pronounced “sung hee”) and to provide details about him as a nation struggles to make sense of the horrific incident.
But we are disturbed by some media outlets’ prominent mention that the suspect is an immigrant from South Korea when such a revelation provides no insight or relevance to the story. The fact he is not a U.S. citizen and was here on the basis of a green card, while interesting, should not be a primary focus in the profiling of him. To highlight that suggests his immigration status played a role in the shootings; there’s been no such evidence.
We remind the media that the use of racial and other identifiers must be accompanied with context and relevance. Without it, we open the door to subjecting an entire people to unfair treatment or portrayal based on their skin color or national heritage.
For the record, although I am currently not a member of AAJA, I have attended various AAJA functions in the past and may possibly join in the future. I am all about “supporting the community,” “fair and accurate coverage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” etc, etc.
That said, I have to say that the first media advisory suggesting coverage should “avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason” is an odd request given the context of the breaking news. Without official confirmation of the killer, the only information used to describe the gunman was that he was “Asian.” Various reports added other details, such as what he was wearing. But at the time of a breaking news story, the best information journalists had to go on was eyewitness reports, most of whom described the gunman as being “Asian.” That seems to be a pretty compelling and germane reason to bring a racial descriptor into use, at least in that cursory manner. Yes, it would have been unfortunate if that information was wrong, but in this day in age, people still identify others visually by race and any eyewitnesses and victims who described the gunman described him as such.
Regarding the second media advisory, it is obvious that AAJA’s language has changed: “We remind the media that the use of racial and other identifiers must be accompanied with context and relevance.” (No more request of “compelling and germane.”)
That is probably because there was quite a bit of backlash against the request against using “racial identifiers” as descriptors. And considering the request came from an organization that describes itself using a racial identifier (Asian American Journalists Association), it’s no surprise that some people found the advisory a tad hypocritical. (Note: In case it’s not clear, *I* am not saying the AAJA was hypocritical… just saying that some people thought that.)
In fact, here is what one former AAJA member, Christine Suh, has to say:
I hope members out there are as perplexed as I am by the advisory, but the fact that the group’s leadership thought to promote such a poor practice tells me there are members out there who agree that ignoring the identity of the shooter would be acceptable in this story. [full story]
Here is the response from Jeanne Mariani-Beling, AAJA national president:
The comments made by Christine Suh mischaracterize AAJA’s position. AAJA never advocated “ignoring the identity of the shooter” as Ms. Suh stated. Our media advisory, which was issued yesterday prior to the identity of the shooter being released, dealt specifically with using race as an identifier. [full story]
Here is a sampling of other coverage and reactions:
::newsbusters:: ::Asian Journalists Call for Censorship:: ::CBS News:: ::Asian American Journalists Association: Embargo Race And National Origin of Killer Cho:: ::Missing From the News::
There has been some concern about how Cho’s killing spree could potentially create a backlash to Koreans/South Koreans/Korean Americans/Asians/Asian Americans/etc. What about the backlash to the AAJA? Just blog search AAJA this week for more reactions…
All that said, I do personally feel that there seems to be an over-emphasis on Cho’s immigrant/nationality status and I do hope that other contributors to 8Asians will address this in the days to come. Additionally, I also want to state for the record that I am glad there is an Asian American Journalists Association out there with thousands of reporters dedicated to good journalism and avoiding “unfairly portraying an entire people.” I am glad there is an organization to issue such media advisories, if necessary. However, as much as I want to say race isn’t a factor in this particular story, it’s becoming pretty clear to me that in the eyes of many Americans, it is.
Subscribe to our mailing list
Get the day's stories from 8Asians.com, delivered to your inbox every evening at 6:00pm PST.
If you have been following the news today then you are aware of the horrific and tragic events that have unfolded this morning at Virginia Tech. First, I’d like to send my heartfelt sympathies to the families of all the victims, many of whom may not know at this moment that their loved ones were harmed.
I first heard about this developing story when I arrived at work and logged into my gmail. I saw the message under the screenname of my brother’s girlfriend “Campus shooting. Under lockdown.” She is a student (graduates next month) at VT who lives on campus. I immediately IMed her and was glad to hear that she was okay. I have been on IM with her all morning, keeping up with the latest news reports as we get them. She still under lockdown in her dorm, waiting for formal evacuation even though it has been hours now.
I was shocked when I realized how close her dorm is to West Ambler Johnston Hall (site of the first shooting in the dorm); WAJ is literally up the hill from her dorm. We heard that the first shooting was a result of a guy arguing with his girlfriend, an RA approached them about the argument and he shot the RA and his gf. I am not sure if this is true, but the report on the other shootings in Norris (Engineering) building is that the gunman lined people up and shot them executioner style.
The gunman is reported to be a male, “Asian, wearing a vest with an “ungodly” amount of ammunition, firing at will.” I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some speculation about race in this event. (We all know about the stereotypes about Asians and engineering.) Over the weekend there were closures due to multiple bomb threats to the Engineering building. With the bulk of the deaths occurring in the Engineering building today, one wonders if there is a connection.
While much more about this story will undoubted be revealed over time, I’d like to take this opportunity to set one thing straight. There is a photo of an Asian man getting cuffed (arrested) being circulated on the AP with the following caption:
An unidentified man is arrested. It is unclear what role he played in the shooting
The crack newsteam at 8asians wants to be first to report that the Asian man seen being cuffed in this photo is Shaozhuo Cui, a photographer for the VT student newspaper. HE IS NOT “THE SHOOTER!” The only thing Shao can be accused of shooting is photographs. Without having heard from him yet, I assume that maybe he got too close to the action before the police took him down. (We will try to get Shao’s story here.)
Many people are circulating this photo of Shao and “connecting the dots” between the alleged Asian gunman and this image.
While that’s an interesting thought, all reports are currently reporting that the actual gunman is dead by his own hand…
More to come on this developing story…
UPDATE: Luboš Motl reports a rumor with further details about the identity of the gunman.
According to unconfirmed rumors available to The Reference Frame, the killer was a 6-foot tall male Asian student between 20 and 25 years
from Radford University whose girlfriend from Virginia Tech left him.[From Ernie: The killer has been verified as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year old Senior from South Korea.] He had two guns and wore a vest with too much ammunition.In the morning, he went to her dormitory. She was not there so he shot her roommate and some staff of the dormitory. They didn’t shut down the university, so he continued and tried to find the girlfriend in the classroom. He didn’t know the exact location, so he has shot a couple of classes and then himself.
UPDATE: Continuing coverage at metblogs/DC and PlanetBlacksburg
UPDATE @ 5:04pm PST: Shao’s been released, according to the live news conference happening right now. They didn’t name him by name but they said but the “student that was taking pictures and was handcuffed” and now been released.
Shopping With GASP!
Mid last week, a premature leak on President Bush’s immigration reform plan caused a stir within the Asian American community.
The plan in a nutshell:
- Illegal immigrants would have to pay $3,500 for a Z work visa. They would also be required to renew that visa every 3 years and pay the same amount for each renewal.
- For a green card, an illegal immigrant would have to leave the U.S., apply for it at a U.S. embassy, and additionally pay a $10,000 fine.
- Finally, the plan would severely limit the ability of legal immigrants to bring their parents, siblings, or children over 21 into the U.S.
If passed, this law would substantially affect Asian Americans, especially considering that China, Vietnam, and India are among the top 10 countries whose immigrants arrive by family sponsorship. Liberal API activists are calling Bush’s newest immigration plan “inhumane” and “un-American.” Some community leaders, like the executive director of OCA (Organization of Chinese Americans), are calling this plan the modern day Chinese Exclusion Act.
Though my feelings on immigration law are currently mixed, the analogy of this reform plan to the Chinese Exclusion Act is a preposterous hyperbole.
So as you’ve probably figured out by now, we’ve added two new writers to the 8 Asians site: Akrypti and Claire. Each of these writers definitely bring new opinions and voices to the proverbial blogging table, and that is a very good thing. (That shouldn’t stop you from applying to be a writer for 8 Asians if you so desire; life happens, after all, and god forbid if and when writers drop out of the project, we’ll need new blood to take their place. Wow, that makes me sound like vampire.)
This is all well and good, of course, but you’re probably wondering – doesn’t that turn “8 Asians” into… well, “10 Asians?” Well, technically, yeah. But because I’m the editor, I make the rules. And the rule says that I, as an editor don’t really count, although you’ll see me post here every so often. The same also goes for Christine, who is in charge of POP 88, our podcasting sister site – this explains why our images are grayed out at the top of the screen.
And that, my friends, is how 8 + 2 = 8. And people say Asians are good at math.
For all you Asian and Asian-Americans – have you ever noticed that there are certain assumptions or stereotypes made about you in a work setting?
One of the most common stereotypes I have found is that at a meeting with outside parties or at a tradeshow in the past, people would always assume that I am an engineer (I do have a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering), instead of just asking what I do (product management & marketing). Maybe I should dress better to look the part! But seriously, this annoys me a little bit. But I guess that is better than “Driving while black“…
Superstitions are abound in Asian cultures, but that didn’t deter me away from bringing you a show filled with good music.
New music from Namie Amuro plus your chance to win a box set of English-subtitled Korean Drama SPRING WALTZ c/o YA Entertainment.
For those in the Toronto area, check out HOT DOCS – The International Documentary Film Festival happening April 19-29. For more info please visit www.HOTDOCS.ca. Continue Reading »
“Plastic surgery is on the rise in ethnic communities across the United States, and in Asia it is as routine as having one’s wisdom teeth pulled. Are these alterations an attempt to look more ‘white’?”
Of course it is.
I read that preface to Andrew Lam’s piece, Are Asians Increasingly Undergoing Plastic Surgery to Look More White? (March/April 2007), an article that has now been reprinted in nearly a dozen different publications, and wondered why people still bother to pose that question. In the end, Lam reaches the conclusion that the new generation of plastic-surgery-seekers are not interested in looking more “white,” but only want “to look natural but better.”
Under this assumption then, Asian women flock to get blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, and breast augmentation because natural Asian beauty consists of double lids, a high nose, and big boobs. Right. Asian pop stars are shaving their jawbones, whittling away their moon-faces to look more like the modern day Xi Shi, the quintessential beauty of classical Chinese lore, who by the way, was described as having a perfectly round, oval face, not the well-defined features of a Greek goddess.
The “to look natural but better” justification really means “to look like I was simply born with Westernized features and therefore innately prettier than other Asians who still look like slanty-eyed puerile mongoloids.” Then toss in the fact women see all other similarly-situated women as arch-nemeses. “To look natural but better” spoken by an Asian woman who just got nipped and tucked comes off as a passive-aggressive euphemism for “Though I still want to look Asian, I want to look better than other Asian women, which to me means I should look as Euro-Western as possible, but I won’t say that out loud because it’s so un-PC.”
ITASA = Intercollegiate Taiwanese American Students Association 2007 West Coast Conference!
“This year’s theme: “Rekindling the Flame” and it is directed toward Taiwanese American students of the West Coast. However, … [we] welcome all who have an interest in attending.
Start browsing this site to learn more about the conference…
Announcements and Updates Register today!
Guest speakers include:
* Collin Chou (Seraph from The Matrix series)
* Justina Chen Headley (Young Adult Novelist)
* Dr. Larry Diamond (Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute and Expert on Democracy in Taiwan)
* Tyson Mao (One of the world’s top competitive Rubik’s Cube solvers, Contestant on Beauty and the Geek 2, and Rubik’s Cube Consultant to Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness)
* Johnny Hi-Fi (Britpop band who has toured with Taiwanese rock star Zhang Zheng-yue and appeared on MTV Chi)
* Will Tiao (Executive Producer of the upcoming feature film, “Formosa Betrayed,” and former international economist under the first George W. Bush administration)
* And many other prominent experts in issues relating to Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans
Also come network with industry leaders in law, technology, and entrepreneurship!”
http://itasa.org/2007/west/
I found this article about the pressures faced by overachieving high school girls through this blog, which explored the piece from a feminist perspective. Guess which direction I’m going to go? I am haunted by the quote from the only Asian girl in the article:
“It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”
“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added.
This girl scored perfectly on her SATs. Say what you will about standardized testing, but I have no doubt that she’s smarter than the average One Tree Hiller. While the comment was probably offhanded, I think it was a very astute observation. That is, we live in a culture that often rewards not just beauty, but hotness, as in sexiness, above intelligence. Big surprise, I know. What’s interesting to me is that Kat made this statement. Among the girls featured, she seems to be somewhat of an outsider. Not baring cleavage or wearing tight true religions, and obviously, not white.
This brings me to my point. I think outsiders are often the revolutionaries because they get to watch from well, the outside. If one is fully entrenched in something, whether it’s a culture, religion or basketball game, it’s hard to see objectively. This is why I believe us minorities are crucial in shaping this, our new home. We’re the new kids on the block who point out the absurdity of the status quo.
Continue Reading »
So, anyone that is familiar with the Web 2.0 scene is already familiar with Justin.tv, where Asian-American Justin Kan walks around all day with a wireless web video camera strapped to his head, where what he sees is broadcasted to a website, in real time. The site has ads, his housemates are producers, they all get paid, everyone wins. Think “The Truman Show,” except that Justin looks decidedly less goofy than Jim Carrey.
Well… Justin totally got laid last night.
To which follows the obvious: no, you don’t get to see any grainy, wireless Asian-guy-white-girl pornography. There was some discretion as he left the HatCam in the other room as he either had a “conversation” or “totally banged that chick,” depending on what blog you read. (His producers were totally classy and piped in a porn soundtrack during the long silences.)
What kills me is that afterwards, once you see Justin hop on his bike and random fans from another building run over to congratulate him, I think to myself: “Damn. No one has cared this much about an Asian guy getting laid since… well… ever.”
John Cho’s coming back! With Grace Park and Jane Kim in the upcoming movie West 32nd. Written by Michael Kang, a Korean American filmmaker based in New York. West 32nd is touted as a dark, urban thriller. Straight from Michael’s Xanga blog:
After hustling his way onto a homicide case, an ambitious young lawyer (John Cho) infiltrates the gritty Korean underworld of New York, searching for clues. When he meets his match in the syndicate, they’ll both do anything to get to the top. It’s a raw and thrilling race. In English and Korean.
My friend tipped me off about this upcoming (very short) Asian/Asian American film festival, Subtitle Film Festival, coming up later this week.
According to the Subtitle Media website,
The 1st Annual Subtitle Film Festival presented by Wells Fargo will showcase 9 cutting edge feature films from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. The festival will span from April 12-15, 2007 and will be hosted at the recently opened MPARK4 theatres in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
The films are as follows:
Continue Reading »
Custom Search
Recent Posts
- Asian American Commercial Watch: May Is Blooming At JCP
- Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- Winner Of The 2012 “B A Hero” Hepatitis B PSA Video Contest
- Manny Pacquiao, Filipino Homophobia And Masculinity
- The Mindy Project Makes Mindy Kaling Even More Hilarious
- Yes, We’re Open Review & Interview From LAAPFF 2012
- President Obama At Asian Pacific American Institute For Congressional Studies Annual Gala
Recent Comments
- : The referenced article interviews and talks with Chinese citizens who say they are reconsidering jobs in the U.S., and that's actually the point of the... – Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- : I'm not sure if mr. wang's suicide has any correlation to chinese people in general being more cautious in coming to the US for jobs. wang picked his engineering... – Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- : I usually think really hard when I decide on who to vote for at each presidential election, but this year is turning out more and... – President Obama At Asian Pacific American Institute For Congressional Studies Annual Gala
- : What about Jerry Sandusky? THAT OLD WHITE GUY IS FUCKING SICK! – Manny Pacquiao, Filipino Homophobia And Masculinity
- : Yeah I have the same feeling. However, I'll watch the first few episodes and hope I can be made into a believer. – The Mindy Project Makes Mindy Kaling Even More Hilarious
APA Events
Oct 14: (Seattle, WA) From Fields to Family: Asian Pacific Americans and Food
Mar 1: (Atlanta, GA) The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
Apr 26: (New York, NY) June 4, 1989: Media and Mobilization Beyond Tiananmen Square
Apr 26: (New York, NY) America through a Chinese Lens
Apr 27: (Seattle, WA) SEX IN SEATTLE 20: HAPPILY EVER AFTER. . . (the series finale!)
May 16: (Seattle, WA) May SpamORama
May 24: (San Jose, CA) Sake San Jose
May 24: (New York, NY) A Conversation with artists Arthur Ou, Hai Zhang, and Julie Quon in Conjunction with America through a Chinese Lens
Staff and Contributors
- Editors
Moye Ishimoto
Co-Editor, Editorial
Jocelyn "Joz" Wang
Co-Editor, PR & APA Outreach
- Founder
Ernie Hsiung
Founder
