An Unfortunate Tendency

LA TIMES: Gregory Rodriguez - Gunman was one of us
The Virginia Tech killer is a reflection on all of us, not just a single ethnic group.
April 23, 2007

WHAT IF YOU don't have anything in common with your brother? What if you live on different continents? What if you've never even met the man? Are you still his keeper?

In a diverse nation such as ours, there is always that expectant pause after a major violent tragedy, between the moment we hear the news and when we're told who did it. In that time, we tend to look around the proverbial room and wonder from which group the perpetrator came. Last week, the point of origin was South Korea, and Seung-hui Cho's ethnic "brothers" in Asia and the U.S. grappled with their relationship to him.

Of course, a murderer's ethnic, religious or racial background is relevant only if he is acting on what he thinks is a tribal imperative — like the Armenian teenager who gunned down the Turkish consul in L.A. in 1982, or the 2001 plot by Jewish Defense League leaders to bomb the office of Arab American Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista).

But even when ethnicity or race add little to the understanding of motive, there is still the "need" to know. It's scary to think that everyone and anyone is capable of murderous rage. So if the bad guy can be pigeonholed based on skin color, origin or class, the fear can be focused, one group at a time.

Such profiling is silly for lots of reasons, not least that we live in a country that exalts individual over group identity. Not long after Timothy McVeigh slaughtered 168 people in Oklahoma City, I caught myself profiling a potential threat outside the Federal Building in Westwood. I saw a working-class, blond white male with a mullet cut running toward the building, and I jumped.

Although I understand the unfortunate tendency to consciously or unconsciously ascribe responsibility by group, I still don't think governments and ethnic organizations should endorse this sort of stereotyping. After the Virginia Tech killer's identity was released last week, the South Korean president and many Korean American associations did just that.

Even though 23-year-old Cho was a permanent resident in the U.S., South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun felt obliged to issue at least three messages of condolences for an act that occurred far away from the Korean peninsula.

Here in the U.S., Korean American organizations issued cravenly self-serving condolence statements to the victims of the massacre. In a news release, one organization promised that "the Korean American community will join the efforts of others in tackling the root causes of these senseless school shootings that continue to endanger our children and young adults." In L.A.'s Koreatown, there was a candlelight vigil held, well, in clear daylight.

Although part of this ethnic reaction is driven by fear of a backlash, South Korea's famously defensive nationalism also plays a role. Hunkered down in the shadow of China and Japan, South Korea has always felt a need to watch its back.

Ultimately, though, any reaction that reinforces primitive notions of racial or ethnic collective responsibility is headed for absurdity. That includes the scramble on the part of Koreans to express special outrage over the murders, and the mainstream's desire to move Cho to a convenient margin. Late last week, U.S. news outlets tried to draw connections between Cho's menacing self-portrait with a hammer and South Korean film director Park Chan Wook's gory 2005 psycho-drama, "Oldboy."

But the truth is that Cho was an American kid. He had lived in the United States since he was 8, and he was clearly immersed in the dark side of U.S. popular culture. In his video ramblings, he compared himself to the Columbine killers; he spoke English-major English.

All of us knew Cho, and, like it or not, he was one of "us," not the ultimately elusive "them." His horrific crimes are not a reflection on Korean people — immigrants or Korean Americans — but rather on the state of our cities, campuses, counties and country. We all were, and are, his keepers.

grodriguez@latimescolumnists.com

Toyota Enters NASCAR

NY TIMES: The Jingoism 500
By MICHAEL YAKI
Published: February 17, 2007

TOMORROW, ordinary citizens will be bracing themselves against the howling sound of Japanese engines throttling up and bearing down on their beloved American heroes. No, it’s not a squadron of dive-bombing Zeroes re-enacting Pearl Harbor. It’s the Daytona 500, the kickoff to the Nascar season, and for the first time in Nascar’s history Dodge, Chevy and Ford will be joined by ... Toyota.

Japan’s biggest car company, which is poised to overtake General Motors as the largest car manufacturer in the world, has entered the hallowed tracks and pit rows of that most American of race circuits, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. But to hear some Nascar fans talk, when those engines fire up it will be Dec. 7, 1941, all over again.

The war metaphors have been brought to the fore by Jack Roush, a prominent racing team owner. Mr. Roush has said that “we’re going to war” and that he’s preparing himself “for siege.” He has accused Toyota of having bought its way in, of raising the costs of owning a team and generally spoiling the pot. Other Nascar columnists, pundits and fans, even a Web site dedicated to being “against racing Toyotas,” have chimed in against the auto maker’s entry into Nascar.

Nationalism and pride in one’s country can be admirable traits. Nationalism, however, is the razor’s edge in the American psyche, where just a push turns it into xenophobia. Nascar, like so many professional sports before it, may soon be faced with a situation where deliberate ignorance of simmering prejudice is not an option.

I am an American of blended Asian ancestry, including Japanese, and a certain insult — a word as odious as its counterpart for African-Americans — sets me off. That word has been flying fast and furious in many Nascar-related forums and chat rooms. It offends me so much I cannot even abbreviate it here. One person wrote that “we don’t need any foreign nameplate in Nascar.” Others have taken up the “if you love them so much go live in Japan” theme and, curiously, wondered that if the Iraqis built a car would drivers of Japanese cars “become fans of the terrorists?”

The drivers hired by Toyota have been subject to the same opprobrium. Dale Jarrett, whom Nascar has named one of the 50 greatest drivers in its history, has been called a sell-out. Michael Waltrip, a Daytona winner, has been invited to “leave America” with his Japanese truck. (His recent woes at Daytona, including accusations that his team was cheating during qualifying, have only increased the vitriol.) Nor have the up-and-comers Brian Vickers and Jeremy Mayfield been spared. In blogs and on fan sites all have been characterized as traitors for driving “rice burners.”

Although team owners like Joe Gibbs and Rick Hendrick have welcomed the competition from Toyota, Nascar itself has said little during the rants and grumblings, apparently hoping it will all die down. That is unacceptable. There are, of course, Asian-American Nascar fans, and several of Nascar’s races are held in California, the state with the highest population of Asian-Americans.

Nascar’s goal has always been to ensure competition from inside the cockpit, not on the outside. It is all about devising a race where one variable — human skill at 200 miles an hour — is prized above all. When I watch the races (I am a fan; my mother-in-law is an uber-fan), I am fascinated by the men and the occasional woman maneuvering around banked tracks at speeds I cannot fathom with the touch of scrimshaw masters. I am not thinking of a Chevy Monte Carlo or a Dodge Charger or a Ford Fusion — or a Toyota Camry. I am watching Jeff, Junior, Tony, Mark and all those others with the courage, talent and sheer guts it takes to withstand, much less win, a 500-mile race when my legs cramp up after a leisurely two-hour drive.

Nascar’s roots in the South’s “good ol’ boy” mentality are a part of its lore and charm that cannot be denied. Movies like “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Talladega Nights” both spoof and glorify its origins. Its partnership with the American auto industry is also a part of this history, born in the myth that you can drive the same “stock” car that Richard Petty drove to victory. But Nascar has become a global superbrand, still undeniably American yet ubiquitous enough for the world’s best — not just auto manufacturers, but racers like Juan Montoya, the Colombian who has dominated Formula 1 — to want to test its drivers and its superspeedways.

More than 20 years ago, this country feared that Japan would take over American industry. It didn’t happen. But today the Big Three are still on the ropes and, combined with Chrysler’s recent layoffs, a Toyota victory in one of Nascar’s events could reawaken latent fears of Japanese domination. We cannot forget that in 1982 a young Chinese-American, Vincent Chin, was killed in Detroit because two autoworkers assumed he was Japanese. Apparently there remain embers just hot enough to re-ignite the flame of racism.

You can be pro-American, and you can declare that Americans should buy American cars. But doing so involves a degree of hypocrisy. Today an “American” car could have been assembled in Mexico, or had most of its parts manufactured offshore. And Dodge, part of the Chrysler brand, is owned by Daimler of Germany. Yet I don’t hear anyone disparaging the patriotism of the racers driving Dodges. It’s another indication that the opposition to Toyota is rooted not in patriotic pride, but racism.

Along with millions of others, I will watch the Daytona 500 tomorrow. There would be nice symmetry if the Great American Race also meant that in the arena of race relations, Nascar, like all major professional sports, were to take measures to reject the appearance and insinuation of intolerance and prejudice in its ranks.

Michael Yaki is a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

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You can be pro-American, and you can declare that Americans should buy American cars. But doing so involves a degree of hypocrisy. Today an “American” car could have been assembled in Mexico, or had most of its parts manufactured offshore. And Dodge, part of the Chrysler brand, is owned by Daimler of Germany. Yet I don’t hear anyone disparaging the patriotism of the racers driving Dodges.

Exactly.

Sing A Song Of Bush

NY TIMES: State of the Union: Another Take
By RANDY NEWMAN
Published: January 24, 2007

Randy Newman, the singer, songwriter and composer, performed this song at Carnegie Hall in 2006. It will be released soon online. This is an abridged version.

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country
By Randy Newman

I’d like to say a few words
In defense of our country
Whose people aren’t bad nor are they mean
Now the leaders we have
While they’re the worst that we’ve had
Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen

Let’s turn history’s pages, shall we?

Take the Caesars for example
Why within the first few of them
They had split Gaul into three parts
Fed the Christians to the lions
And burned down the City
And one of ’em
Appointed his own horse Consul of the Empire
That’s like vice president or something
That’s not a very good example, is it?
But wait, here’s one, the Spanish Inquisition
They put people in a terrible position

I don’t even like to think about it
Well, sometimes I like to think about it

Just a few words in defense of our country
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now we don’t want their love
And respect at this point is pretty much out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend

Hitler. Stalin.
Men who need no introduction
King Leopold of Belgium. That’s right.
Everyone thinks he’s so great
Well he owned The Congo
He tore it up too
He took the diamonds, he took the gold
He took the silver
Know what he left them with?
Malaria

A president once said,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded
And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid
That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean

[To the first eight bars of “Columbia The Gem Of The Ocean”]

You know it pisses me off a little
That this Supreme Court is gonna outlive me
A couple of young Italian fellas and a brother on the Court now too
But I defy you, anywhere in the world
To find me two Italians as tightass as the two Italians we got
And as for the brother
Well, Pluto’s not a planet anymore either

The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

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O boy O boy! I can't wait to hear the song! Too bad the article doesn't say where it'll be available, or when...

UPDATE - NONESUCH.COM: The song will be available exclusively at iTunes on January 30. I've also included the section that the Times cut out, printed here in red.

Exactly!

NY TIMES: Editorial - Safe as Milk?
Published: January 6, 2007
The Food and Drug Administration’s assessment that food from cloned animals is safe to eat is a victory for biotech companies and a loss for everyone else. Like many decisions on the cutting edge of agricultural technology, it was hurried along in a way that is more sensitive to political and economic pressure than to the long-term welfare of animals, humans and the world they inhabit. Asking whether cloned meat and milk are safe is not even the right question. The right question is, why clone at all?

Approving food from cloned animals will create another food-labeling nightmare and the same aggressive litigation that usually blocks any attempt to tell consumers where their food comes from.

But cloning has much worse consequences. It marks a revolutionary shift — from the relative randomness of sexual reproduction to the apparent uniformity of asexual reproduction. Because cloning creates genetically identical animals, it will shrink the gene pool on which agriculture rests, and any drastic shrinkage in genetic diversity creates enormous health risks for a species.

Cloning isn’t just a matter for the F.D.A. to decide. It is up to us as a society to decide as well. We should be asking much broader questions than the F.D.A. is able to. Who will cloning benefit? What will it do to the health of the animals themselves?

But the most important question of all may be this one: Are we willing to judge the suitability of new technologies in ways that fully address their ethical and biological complexities? Or are we doomed to give in to politics and the bottom line?

Interesting Op-Ed Piece

COMMONDREAMS.ORG:
U.S. Tanks Will Roll out of Iraq on a Road Paved with Excuses
Published on Tuesday, November 14, 2006
by Robert Fisk

"Great news from America!" the cashier at my local Beirut bookshop shouted at me the other morning, raising her thumbs in the air. "Things will be better after these elections?" Alas, I said. Alas, no. Things are going to get worse in the Middle East even if, in two years' time, the U.S. is blessed with a Democrat (and democratic) president.

For the disastrous philosophers behind the bloodbath in Iraq are now washing their hands of the whole mess and crying "Not Us!" with the same enthusiasm as the Lebanese lady in my book shop, while the "experts" on the mainstream U.S. East Coast press are preparing the ground for our Iraqi retreat -- by blaming it all on those greedy, blood-lusting, anarchic, depraved, uncompromising Iraqis.

I must say Richard Perle's version of a mea culpa did take my breath away. Here was the ex-chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee -- he who once said, "Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform" -- admitting he "underestimated the depravity" in Iraq. He holds the president responsible, of course, acknowledging only that -- and here, dear reader, swallow hard -- "I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said: 'Should we go into Iraq?' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies ... ' "

Maybe I find this self-righteous, odious mea culpa all the more objectionable because the same miserable man was shouting abuse down a radio line to me in Baghdad a couple of years ago, condemning me for claiming that the U.S. was losing its war in Iraq and claiming that I was "a supporter of the maintenance of the Baathist regime." That lie, I might add, was particularly malicious as I was reporting Saddam's mass rapes and mass hangings at Abu Ghraib prison when Perle and his cohorts were silent about Saddam's wickedness and when their chum Donald Rumsfeld was cheerfully shaking the monster's hand in Baghdad in an attempt to reopen the U.S. embassy there.

Not that Perle isn't in good company. Kenneth Adelman, the Pentagon neocon who also beat the drums for war, has been telling Vanity Fair that "the idea of using our power for moral good in the world" is dead. As for Adelman's mate David Frumm, well he's decided that President Bush just "did not absorb the ideas" behind the speeches Frumm wrote for him. But this, I'm afraid, is not the worst to come from those who encouraged us to invade Iraq and start a war that has cost the lives of 600,000 civilians.

For a new phenomenon is creeping into the pages of The New York Times and those other great organs of state in the U.S. For those journalists who supported the war, it's not enough to bash Bush. No, they've got a new flag to fly: The Iraqis don't deserve us. David Brooks -- he who once told us that neocons such as Perle had nothing to do with the president's decision to invade Iraq -- has been ransacking his way through Elie Kedourie's 1970 essay on the British occupation of Mesopotamia in the 1920s. And what has he discovered? That "the British tried to encourage responsible leadership to no avail," quoting a British officer at the time as concluding that Iraqi Shiites "have no motive for refraining from sacrificing the interests of Iraq to those which they conceive to be their own."

But the Brooks article in The New York Times was also frightening. Iraq, he now informs us, is suffering "a complete social integration" and "American blunders" were exacerbated "by the same old Iraqi demons: greed, blood lust and a mind-boggling unwillingness to compromise, even in the face of self-immolation." Iraq, Brooks has decided, is "teetering on the edge of futility" and if U.S. troops cannot restore order, "it will be time to effectively end Iraq," diffusing authority down to "the clan, the tribe or sect" which -- wait for it -- are "the only communities which are viable."

Nor should you believe that the Brooks article represents a lone voice.

Here is Ralph Peters, a USA Today writer and retired U.S. Army officer. He had supported the invasion because, he says, he was "convinced that the Middle East was so politically, socially, morally and intellectually stagnant that we (sic) had to risk intervention -- or face generations of terrorism and tumult." For all Washington's errors, Peters boasts, "we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy."

But those pesky Iraqis, it now seems, "preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption." Peters' conclusion? "Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it." As a result, "it's their tragedy, not ours. Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future ..." Incredibly, Peters finishes by believing that "if the Arab world and Iran embark on an orgy of bloodshed, the harsh truth is that we may be the beneficiaries" because Iraq will have "consumed" "terrorists" and the United States will "still be the greatest power on Earth."

It's not the shamefulness of all this -- do none of these men have any shame? -- but the racist assumption that the hecatomb in Iraq is all the fault of the Iraqis, that their intrinsic backwardness, their viciousness, their failure to appreciate the fruits of our civilization make them unworthy of our further attention. At no point does anyone question whether the fact that the U.S. is "the greatest power on Earth" might not be part of the problem. Nor that Iraqis who endured among their worst years of dictatorship when Saddam was supported by the United States, who were sanctioned by the United Nations at a cost of a half a million children's lives and who were then brutally invaded by our armies, might not actually be terribly keen on all the good things we wished to offer them.

Many Arabs, as I've written before, would like some of our democracy, but they would also like another kind of freedom -- freedom from us.

But you get the point. We are preparing our get-out excuses. The Iraqis don't deserve us. Screw them. That's the grit we're laying down on the desert floor to help our tanks out of Iraq.

Robert Fisk writes from the Middle East for The Independent of Britain.