ching chong ching chong

yes. it is offensive to say that to an asian person that you don't know. incredibly ignorant. it will probably exacerbate the problem if you do the slanty eyes.

Virginia Tech

Biggest news recently obviously has been the 'massacre at virginia tech'. We all know the story. 33 people dead including the shooter. Korean born loner that couldn't take it (is 'it' his own insanity?) anymore.

When I first heard about the shooting, I was really surprised, but that was really the only emotion that I felt. As time went on and this story was the only thing covered on the news and people started to change their facebook profile pictures to the black ribbon with Virginia Tech logo and show their empathy, (sympathy? i never can get these two straight) I still didn't have profound emotions. Some people are deeply moved by this event, but to be perfectly honest, it doesn't significantly move me. I've watched a lot of the news and seen a lot of students and faculty share their feelings, but I think that death in the news becomes so routine that it's hard (and impractical) to get shaken by every story of death.

During the first two days when NBC did their broadcasts, they talked almost exclusively about the massacre. One of the only times they stepped aside was to report that their were many deaths in Iraq in that same time. There were more deaths in Iraq during the concurrent time span. The differences being that this massacre is closer to home, and in a much different context than we are used to.

What I do take away from this, is the fragility of life. It's weird to think that these people had no idea that they were going to die that day. To think that the last time that these kids were with their family was the last, unbeknownst to them.

...Oh yeah, last night I was at a Mos Def show in SLC and they had a moment of silence. There were a lot of idiots that kept on yelling things, but the dumbest thing I've EVER EVER EVER heard in my life was a redheaded kid saying to his friend, "Did you hear that guy yelling 'penis' during the moment of silence? That was so funny."

IDIOT.

what is an american?

I've had two run-ins with the definition of american. Recently, one of my friends, in a room of with a mexican american, filipino american, and me (japanese american) and the dialogue was as follows

him: "i just realized i'm the only american in here."
me: "no you're not."
him: "yes i am"
me: "i'm american too."
him: "no. you're japanese."
me: "i'm just as american as you are."
him: "well you know what i mean."

let's remember that i'm a 4th generation american. my family has been in america for over 100 years.

in another one of my friend's assignments, there's a statement that says "I'm not white, I'm american."

This is stupid because the two are not mutually exclusive.

Here's where people get confused:
Ethnicity=The county of your ancestors. (My ethnicity is Japanese)
Nationality= The status of belonging to a particular nation, i.e. citizenship. (My nationality is American)

Let's be clear that ethnicity has nothing to do with nationality. Let's also remember that American has nothing to do with being white.

Don't let yourself appear ignorant and think that only white people are American.

the reason for this blog.

Recently I've been trying to be more informed. This has lead to more reading, more news watching and basically just keeping my ear low to the ground to actually know what's going on in the world. As a result, I have more on my mind and more to say. I don't really feel like clogging my other blog with a feeling of cynicism and complaint, so I started this blog. I don't particularly care if anyone reads this one, but I just like being able to let my ideas go somewhere other than my mind.

One thing recently on my mind has been the issue of race.

The most recent race-related headline is involving Don Imus, a long time CBS radio jockey. Commenting on the Rutger's women's basketball team, who recently lost the NCAA women's basketball championship, (I personally couldn't care less about women's basketball. It's a boring sport. I couldn't care less about men's swimming either. It's nothing gender related, it's more of an issue of me not liking boring sports) said they're a bunch of "nappy-headed hos".

Now I am one that personally thinks that black people pull the race card too often, but this was ridiculous. Nappy headed hos? Are you kidding me? I can't imagine what was going through his head when he was saying that. Possibly he was trying to regain the loyalty of the KKK. Possibly the Heman woman hater's club, but Buckwheat would have been offended for sure.

All anyone really asks for is some tact. I hate it when people get all crazy on being politically correct, calling janitors sanitation engineers and similarly inane titles, but let's not be idiots. Politcal correctness, or maybe more practically, common sense is something everyone should try to embrace.