A Thirsty Victim

This is the OpEd I submitted to the Tufts Daily in response to this column by Will Ehrenfeld. Let the flaming begin.

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A Thirsty Victim
By Robert Siy

Before I begin, let me say that I have not taken Race in America with Jean Wu. I have never before college lived in America, I wouldn’t even say that I identify as Asian American. But as an Asian man living in America now, I share a part of the lived Asian American experience in the way that I am seen and perceived because of my appearance, and in the messages that I am sent by society and media as a half-Filipino, half-Chinese man living in the United States. It is from there, and my experience of racism in my own country, that I make my arguments.

On April 14th, 2009, The Daily published an article by Will Ehrenfeld in his regular column Stuff Tufts People Like entitled “Alleging Bias.” This, apparently, being something that Jumbos are fond of. Going off of the theme of his previous column where he elucidates the Tufts “thirst for victimhood”, what better way to quench that thirst than by crying big, white, racist wolf at every turn? Somehow it’s a mark of “uniqueness” and exoticism to belong to some marginalized group, and how better to express this uniqueness than by telling everyone how exotically victimized you are at every chance?

Disturbed as I was by some of Mr. Ehrenfeld’s remarks, I was able to keep my victimhood in my pants long enough to realize that Mr. Ehrenfeld, just as he says about the freshman who got in a “physical altercation” with the Korean Students Association, is in all likelihood misguided and misinformed. Terribly misguided and misinformed, but that isn’t his fault, and it’s not entirely the kid’s fault either. We pay Tufts $50,000 a year and the least they can do is not make us culturally insensitive reprobates.

Mr. Ehrenfeld seems confused about whether or not this is a “bias incident.” To be honest, I’m not sure if this is a bias incident either. The term (which was invented at Tufts and to my knowledge is only used as a classification at Tufts) is so vague and broad that it in itself does not do much to inform anyone about what the hell is going on.

I’ve got another term for you to think about, though. According to KSA’s accounts, the freshman started the physical violence, and no one, not even him, denies the fact that he called the students “chinks”, their dance “the gayest sh-t”, and told them all to “go back to China.” At any other school, the freshman wouldn’t be accused of a “bias incident.” He would be accused of a “hate crime.” It doesn’t matter whether or not he said the words before or after somebody got hit. If he used the word “gay” as an insult and “chink” with the intention of degrading someone, it’s hateful speech. It’s not like your brain only decides you have something against Asians minute you call them “a bunch of chinks.” That word was in his arsenal of obscenities as a golden bullet for the express purpose of hurting Asians. He used it, so he should be made to answer for the damage that it caused.

Yeah, it would be a whole different story if the kid were harassing a group like say, TDC. If he just mocked their dance and started a fight with them, Mr. Ehrenfeld is correct in arguing that it would not be a bias incident. He’d just be another dumb, drunk, and disorderly freshman if the dancers he harassed just happened to be heterosexual white students.

But what if, for example, the dancers were black? What if he called them “niggers” and told them to “go back to Africa”? I defy anyone to speak out like they do about this incident that such a case wouldn’t be called a hate crime.

And here’s where I disagree with Mr. Ehrenfeld. The issue here isn’t that Jumbos are running amok in fight clubs or that violence “has so pervaded our school” that violent conflict is hardly a big deal anymore. At least we have a proper task force to deal with violence – they’re called the police. The issue here is precisely racial insensitivity, and what is appalling to me was that it took a conflict involving physical violence to draw attention to something which many Tufts students have not spoken out on for fear of being labeled thirsty victims whining over something that isn’t a “big deal.” The power of racial slurs to hurt people is rooted in far more than one person’s ill intent. Words like “nigger” and “chink” carry with them memories of anger, hatred, and exclusion that will never be taken away. Just check your dictionaries and history books to see how for years and years these words were used in conjunction with violence to degrade, alienate, and destroy.

This pain is forever etched in the records of humanity – to forget the meanings of these words would be tantamount to denying the history and consciousness of entire peoples (Before anyone denies racism against Asian Americans, give a google to the tune of “Vincent Chin”). Racist and homophobic slurs work on a different level than ordinary “obscenities”, and this is why they are such a “big deal”: they degrade entire populations that people have been raised to take pride in belonging to. They foster division, intolerance, and fear for no reason other than differences in appearance and behavior. There is no one who belongs to a racial, sexual, or religious minority that has not once in their lives felt the pain associated with being unwanted for something they could not change about themselves. There is a problem here when students can use these words against other students and claim that they are no more hurtful than mere insults, and that they somehow can be excused in a drunken haze in the heat of the moment.

You can’t deny the hurtful power of words like “chink” and “nigger” any more than you can deny the Holocaust. Of course, if you want to deny the Holocaust, that is your right of free speech in this country and at this institution. But it is the right of victimhood-thirsting, bias-alleging, overly-PC Asian men like myself to call you out on your ignorance.

Robert Siy is a Junior majoring in International Relations.

NOTE: if the word “nigger” is censored, I requested that the daily append this paragraph:

“By the way, the fact that the Daily will print “chink” but won’t print the n-word should be telling.”