What lovely weather – finally spring outside, not reserved to the tulips in my office at work.
Time Magazine’s Lisa Takeuchi Cullen posts on her blog the Asian-American journalist’s dilemma in covering the Virginia Tech story. It made a lot of sense to me – you don’t want to make race/ethnicity the issue, but then again, you want to present a full picture. And the dilemma doesn’t make it easier when you feel personal about it – you may feel relieved if the shooter isn’t from your own ethnic group (since, after all “Asian” covers a lot), but in the end, the shooter is still from your group (“Asian” to the outsider is just “Asian” – as if the outsider cares whether one is Korean, Chinese, or what – we are all going to be seen as the “foreigner,” the marginalized, etc.).
Charlie Rose interviewed a panel on Thursday night that included Columbia Law Prof. Patricia Williams, Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel, and others, covering the Virginia Tech story, the Supreme Court’s decision on (so-called partial-birth) abortion, US AG Alberto Gonzalez, and the presidential election in France. I thought Time’s announcement on putting the Virginia Tech kids on the cover to be a good idea and Stengel’s argument on Rose’s show was persuasive: put the emphasis on the loss – the pride of potential – not on the murderer (who has his own issues, to be certain). I’d also say let’s not forget what we as a society may have to figure out. NY Times had a similar approach – and it resembles the Profiles in Grief that they had done after 9/11/01.
The pictures of the Virginia Tech struck at me for being a portrait of the diversity and spirit of American universities today – from the professor who was a Holocaust survivor and survivor of Communism and protected his students, to the RA who was a band guy and a soon-to-be engineer, to the hardworking Asian-American freshman and so on. It reminded me of how it was when I was in college, and how we can all empathize over what had happened at Virginia Tech – goodness, it could have been anyone. Crime on campus is not what we want to imagine, when we look to academia as our safe haven.
Slate’s Explainer explains why the media hasn’t quite figured out whether to put out the Virginia Tech shooter’s first name first or last name first (Asian style); apparently, ABC went with the American style in a quicker manner, after consulting with its own Korean/Korean-American staff. I think ABC made the better decision – it’s not like the guy was a foreign student – he was a green card guy – which means first name first, last name last (at least for the purposes of being in this country). Perhaps I’m being narrow-minded in that line of thinking – but it did kind of bothered me that the media seemed act like it was trying to be “sensitive” about the nationality thing – as if they were thrown off by Cho’s non-English name. If his name was “John” Cho, would they have gone with Cho John? I’d doubt it, but I guess his lack of an English name put him in even more isolation, which is sad to think about.
Come to think of it – Friday’s Slate has a lot of interesting articles. One fascinating feature – a slide show essay by David Segal on the history of racist advertising mascots, in light of the new portrayal of Uncle Ben (of Uncle Ben’s rice) on the company website as Ben, CEO, of the rice company (thanks to Slate and Segal for the link). Almost laughable, if it isn’t kind of sad. Segal observes that this is apparently also consistent with, say, the evolution of Aunt Jemima, who no longer wears a kerchief – but wears pearl earrings because, well, she too is the fictitious CEO of the company (okay, maybe not quite, but check out the website, where they –profile the history – that in 1989, they ditched the kerchief and in 1992, “During a frozen package redesign Quaker tilted Aunt Jemima’s head into a more upright position,” and notes that, today, “The Aunt Jemima products continue to stand for warmth, nourishment and trust – qualities you’ll find in loving moms from diverse backgrounds who care for and want the very best for their families.” Diversity wins, hands down, thank goodness; but, hey, Jemima still wants you to eat well).
Hell, Madison Avenue even did it to Betty Crocker (we just don’t have the same racial connotations with Betty Crocker – no, just sexist ones) – transforming her from housewife to CEO… who still bakes brownies. (thanks to Wikipedia for the link to the website on the evolution of Betty Crocker; can’t seem to track down the latest image of her as a multi-ethnic woman; the official website of Betty Crocker seems to have a treasure trove of recipes and stuff – I won’t criticize, as I don’t cook/bake/etc., and I grew up on that stuff, so really, I can’t criticize!).
Met’s re-opening of the Greek-Roman galleries – having removed the old cafeteria, we can now see the Romans in their better glory – well, the NY Times’ Michael Kimmelman previews it – and it looks great, at least from the Times’ website feature anyway. So looking forward to going up there soon and seeing it!