If you have been following the news lately, you might have heard of the story of the truck driver in Chinatown who left his van unattended in reverse, which then crashed into a group of children killing two. You might also have heard about the student at Virginia Tech who was having a coffee with a fellow student when he all of a sudden decided to lop off her head in the middle of the coffee shop.
The one common denominator in all of this is that they’re all Asian. Why are Asians involved in so many unsavory headlines these days? I guess the truck driver can get a pass since it was an accident, and you hear about crazy shit happening like people driving their cars into storefronts and what not all the time who aren’t Asian. But he still doesn’t do much for the stereotype of Asians being inept drivers.
Both of these incidents are tragedies, so I’m not trying to dismiss one as being better or worse than the other. But as far as the Virginia Tech incident goes along with the incident in Toronto and the first Virginia Tech incident, I’m worried about what ramifications these will have on the image of Asians in America. Maybe I’m just more sensitive to the whole race thing because I’m Chinese, but I just can’t help but feel that Americans will associate “Asian” with “crazy”. I don’t want people thinking that Asians have these unresolved issues that manifests itself into a beheading or mass murder of some sort.
Because Asians have their fair share of crazies, just like everyone else.
