Margaret Cho on Virginia Tech Shooting

To me, his race is irrelevant. I do have a problem with the gun store selling him a gun when he had already been found incompetent by a court and a psychiatrist. I also have a problem with a resident alien, non-citizen being able to purchase a gun. He even put them on his Visa, knowing he would never even have to pay for them.

To the commenter who claimed white people built this country, perhaps you need to peruse some more historical references. It was the Africans who were brought over to work as slaves that did a lion’s share of the work. When slavery was outlawed, they were replaced with Chinese and Indians (Asian) who were paid slave wages. Without this free and finally cheap labor, this country would not have been “built”. This is why neither party, both of whom are in the pockets of the corporations, have any desire to stop illegal immigration. Businesses rely on cheap labor to turn a profit. It would be very easy to solve the problem. Prosecute the employers and it would stop immediately, but that will never happen.

Thank you! The first thing I thought when I heard he had killed 33 people was well he was an English major we do tend to get terribly depressed, our options for a career are so minimal these days…no seriously, Margaret said exactly what I was thinking, this has nothing to do with him being Korean, more like he was totally insane and he’d been checked into a psychiatric ward last year. It’s the fault of the mental health system, discharging people who they know can not only be capable of harming themselves but other people as well…they just don’t want to rehabilitate anyone who doesn’t have enough of health insurance, and for that matter health insurance BARELY covers ANY thing having to do with mental health. So therefore, Americans are more likely to be insane because they can’t afford the meds or anything to keep them sane. Not that the current system allows for that either, but you get my point…

em:
The only news I have heard about Cho’s behavior as a child is that he had difficulties in speech, but that he was well-behaved. As well, his parents moved to the U.S. early on, for the children. Cho has lived in AMERICA for most of his life. Clearly his problems went unaddressed not only by his parents, but by the U.S. education and other systems.
Did you get the info. from a Korean media source? They have tendencies to exaggerate or even fabricate stories sometimes… At one point, they reported that there were over 50 victims who had passed away and that his parents attempted suicide.

What a load of crap. The only person I have even heard bring up the race card is this Cho woman. Sick people come in every form fashion and race! Obviously Cho “the shooter” had no problem race wise. He showed no prejudice in his shootings! The only people having a problem with race are the people that keep on using that card to try and get something wether it be sympathy or money. Either way it is pretty pitiful to try and turn this tragedy into another race issue, which it definantly not!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070422/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_koreans;_ylt=AhvboVIaps5nKNIasXgkrbZH2ocA

Virginia Korean community still reeling
By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer
Sun Apr 22, 7:27 PM ET

Korean Americans in the community where Seung-Hui Cho grew up are still reeling from the shock of learning that the Virginia Tech gunman was one of their own. But many say Cho was a stranger even among the tight-knit families who were his neighbors.

Cho moved to northern Virginia when he was 8 and was raised in a growing immigrant community where the pressure to succeed was overwhelming and seeking mental health care carries a stigma.

After the slayings, Korean Americans held prayer meetings and candlelight vigils as they struggled to understand how Cho slipped through the cracks.

“I think we failed him as a society at large,” says Josephine Kim, a mental health expert who also emigrated from South Korea at age 8. “I think our community failed him, the school system failed him, and definitely the immigrant life really failed him.”

Cho, 23, left South Korea with his family in 1992. He and his older sister, Sun-Kyung, belong to what Korean Americans call the “1.5 generation” — those born in Asia but raised in U.S. and fluent in English by the time they reach high school.

Their parents, Sung and Hyang Cho, found work at a Washington-area dry cleaner, a business that has attracted many Korean immigrants. And like nearly three-quarters of the Korean community in the United States, the family attended a Korean church for a time. The children attended high school in nearby Chantilly.

A friend and high school classmate of Sun-Kyung Cho, Diana Hong, says Sun-Kyung was an overachiever — smart and accomplished. But she worried about her younger brother, who relatives said was unusually quiet and classmates say was sullen and withdrawn.

“From the beginning, he wouldn’t answer me,” Kim Yang-soon, Cho’s great aunt, told AP Television News on Thursday in South Korea. Cho “didn’t talk. Normally sons and mothers talk. There was none of that for them. He was very cold.”

She said the family was told in the U.S. that Cho suffered from autism — but no records show such a diagnosis.

When her brother landed at Virginia Tech as a freshman, Sun-Kyung Cho asked friends to watch out for him, Hong said.

“The very first time we went to his dorm room, we were like: ‘Hey, I know your sister …’ But he just nodded, and that’s it,” she said.

Cho didn’t respond to further invitations and e-mails, Hong recalled.

Hong said her heart sank when she heard last Monday about the shooting at her alma mater. Later that day, she learned a friend was among the wounded, but would survive. On Tuesday, she discovered Cho was the shooter.

“He was very alone. He didn’t talk with anybody,” Hong said, twisting her hands. “Maybe we didn’t try enough. I guess these questions come up in hindsight.”

Sun-Kyung Cho said in a statement Friday that the family was “heartbroken” by their son’s actions.

“We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence. He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.”

Many wonder why Cho did not receive more help — and why school officials or police failed to intervene, allowing a troubled young man to buy a pistol.

Kim, who specializes in depression among Korean Americans, characterized Cho as an “internalizer.”

“They’re not disruptive,” she said. “Those students are withdrawn and isolated, and even though we see that as a problem, because it’s not disruptive, often they slip through the cracks.”

And she said Korean society — Confucian, patriarchal, and steeped in pride, dignity and the importance of family — has long viewed mental illness as a taboo topic best kept in the closet.

Many Koreans consider it “a sign of bad blood or a sin to be depressed, Kim said. “It’s against our culture to talk about these things.”

In immigrant families, the generation gap often is exacerbated by the cultural divide of parents struggling to make ends meet while their children try to become American, she said.

“Every Korean immigrant kid goes through it. And I think some come out stronger and better, and for some, it’s really tough and they can’t get over it,” Hong said.

Kim, whose younger brother, Paul, was a classmate of Cho’s at Virginia Tech, said she did not know the Cho family personally. But she speculated that “the parents really wanted to provide the American Dream for their kids, which required that they made superhuman sacrifices working really hard.”

“That might have meant they didn’t have enough time at home with their kids. It’s often kids raising themselves,” said Kim, speaking by telephone from Cambridge, Mass.

Little is known about Cho Seung-Hui’s childhood and upbringing and what triggered Monday’s rampage.

“Regardless of what circumstances shaped Seung-Hui Cho’s life, I think this is an important time for the Korean-American community to reflect on how to take better care of the young people who feel like they’re on the margins,” said Heidi Shin, whose family lives in northern Virginia. “It’s an absolute tragedy but we as a community have to figure out to learn from it.”

The Chos, like many Korean immigrants, settled in the outskirts of the Washington suburbs. Centerville, about 26 miles from the nation’s capital, had been known as an enclave for young, working-class families seeking more affordable housing in affluent northern Virginia.

Though still predominantly white, Centreville is more than 14 percent Asian, and Fairfax County was home to more than 28,000 Koreans, according to the 2000 Census, making it the sixth-largest Korean-American community. And that number is clearly rising, residents say.

Northern Virginia — wealthy, competitive and awash with high-achievers — is not an easy place for any teenager. But studies suggest adolescence is especially hard for young, Asian-American males, many of them conscious of the burden of living out their parents’ dreams.

Kim cited a 1993 study in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease that showed the prevalence of depression higher among Korean Americans than other Asian Americans subgroups — and highest among Korean-American males.

Cho’s classmates say Cho was a solitary, quiet figure who wore a low-riding backpack and was teased for his mumbled speech.

Charles Hsu, a Virginia Tech student, said he never knew Cho. “I’m pretty in with the Asian crowd at Virginia Tech but not many people knew him. I don’t know how he went under our radar; usually Asian Americans tend to flock together.”

Hsu is Chinese-American, but he joined about 150 Korean Americans who gathered Friday night at their church in nearby Herndon. Candles flickered on coffee tables, photos of the 32 killed lined the walls, and the U.S. and South Korean flags hung on the walls.

“We respond to this tragedy as Americans and as Koreans, so let’s pray for this nation, that this nation will heal,” the Rev. Dihan Lee said in prayer.

Many sobbed openly. After praying, they scribbled messages of condolences and faith on Hokies banners to take back to the Blacksburg campus.

But Lee urged worshippers not to be ashamed of their Korean heritage.

“Right now there’s a lot of shame being passed around, but it’s really important to understand: This is not our shame … even though we sense it.”

Gee now I know how it feel to be black in America. Just think if I was black in Korea. No difference. So get over it or do something about it. Call it racism but I have the upmost respect for black people because I dont like it when I am single out because of the way I look.