Has the Asian character been in previous seasons? I noticed the eerie timing of his appearance -- a violent, alienated Asian kid who had a hard time at college.

Yeah aglee, "Asian-ness" really has a lot to do with it. If the character had been a violent, alienated kid who had a hard time at college but was instead white, would you have included "white" in your description? I'll answer for you: "no." And then I'll ask a question: "Why not?"

@willie

I would. You white guys have earned it.

Well they would comment that the shooter is "white" but they certainly wouldn't call him "European-American" like the media does to any other ethnicity... It seems that they regard the "European-Americans" as somehow the indigenous, or "real" Americans and then you have the rest like "African-Americans" etc.

I believe this should change. As far as I understand, the US is considered to be a "melting pot" of cultures and ethnicities, so no particular ethnicity can claim to be the most American, or the rightful American (except maybe the native Americans...)

End of rant.

would you have included "white" in your description? I'll answer for you: "no." And then I'll ask a question: "Why not?"

Thank you for having my side of the discussion for me, and for, I'm sure, making a very insightful point.

If he was white, I might not have noticed any similarities to the VT killer, so I probably wouldn't have posted at all. But in fact he's Asian, and in another part of the episode brings up problems he had pleasing his father with his academic performance. His ethnicity is relevant to the character.

Note: I'm not suggesting the character was added or made Asian for any particular reason. Any similarity to the VT guy is obviously a coincidence.

Well they would comment that the shooter is "white" but they certainly wouldn't call him "European-American" like the media does to any other ethnicity

When I say "African-American" (or "African-Canadian") its because I don't feel comfortable saying "black" for some reason. Since when is it a bad thing to be Something-American? Don't the characters on the Sopranos call themselves "Italian-Americans" sometimes? Perhaps I should go even further and say "of African descent" or "of Western descent" when I identify people by their apparent heritage? With milk, or without?

I have the opposite discomfort Frenetic does -- I'm perfectly comfortable saying "black" but I'd feel awkward saying "African-American." I realize this is a little vague, but something about the term feels a little forced to me.

There's also the fact that "African-American" doesn't express what I usually mean. There are whites from Africa, and not all blacks are of African descent. So I usually don't mean "an American of African descent"; I usually mean "a black-skinned person."

It's true "black" as in "dark-skinned" isn't exactly what I mean either -- I usually don't mean to include, say dark-skinned Middle Easterners or Hispanic people. But it's closer to what I mean, especially if I'm talking about how society treats the person.

Aglee, thanks for the response, and hey, I didn't mean to impute anything in particular about you, whom I don't even know. I think Omar up above gets at the point I was imputing: when the shooter or other sort of criminal is white, that rarely gets mentioned, much less played up, as Cho's ethnicity is in this case.

The vast majority of such shooters are white (or European American), and thus there is a profile there, a pattern of similarity that should rasie some discussion about itself, as in, "Now why is it that almost all of these many, many shooters are white?" But that doesn't happen. Such a thing does happen, though, about other ethnicites when one exception, like Cho, pops up as an exception to an (apparently invisible) rule.

I wish I could claim credit for realizing this problem, this bit of evidence of white America's blindness to the implications of its own whiteness. But I can't--Tim Wise showed it to me here:

"School Shootings and White Denial" http://www.alternet.org/story/10560/

Maybe we should just say "person whose skin color is approximately RGB 153/102/0, Pantone™ #7512." ;)

Thanks for the link, Willie.

And Frenetic -- good idea. We could set up a system using color swatches like the kind they use in paint stores. And when we fill out a form asking our ethnicity, we could staple a color swatch to the form... :)

That won't work for me, I live in 16-bit color.

Willie and Omar, if we are honest, we realize the real core of America, that Real American's, are of English and Dutch ancestry, period.

Oh, and possibly Scots.

If you are not a Van Something-or-other, a Sykes, Smith, or Cole, or possibly a Monroe or Buchanan, you aren't really a real American. :{

Irish?

Of less value than [N-word here]s.

:{

What am I smoking?

What was "E=" McEinstein smoking when he insisted on coordinates in Spacetime? Space AND Time.

I mean it's like concentric circles. The Faces of power may be Kennedys, Reagans, Clintons, Powells, and now, nauseatingly, McCains, but the Wealth*, Fortunes, and Location at the center of web(s), with few enough exceptions to totally upset the balance (Soros e.g.), go back to the families some of whom actually have roots as far back as the "dark" ages, incredible continuity of power and influence, like surfing Gods.

(Incredibleness inspires incredulity, I know all too well, pace Carl Sagan.)

The outfits, e.g. Halliburton, are chess pieces in a game we, most of us, want to know no more than a little about, for our own goods (and services).

*don't be deluded by income, income has a twin, outgo, as it does [go (out)] for many a Sports, Entertainment, and Lottery-winner figure.