<p>Also, certain people are just crazy. An article talked about how his writing was a bit twisted. You really can't generalize these things anyway.</p>
<p>well I am asian, and its all a tragic news to all but my parents was overreacting about the gunman being korean. they were saying that from now on people will now hate all koreans or discriminate koreans and all kinds of stuff and even how it will affect the immigrants and residents.... I HOPE these won't become true, cuse im not a citizen :( RIP VT victims</p>
<p>There are always idiots that come out of the woodwork, but I really don't think that people will harbor bad feelings about Koreans because of this incident. I think most people will group him with the nutso shooters in the past....and not focus on his ethnicity.</p>
<p>Well after the post 9-11 backlash which was severely felt by the Arab commnity in the USA and how many were denied visas etc , your feelings are completely justified. However since this was simply 1 persron acting alone , it wont affect South Koreans too much. Visa Issues would continue like normal. In the first month following the shooting , maybe the South Korean community maybe a little insecure and things may be uncomfortable but after that it should all return to normal.</p>
<p>I don't know if this is the right time to post this, but right now, I'm really angry at the VA Tech administration after reading this article. </p>
<p>It's obvious that Cho was crazy, but apparently, there have been so many signs for the last 2 years that he was psycho, and yet, he was allowed to remain at the school. </p>
<p>He's previously stalked 2 girls, set fire to a dorm room, eerily took pictures of his classmates, and wrote very violent and macabre papers. According to the article, only 7 out of 70 students would come to one of Cho's classes because he freaked out people too much. His poetry professor Nikki Giovanni threatened to quit unless Cho was removed from his class. Professors gave him A's because they wanted to keep him happy because they thought he might do something crazy. Another professor, Lucinda Roy decided to tutor Cho one-on-one and advised him to go to counseling. She even warned the school about Cho, and they did nothing about it.</p>
<p>At first I was angered about the school not warning the student body about the 1st killing until 2 hours later, but can we talk about the 2 years of Cho giving explicit signs that he was crazy, and yet, he remained a student on campus?</p>
<p>This entire event has made me incredibly sad for all the families who have lost a loved one and for Virginia and this country in general.</p>
<p>Did anyone hear what the words "Ismail Ax" mean? I heard that he wrote them on his arm...</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for the term's meaning, one popular theory spreading across the web comes from a story in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, about Ibrahim and his son, Ismail.</p>
<p>In Islam, Ibrahim is known as the father of the prophets and, upset that people in his hometown still worshiped idols and not Allah, he smashed all but one statue in a local temple with an ax. Ibrahim's son is Ismail, who also became a prophet. Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, who plays a significant role in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.</p>
<p>Two theories come from literature, where Ismail is spelled Ishmael.</p>
<p>In one, tied to James Fenimore Cooper's novel "The Prairie," Ishmael Bush is known as an outcast and outlawed warrior, according to an essay written in 1969 by William H. Goetzmann, a University of Texas History professor. In Cooper's book, "Bush carries the prime symbol of evil - the spoiler's axe," the professor wrote.</p>
<p>Also, the narrator from Moby Dick, Ishmael, is considered an enigma who is well educated yet considers his time on a whaling ship worthy of time at Yale or Harvard, according to education site Sparknotes.com.</p>
<p>Other theories speculate that Ismail Ax could be a reference to Cho's nickname on a video gaming site or that it is a misspelling of Turkish hip-hop artist Ismail YK.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I believe that this is a time when all of us CC members have to show our maturity and not be bothered about whether the killer was Asian or whatever. Being part Asian myself, it is true that he has disgraced the Asian community but I dont think we have to worry.. Everybody in VT and the whole United States understands that we as a community arent this way.. They're perception towards Asian isnt going to change....</p>
<p>I know for a fact that not all koreans are this way...
Lets all pray to god to give strength to those who have lost their loved ones in this tragedy...</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
It's obvious that Cho was crazy, but apparently, there have been so many signs for the last 2 years that he was psycho, and yet, he was allowed to remain at the scho
[/QUOTE]
I think the rationale behind keeping Cho in school is if the he was kicked out of school suddenly, he'd come back and shoot people anytime. They tried to keep the guy in school and provided him with counseling. Sadly it didn't work out.</p>
<p>yeah i think people at VT tried their best..</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. They really opened my mind... I've been also worried about the killer's ethnicity like so many people, including my parents. Also, this is my own opinion but I think the killer's family is at fault in this case. I've heard from the news that his mom didn't have much conversation with him and he was very cold to his family.</p>
<p>No one can really understand the dynamics of family vs nature. Every child is different, they react differently to their environment and if their difference is counter to your own characteristics they are difficult to deal with. You cannot judge the results so cavalierly and lay blame on the mother. Sometimes a monster is a just a monster and that is all there is to it. No matter what we want as explanations. Sometimes there are none.</p>
<p>yeah.. the family vs nature argument has been around for ages with no real winner i think..</p>
<p>well people are very stereotypical. even though race might not matter to us, it might to many others.</p>
<p>yeah soybrains ur probably right..</p>
<p>i mean, i admit that i thought cho was a disgrace to my ethnicity (i'm korean) the first time i heard the news. but after hearing so many responses to this situation, i'm not ashamed anymore. redhare is right. we shouldn't care about the race. what matters [more] is the people who died in the VT shooting. race comes afterwards. and yes, koreans are one of the most insecure ethnicities out there. even though it might seem like we have wayyyyy too much pride, that's what makes us so vulnerable to shame. since we're so into [showing] pride, one little thing that shouldn't bring us down much, actually makes our pride go down the drain. i don't like how koreans are very much into their images, but that's just a part of our culture. </p>
<p>but that's also what kind of angers me. all what koreans care about is how they'll be portrayed in society. never have they thought about those who got killed 'cause of the shooting. self-centered much, are we?</p>