What I Have Feared Has Finally Come True

College Life
1

<p>I'm Korean.</p>

<p>I am a college student (duh).</p>

<p>My friend had my room keys and wasn't giving them back to me. It got annoying so i jokingly said "give me my keys back before i shoot you" in a laughing tone.</p>

<p>Then all fell quiet. My friend and one other person with us suddenly became so serious.</p>

<p>Friend 1: "Dude, don't say that. Don't pull a Virginia Tech on us here!"
Friend 2: "You're Korean too, right?"
Me: "...." speechless</p>

<p>I didnt know how to respond. I wasn't even thinking about VT when I said that comment to my friend. </p>

<p>I'm so disappointed that I would have to be associated with VT just for being Korean, especially at such a prestigious university. </p>

<p>How am I supposed to feel about this? For now, I just laughed it off and pretended not to care or be offended. But I don't know. Now that I reflect upon it, other past incidents have come to mind.</p>

<p>For instance, I was struggling wiht my math homework (I'm not even taking an advanced class, it's basically calculus 1) so I went into my dorm hall and asked out loud, "is anyone here good at math? I need some help."</p>

<p>Immediately, four people came out, astonished to see an asian kid asking for help on his math homework. Apparently, after hearing what they had to say, they were looking forward to asking the resident asian kid for help on their math homework. Not vice versa. Wonderful!</p>

<p>Another happening: I was in my room, doing my math homework on my bed on a thursday night (for tomorrow's friday class). My friends and I were getting ready to go out to party, so I wanted to finish as much as I could before we left. Then one of friends came in and said:
"Wow! Not stereotypical at all: an asian doing math homework."</p>

<p>I guess you can never escape stereotypes.</p>

2

<p>Oh come on man… I think you’re taking them too seriously.</p>

<p>I’m of Indian ethnicity (both parents are from there) and my friends make lots of such jokes, but all in good fun; I take it in stride. I also make jokes about them and they take it in stride too! It’s all in good fun, and I think you should adopt a similar attitude because if you don’t, you’ll find that you’re offended very often.</p>

<p>I find nothing offensive about any of the examples you’ve given… except maybe people coming to you for math help because you’re asian, that could be annoying.</p>

3

<p>embrace it!</p>

4

<p>^ I agree. I’m Indian too, and I went to HS in Georgia. There were ~5 Indians in the school and 3 owned/worked at Dairy Queen. There are stereotypes (and there always will be), and you can’t expect that to change. Just be yourself and take things in stride. You have no idea how many Quickie-Mart jokes I had to endure…
You’re Asian. There’s no escaping the fact that a lot of Asians are bookworms. It’s just a fact.</p>

5

<p>■■■■■.</p>

<p>welcome to college</p>

6

<p>Ok I’m sorry but all that is not acceptable especially the VT thing. What do you think happened to Jewish people when everyone called them greedy money mongers. It led to the Holocaust. For Black people any perceived reinforcement of a stereotype leads stronger racism. What happens is that a group is dehumanized by stereotypes and it becomes ok to discriminate and disadvantage them.</p>

<p>Don’t keep quiet and pick better friends. The fact that they know you and would still compare you to the VT shooter shows that they are insensitive to you as a person and fail to see past your ethnicity</p>

7

<p>That’s just plain wrong trackbabi17…</p>

<p>People who go through life with that mentality always find something to be unhappy about. People like that are extremely annoying.</p>

8

<p>don’t take it seriously</p>

9

<p>So calling an Arab a terrorist is ok? Because that is essentially what they were doing.</p>

10

<p>Relax dude, just relax. I agree with GoldShadow…Going thru life with that 'sensitivity" only makes people more unhappy, insecure and bitter. Need to work on the paranoia a bit…and tone down the political correctness thing.</p>

11

<p>Well, I’m Jewish and have an Asian acquaintance at school and he jokingly references my Judaism with stereotypes and stuff like he’s racist but he’s really not. The whole VT thing is different.</p>

12

<p>

Haha, yes, it can be okay and even funny. It all depends on the intention of the person who said it: if the person says it as a joke or for the sake of humor, then it’s perfectly fine. You should laugh with them, and return the joke at some point; say something about them, laugh it off, have fun.</p>

<p>If the person says it with any intention of racism or prejudice, then it’s wrong.</p>

<p>I’m muslim, and I’ve definitely had friends make “terrorist” jokes. The important part? They were just that: jokes. My friends often praise my ability to take jokes in stride, and again, it’s not a one way thing. They also take my jokes in stride.</p>

<p>Like skp21 said:

</p>

13

<p>yeah i have a good friend whos arab and i always make jokes about him blowing stuff up, and he makes jokes about me being white. not a big deal.</p>

14

<p>Eh, get over it. I’m a chick in engineering and I constantly get “oh, the girl knew the answer and you didn’t! hah!” or “she wouldn’t know, she’s a chick”. Welcome to the real world.</p>

15

<p>yeah OP you’ve just gotta relax man, people here (especially college kids) will joke around about stuff like that, and if you take everything seriously, life isn’t gonna be that fun. I’m brown and I get all the standard jokes, and hell, i make fun of myself plenty of times (i do an incredible Indian accent). </p>

<p>99% of people that say those remarks mean it in pure jest, and you’ve gotta learn how to joke back.</p>

16

<p>Dude it looks like someone caught a feeling.</p>

<p>I’m Japanese and my friends would always say stuff like “KAMAKAZI” and we would all just laugh it off. They’re just jokes man, nothing more, nothing less.</p>

17

<p>TrackBabi: To cherrypick, yes, I have a very good Arab friend, and make fake-racist jokes all the time. He thinks it’s hilarious. He makes fake-racist jokes about me, and others, as do I. Don’t take it seriously.</p>

18

<p>Hey man don’t act like you were having trouble with your math. It’s cool, we all know you’re good at it.</p>

19

<p>OMG…this is proof that the system of racism is internalized in all of you. Now instead of fighting against the problem you have become the problem. Let’s hope that another Holocaust does not happen…wait there are many already happening because people laugh things off like this. Maybe you all are just too young to understand.</p>

20

<p>God, you’re histrionic. I am one of the least racist people I know, but I joke about it all the time. Because it’s funny. This doesn’t mean I’m about to go out and start cutting eye holes into white sheets. In fact, you should see it when I encounter a truly racist person. I will argue with them, and relentlessly attack their racist beliefs until they either give in or run away.</p>

<p>If you think me making racist jokes (or feminist jokes, for that matter) is indicative of anything other than a good sense of humor, and an ability to not take myself too seriously… well, you’re delusional.</p>