Week 6: Being While Asian

When i read about Vincent Chin i was disgusted. Vincent Chin was an Asian man who was brutally murdered by two white men. From the statements made in the reading i interpreted the crime committed against Vincent Chin as a hate crime. The statement was ("It's because of you little motherfuckers that we're out of work.") i consider this a hate crime because the two men who killed Chin did so because of a factor that Chin could not change, which was his ethnicity. Some may argue he was killed because he and took someone's job. i disagree he was killed because those who committed the crime believed Chin and others in his ethnicity group are being awarded better job opportunities. i can only assume that this upsets the defendants because they are white males who may feel entitled to certain things. Whatever the motive was for killing Vincent was ethnicity relate, hint the clues "It's because of you little motherfuckers". I state again Vincent was attacked for a factor that can not be change, and because of the defendants unfair and racist ideology a life has been taken. The judge did not give the two defendants any jail time, but instead made them pay a fine and get on probation for 3 years. As a criminal justice student i see an immediate flaw. If the victim where white and the defendants Asian, would the outcome be the same? If the victim was black and the defendants black, would the judge's ruling be the same. That we don't know, but what statistics and other criminal Justice data suggest is no the outcome would not be the same. In fact the data suggest that if the defendants are non-white their outcome would be 25 years to life in prison for the death. The judge made the statement "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail...You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal." The first part of the statement "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail" is an unclear statement. Why aren't these the type of men who should be sent to jail? Didn't they take a life on purpose for no life-threatening justification? I think the statement meant white males who have a family to provide for, maybe no real prior violent crimes. However these men took a life and a punishment that fits both the crime and the criminal is needed as a form of justice. I think the judge didn't care about the life that was taken, why i don't know. maybe it was because he seen the defendants as more of productive citizens than the victim.The judge seemed to have some racist or unjust point of view. In the article "Detroit Blues it tells the story of an Asian women who newly moved to Detroit and took a job at Chrysler auto factory. Initially her perception of Detroit and nob was fair, with her said that she very seldom experienced racial slurs from her co-workers or general citizens. However when the auto industry in Detroit declined and the auto industry in Japan started booming with foreign cars things changed. She began to here the same line "its little motherfuckers like you". Detroit residents were angry and felt that the Japanese had taken their jobs. In the article it says anything Japanese or thought to be Japanese became a political target. She mentioned how racial slurs were on television and radio, politicians took unjustified racial jabs at Asians and the atmosphere of Detroit change so much that it felt dangerous to have an Asian face. Asian in Detroit at this time was being blamed for a problem they did not create, nor have control over. i think people of all ethnic races should do a better job at placing the responsibility on those who are responsible. We can not blame Asians for American jobs being shipped over seas. We must get angry at the business making deals with the government to lower taxes on a company if the company labor jobs are shipped over seas.