Do Not Attribute the Sins of Individuals to the Group

The 32 killed by Seung-Hui Cho in 2007; at least 27 (84%) were non-Asian. Was he racist?

Seung-Hui Cho will never be forgotten by the families of his victims, yet few in the general public remember his name 14 years after he killed 32 people, then himself, on the Virginia Tech campus.

Asian-Americans universally deplored the massacre, and some feared that they would suffer reprisals from other Americans. The story of Seung-Hui Cho was swept up in the anti-gun-violence crusade of the period, and no sweeping generalizations were made about Asian hatred and violence toward non-Asians.

Asian activists, however, do not hesitate to call the white gunman who killed eight people, six of them Asian-American women, in Atlanta on March 16th an exemplar of white culture. [bold added]

“This mass shooter was targeting Asian women and their businesses. This isn’t an isolated incident. There have been 500+ hate crimes targeted at Asian people this year alone,” social media specialist Mark Kim wrote on Twitter. “This Atlanta tragedy lies at an intersection of race, gender, class and the legacy of America’s history of colonization and violence in Asia,” journalist Elise Hu said on the site. “I don’t have the words. I’m just despondent. Protect Asian women, solidarity with sex workers, #StopAsianHate.”

So far the killer has claimed that his motivations stemmed only from hatred of sex workers. It's still possible that race was a factor, though even if it were, to assume that millions of white Americans hold the same beliefs is a gross generalization not supported by concrete evidence. Besides, if the society were so biased, how could Asian-Americans have succeeded in great numbers in the culture that activists decry?

America aspires to judge people by their individual words and deeds (obviously not always successfully), and not judge members of groups that wayward individuals share some characteristics with.

Asian-Americans should be grateful that the sins of Seung-Hui Cho were not attributed to them, and they should grant the same consideration to others who have nothing in common with the Atlanta gunman but their race.