Chai Soua Vang - a Complicated Wound to the Heart?
to...@witty.com
Do U guy even note that since the end of the cold war, American White
become gods.
- the rejection of Kyoto grobal warming prevention treaty
- the rejection of creating a world court that could trial common
inter-criminal.
- the rejection of human right definition by international standard..
These are all prequel to 9/11
The white American or should I say the Withe USA, are about to write a
new world order according to their imagingation.. or hum.. favor.. or
build a new world in their image..
This is totally differ from what they go out and preach to the world..
I see not much differance from Mr. Bush compassionate global policy
from Mr. Vang's trial jurors. Chai Soua's case seems to be a deep cold
wound to the Hmong community, especially the midle generation (20 some
thing) Hmong. All they have been tought to believe have been vaporized.
Oh.. well, may be we (Hmong) are good in quick learnors and followers,
swift in react, and expect every things to be colorfull as our mentors
told us. We trust them with our life.. damn.. in the end we are all
STUPID and when we find that out we run out of patient.. we choose to
solve the problem with the quick and swift way..
After reading all the news reports about this event, I think that Chai
Soua Vang know the consequence of his action and he assume full
responsibility for that. He sacrifice himself, so we all can learn.
However, he don't know that his action would become a complication to
the heart and a poison to the mind of the next generation to overcome.
Hoping that you 20 some thing, when you all grow older you will be
smarter, who can make better use of your new hard earn knowledges then
my generation.
Thank you (you 20 something) for concerning that Chai Soua's case may
not be well represent. Justice can never be perfect, but it surely can
be better.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5620621.html
========================================================
Pang Yang, 24, of North St. Paul, said she wasn't surprised that Chai
Soua Vang was found guilty of six counts of first-degree murder Friday.
She doesn't approve of what happened that November afternoon in
northern Wisconsin. She's unsure, however, if all of the evidence was
submitted and whether or not others would have reacted the same way
Vang did the day he killed six hunters.
"I think there's no question what happened," she said. "But if I was
alone and confronted in the same situation, I'd be afraid for my own
life."
Since the day of the shooting, Hmong leaders have made strenuous
efforts to separate themselves from Vang's actions.
Pang Yang said she shouldn't have to respond to inquiries about the
Hmong community's collective reaction.
"When a white man commits a crime, we don't say, 'A white man committed
a crime, we say John committed a crime,' " Pang Yang said. "They're
saying we're trying to protect [Chai Vang], but why would they involve
us as a community. Why not say Chai did this?"
There are about 60,000 Hmong in Minnesota, most of them in the metro
area, and about 46,000 in Wisconsin.
Mai Yang, 20, of Maplewood, said she anticipated Friday's verdict
before it was announced, but she said she believes Vang was only
defending himself.
"He stuck by self-defense," Mai Yang said. "Because that's what he
did."
The lingering effects of the crime won't go away anytime soon, said
Cheng Yang, 27, of St. Paul.
He said if Vang were white, the jury might be more willing to accept
his self-defense plea. Race has been a significant part of the
discussion surrounding the trial.
"There will always be an effect no matter what," Cheng Yang said. "Deep
inside, there's something about Hmong versus white."
Cheng Yang said he believes that the hunters fired at Vang first and
that more than one hunter was armed at the time they approached him.
Witnesses for the prosecution testified that only one of the hunters
Vang killed was armed, and both sides disputed who fired the first
shot.
Said Pang Yang: "I think evidence was overlooked. They could hide
evidence if they wanted."
She said media buzz about the trial won't die down soon because the
Hmong community has been cast in a bad light throughout the case.
And as long as people associate Vang with the rest of the community,
she said, they'll continue to seek a group response for an individual
act.
Chu Yang, 21, of Stillwater, said Hmong immigrants who come to
Minnesota will suffer most because they will be labeled. He said he
wishes Hmong people would be accepted on an individual basis.
"[Chai Vang] is Hmong, but I don't even know him," Chu Yang said. "I
feel like we're all back to zero."
Myron P. Medcalf can be reached at mmed...@startribune.com.
========================
At Wesleyan Church in Hayward, Wis., senior pastor Mark Wilson has told
congregation members who have asked that the Chai Soua Vang trial
across town "isn't a matter of race."
"It's a matter of somebody who killed six other people," Wilson said.
"Chai Vang happens to be Hmong. The hunters who were killed were
Caucasian. It's what Chai Vang did, not who he is."
But at the St. Paul Hmong Alliance Church in Maplewood, members are
telling senior pastor Nha Long Yang that race was a factor.
They see it in glares from white neighbors or hear it from Hmong
children who have been told by white classmates that they no longer can
play together -- not since Vang's bloody rampage in the northwestern
Wisconsin woods last fall.
Vang was convicted Friday of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
But no jury decision, the Rev. Yang said, will easily erase "the step
backward we all have taken."
Ilean Her, executive director of the State Council on Asian-Pacific
Minnesotans, said her white friends have told her that the Vang case
was about the shootings, not race. But the Hmong community, of which
she's a member, believes "we're the ones on trial right now."
That was apparent in a recent phone conversation between the pastors.
Wilson said they talked about their similarities: Both believe strongly
in their faiths, families and congregations. Both deplore the brutal
slayings of 10 months ago. Both detest racism.
And they agreed that the case was not about race -- unless you happen
to be Hmong, said Yang.
"We are all human," he said, "but when you're suddenly treated
differently because of your skin color, you wonder how long it will
take until we start loving each other."
In the past 10 months, there have been days when Yang has been anything
but comfortable driving Twin Cities streets.
"I feel it; we all feel that the Hmong are being treated differently
now," he said. "Why is that? Why has something that happened in a
hunting field become a racial issue."
In Hayward, Rice Lake, Barron
The Vang trial has been a constant topic of conversation at the Hayward
Church of Christ, where most of the members are hunters, said the Rev.
Matthew Lewis. But "racial relations haven't been discussed in a while
because in God's eyes, there is no such thing as race," Lewis said.
Yet, racial tensions surfaced three years ago in Hayward after Melvin
Sipe, 82, and his wife, Delores, 81, were found brutally beaten, each
shot in the head, in their Hayward home.
The suspect, Craig Sturdevant, 18, is American Indian. His trial is
scheduled to begin later this month.
Go to Rice Lake, Wis., where the friends and families of the slain
hunters live. The day before the jury for the Vang trial was selected,
Gary Haus, an electrical lineman who knew all the hunters who were
shot, said the incident last fall was about trespassing, not race.
Judy Borton, a Rice Lake waitress, predicted accusations of racism
would be a key to Vang's trial. "I'm afraid this will just bring more
contempt," she said.
Perhaps not, said Sylvia Olson, mayor of neighboring Barron, Wis.,
where about 10 percent of the city's 3,400 residents are Somali.
"There aren't any Hmong living here or in Rice Lake, as far as I know,"
Olson said. "But it's only been recently that we've had a Somali
population here. There may have been racial slurs at first, but they've
stopped for the most part.
"All it takes is for people to be educated."
While offering the most costly of lessons, the Vang trial could be the
starting point, said Lee Pao Xiong, director of the Center for Hmong
Studies at Concordia University in St. Paul.
"In moving forward, we need to learn to respect one another," Xiong
said. "In Chai Soua's testimony he said, 'If we treat each other with
respect, none of this would have happened.'
"Maybe if he wasn't verbally abused, as he says he was, nobody would
have died. Maybe if Chai Soua respected life, he wouldn't have killed,
either."
Another hunter's encounter
Xiong said he, too, is a hunter. He said he has been the target of
numerous ethnic slurs and was once harassed while hunting on public
land in southeastern Minnesota.
"We were in a group; they were in a group," he recalled. "They accused
us of all kinds of things, but instead of reacting, we were able to
tell each other, 'It's not worth it. Leave 'em alone. We don't want
anything negative to happen. Just walk away.'
"What if Chai Soua and the hunters just walked away?"
The clergy and other community leaders must now answer other questions
and needs. Ilean Her said the Hmong community is working hard to show
that it is anything but violent, that it is part of the American
landscape "even if we must explain why we prefer rice to potatoes, or
why we're here in this country.
"The communities should be talking about reaching out to each other,"
Her said. "The amount of talk depends on which side of the sphere you
live."
Said Yang, "We are all human. But when you're suddenly treated
differently because of your skin color, you wonder how long it will
take until we start loving each other."
Paul Levy is at pl...@startribune.com.
oliv...@yahoo.com
hero to the people of colors. it is his destiny and he did what he had
to do to save himself, by killing racist white hunters. it is good for
the lying williers and hesebeck to live, so they could tell the rest of
their racist crew in the northwood and around the country to be
respectful or die.
oliv...@yahoo.com
dick
HT
Hmong vs. Mainstream Media.
Joel Rosenberg
Hmmm... I think, all in all, that it would not be in the interest of any
community -- Hmong or other -- to persuade others that their members
will turn murderous if they feel that they are being shown lack of
respect. Would you disagree?
to...@witty.com
Being physically and culturally differance, the race (racist) will
always run in our background thought.
But we may be overlook the fact, the real injustice occured between the
majority and minority, the one who have and the one who have not, and
the rulers and the followers. This imperfected justice occured in any
social group, in anywhere, anyplace, any time and any form of
government.
e.g. are Iraq better off today then under Saddam?
Don't you ever think that if Hurricane Katrina was hitting Houston, TX
or Miami, FL the FED response may be swifter then New Orleans, LA?