And from the WTF Department:
A small Canadian town in southern Ontario is divided over charges against an Asian immigrant youth who responded to a bully’s punch with one of his own.
The confrontation occurred April 21 in Keswick, 40 miles north of Toronto, between two 15-year-old boys during a game in the high school gymnasium. Neither boy can be identified, The Globe and Mail said.
One student who immigrated to Canada from South Korea in 2004 told police a white student shoved him, called him an “(expletive) Chinese” and hit him in the mouth. The Korean youth had been trained in martial arts by his father, a former member of South Korea’s national martial arts team. The youth told police he had been trained to only hit back with his left hand and, with one punch, broke the other youth’s nose, the Globe reported.
The boy was charged with assault causing bodily harm, suspended from school and may face expulsion. However, police reopened the case as a possible hate-crime after 400 mostly white students walked out of the high school Monday in protest of how the Korean youth was treated, The Globe and Mail said.
Police getting involved in a school scuffle, arresting a kid for defending himself, investigating a 15-year-old for a hate crime… it’s a smörgåsbord of stupidity.
(HT to reader)
{ 73 comments… read them below or add one }
It was just a school yard fight. Is this newsworthy story to be on the national paper? Then again, that area had a whole series of Asians getting racially assaulted and some getting killed. But still..
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090430.wkeswick0430/BNStory/lifeMain/
This is the society that we’ve created for ourselves in the West. The police arrest kids for school fights and let murderers, pedophiles, and drug dealers roam the streets. Self-defense is the worst crime on the books. Defending oneself against aggression invites more aggression, from the police. We can’t stand up for ourselves anymore. The only way to fight back is by paying a lawyer an arm and a leg, impoverishing yourself and enriching a leech. And you might not even win.
The reason the Korean kid had to be punished is not because he’s an immigrant. It’s because his action represents personal responsibility. His action says, “Give, and ye shall receive in kind.” This sentiment is anathema to the West today. Probably the other kid’s dad didn’t hug him. His uncle touched him once. We can’t blame this kid for his action. The Korean kid should have been more understanding. Arrest him. Throw the book at him. Personal responsibility is a sin. Good luck protecting your families. The burglar will sue you when your dog attacks him, and win. Shoot a would-be murderer and be arrested for murder yourself. If you only wounded the assailant then he’s entitled to a cash settlement and will be elected mayor. Punish good, reward evil. The society is diseased. No, scratch that: it is a disease.
By the way, what does this mean:
Does this mean they are reopening the case to charge the white kid with a hate crime, or the Korean kid? I assume it’s the white kid. This is just as bad. The white kid was a dick, he deserved a punch in the nose. He got one. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
I’m sure if this happened in Korea in reverse, hundreds of Koreans would hold a candlelight vigil in solidarity and support for the white American kid. Cuz you know, Koreans don’t believe in double standards or anything.
Colontos – I was confused by that part, too. I assumed it meant that they walked out to support the Asian kid.
And I agree with you to some degree about how we’ve created this kind of over-reaction society for ourselves. I mean, kids suspended for having nail clippers b/c they are a possible “weapon”, for violating the Zero-Tolerance rules by taking aspirin, etc.
Wow… the greatest single show of support for an ethnic student in a North American school since Preston High School “Voted for Pedro.”
However, police reopened the case . . . after 400 mostly white students walked out of the high school Monday in protest of how the Korean youth was treated, The Globe and Mail said.
That’s the difference between Korea and the West.
The commentary at the globe and mail is interesting as an example of how most Canadians seem fair minded. The real loser seems to be the school administrator:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090430.wkeswick0430/CommentStory/National/home
That Korean kid and the rest of the students who walked out in solidarity with him did the right thing. There’s no sympathy for bigotry and this is a good, solid story.
The Korean kid had every right to defend himself, and the bully got what was coming to him. If anyone should be charged, the bully is the one, but I hope that the state backs out of the fracas, and lets the bully suffer the humiliation of losing a fight that he started.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
So, schoolyard fisticuffs is now handled by the police? That’s a pretty bad precedent they are setting in the Great White North. Sounds like the bully got what was coming–end of story.
#7 I went through the same comments and saw about a 50/50 mix of fair minded folks and complete idiots (“dueling banjos” references et al).
This should be two two-week suspensions for each student per the “I don’t care who started it” rule.
The thought police should stay home.
BTW and to play devils advocate, the kids was charged with causing bodily harm. It seems that you are allowed to throw a punch in Canada but only if you hit like a girl (and I am not talking about Chinese swimmers: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,6169490,00.jpg ).
“kid”
The article doesn’t tell the whole story. How did it all start? Were they arguing while playing a sport? Kids say stupid things out of anger.
Either way, they should have just been suspended. The Korean kid could have just as easily walked away and gotten a teacher involved. Besides, it’s not as if the injured kid will have any medical bills to pay.
“The Korean youth had been trained in martial arts by his father, a former member of South Korea’s national martial arts team. The youth told police he had been trained to only hit back with his left hand and, with one punch…”
Whatever.
I agree that the bully got what he deserved, aqnd I am glad the other students supported the other student.
Should the police stay out of the school yard scuffles? I suppose this depends on what you define as a scuffle. What if the bully (without provocation) beat the living sh*t out of the other kid? What level of violence is not acceptable, or I dare suggest, criminal ? Surely there is somewhere along the line you can agree that the police should be involved.
In other youth violence news, this past week some U.S. kids were suspected of hitting a couple of ajosshis in their own country.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=62368
Had I seen this story prior to living here, I would have thought, “Punks! Give ‘em the cane!” Now . . . well, I won’t condone violence. But it is nice to think that other ‘shis might think twice before attempting to correct the behavior of foreigners having fun.
I thought this was general knoweldge on schoolyards across North America.
“You can’t pick on the Asian kid…. he knows kung fu!”
This kind of what-the-fuckitude is happening because the West has allowed itself to become feminized Nanny States where women have absolute control, such as in the schools. A generation ago, boys settle differences over fist-fights in the schoolyard and it was understood that this is what boys do. Now, female authoritarians want to control natural aggressive male behavior and smother us to death with niceness and safety. Also, under the so-called Political Correctness regime, racial discrimination against Asians are not taken seriously because we’re all supposed to suck it up like the nice, little, quiet Model Minority chumps that we’re supposed to be.
The youth told police he had been trained to only hit back with his left hand and, with one punch, broke the other youth’s nose, the Globe reported.
He should have punched with his right hand, harder.
Fred Reed:
The growing feminizaton accounts for much of the decline in the schools. The hostility to competition of any sort is an expression of the female desire for pleasantness; competition is a mild form of combat, by which men are attracted and women repelled. The emphasis on how children feel about each other instead of on what they learn is profoundly female (as for that matter is the associated fascination with psychotherapy). The drugging of male schoolchildren into passivity is the imposition of pleasantness by chemical means. Little boys are not nice, but fidgety wild men writ small who, bored out of their skulls, tend to rowdiness. They are also hard for the average woman to control and, since male teachers are absent, gelded, or terrified of litigious parents, expulsion and resort to the police fill the void. The oft-repeated suspension of boys for drawing soldiers or playing space war is, methinks, a quietly hysterical attempt to assuage formless insecurity.
Mr Reed describes the current situation to a perfect T.
The kid and his supporters was given Olbermann’s “Best Person in the World” award today. It’s getting play in the US and showing what a buffoon the admin and police were.
There is something uniquely and stupidly Canadian about charging the retaliator (think hockey).
So the leftie sucks at math, eh? What an embarrassment to the race. Just needs another good beating, if you ask me.
BTW- have I told this joke before? Doesn’t matter, still one of my favorites:
Q: How can you tell your house was burglarized by a Korean?
A: Your math homework is done and your dog is missing.
Last time I checked, instigation earned you a 2-minute minor.
One small thing I find ironic about this is, that were this to happen in Korea, this kid would still be treated as he were guilty, as the victim is almost always the one who lost the fight, and not necessarily the one who was defending themselves.
Actually, in Korea, all participants in a fight are treated equally guilty by the law, even those who were attacked. If they fought back they’re considered just as guilty as the initiator(s). Been there done that. Alas.
Speaking as a former bully, it’s a sign of poor bullying if you had to resort to physical violence. It’s all about intimidation and promise of violence. Bullies going around throwing punches don’t last long because first, school admins don’t like it and you end up in a correctional school with a kid with full beard who failed 10th grade 3 times and is dating a stripper, and secondly, at one point, someone will beat you, either because he’s stronger or because he’s lucky. At that point, your facade is destroyed. I say amateur.
“Last time I checked, instigation earned you a 2-minute minor.”
It’s not really enforced often, or at least wasn’t when I was a fan some years ago. More often, the retaliating player was penalized while the instigator went unpenalized.
–
Anyway, Robert, it was great to meet you the other day, and I think your magazine, which I spent my hard-earned dollars on, is outstanding. [Goes off singing "Mine eyes have seen the [hanbok-clad] glory”]
Glad to hear this is getting U.S. press. I like how the article points out the Korean kid’s martial arts background, but neglects the White kid’s assured training from his father in racial stereotyping and bigotry.
As for the guy who thinks Koreans are carrying a double standard…well does Korea have the history of multi-culturalism that Canada does? This is not as much an excuse as it is reality! Maybe 50 years from now, Korea will be a multi-ethnic society, but it’s really apples and oranges.
Punk, bully got what he deserved, but I also agree with Someguy.
I like how 400 “mostly white” kids walked out in protest.
Would mostly “yellow” students in Korea show support for an immigrant in their school?
Sad to see this happened in my homeland.
Happy to see the “mostly white kids” walk out.
I only hope it was genuine and not just a convenient excuse to take an afternoon off.
@JohnT
Would mostly “yellow” students in Korea show support for an immigrant in their school?
Read my comments above yours. It’s not a fair comparison, not at all.
“I only hope it was genuine and not just a convenient excuse to take an afternoon off.”
I hadn’t thought of that until you mentioned it. I would say that’s probably one of the reasons.
# 16,
Those ajoshis got their ass kicked. Why? Let me explain.
Korean youngsters rarely go full physical on ajoshis. These kids have gone through a lifetime of getting their asses kicked by their dad, uncles and school teachers. This has resulted in having a population of skinny 5-5 middle aged men being able to exert superhuman powers over men 20-30 years younger who are bigger and heavier. Or so these middle aged men think.
Once you get kids who were not raised like the typical Korean kid and mix into a situation involving a smallish middle aged man who has a false feeling of entitlement, particularly from youngsters, you have a combination that is as predictable as the story you had linked.
Forgot that a lot of people here have metric system hard wiring.
5-5 = Five foot five inches = 165 centimeters
“As for the guy who thinks Koreans are carrying a double standard…well does Korea have the history of multi-culturalism that Canada does? This is not as much an excuse as it is reality! Maybe 50 years from now, Korea will be a multi-ethnic society, but it’s really apples and oranges.”
“Multiculturalism” is thrown around so often it’s hard to get a clear grasp of how people are using the term and what they mean by it in a specific context. Let’s be clear, “multiculturalism is an ideological term that has its origins in modern ideological Leftism/Marxism. I’m sure most readers here are aware of this, but the way it’s presented to the pubic through the media and popular culture is by obscuring its ideological origins and trying to make it seem like it is “natural” or “progress”.
“Multiculturalism” has been imposed on Western countries for the past 50 years or so, to varying degrees of success. Since the Korean War and since Korea has been under the American umbrella, intellectual ideas, culture, fads, etc., have flowed from the US to Korean (along w/ the rest of the world) with some lag. And once these ideas end up in Korea, there are totally different dynamics and motivations involved, as well as a totally different cultural and political context, so that we’re not going to see them play out the same way they do in the West.
Relative to the West, Korea is such a group oriented and collectivist society that you will not see the same results from an imposed “multiculturalism” as you would see in an individualist society, where individuals are more atomized and thus have weaker bonds with others that are more susceptible to “multiculturalism”. And “multiculturalism” is far from being imposed in Korea as it has been in the West.
“Multiculturalism” in Korea means, what, some Southeast Asian brides for rural farmers? And their half-Korean children who for the most part look and speak Korean, and are thoroughly raised in Korean culture? By this standard, the US has been “multicultural” for 400 years now, and the West/Europe for even longer than that.
Demographic trends indicate that the US will be majority Hispanic in less than 50 years. By 2040 or so. Europe also faces major demographic changes as well. These changes have always been the goals of ideological “multiculturalism” of course. Anyone who thinks Korea in 50 years will approach “multiculturalism” of this particular kind and this scale is delusional.
Lastly, why would anyone even want Korea to undergo massive demographic/cultural change by submitting to this extreme ideological “multiculturalism”? Again, Korean is unlikely to undergo such change, for reasons mentioned earlier, but why would anyone want it in the first place? Korea has a unique culture, and it would be a shame to see it submerged by some omnivorous ideological “multiculturalism.”
My brother brags about the time two kids approached him in high school. They wanted protection money. One was the heavy, the other the sweet talker. What did Philip do? He kicked the sweet talker in the balls. The heavy then did the four minute mile. Philip was a new kid in the school. He got sent home for the day.
I was five at the time. Philip still talks about it. As time has passed, I think my brother’s story has gotten further from the truth but it did happen back in the 1970′s.
Grace
PS- I know the exact year but I prefer strangers not being able to zero in my age.
mkaplan, you’re in the wrong thread.
Well I love how this one story in Canada will strike fear in the hearts of all non-Asian bullies when trying to pick on Asians.
Even though I don’t know my taekwondo from my jujitsu from my UFC, I avoided many a fight in middle school by simply telling ignorant White folks that I had a brown belt in karate–and could pluck out their eye balls with my toes, or something like that.
Hiiiiiiii-ya!
WangKon, if you have nothing to say and no arguments, just don’t say anything, instead of trying to bully and intimidate people off of threads.
My children, now grown up, are both adopted from Korea.
From the outset, we made sure they had a healthy sense of cultural identity.
In grammar school, they were visiting school friends when an obnoxious girl from next door called my son, Hey you, Chinese kid…”
It was not meant to be nice, but my son just looked at her as if she was an idiot. Later he mentioned to us, “What was she talking about, we’re Korean. She doesn’t know anything.”
Both my son and daughter were US medalists in Judo. My daughter was also a gymnast. Pound for pound she was probably at 5’2,” and 120 lbs the strongest person in her high school.
Once the leader of a girl gang at her high school attempted to call her out. “Well bring it on,” was all my daughter said.
The girl gang leader did her homework and then realized to back off.
Speak softly, but be ready to defend yourself. Don’t they watch martial arts movies in Canada?
I only got in one fight in elementary school and it was with another Korean kid in third grade!
Shortly after, I had two friends in elementary school, John and Kirk. John was half white and half hispanic and had a seventh grader body locked into a fourth grade body. Kirk was blonde and blue-eyed and the same body type as John. No one messed with me.
One time Kirk chased me around the field just as a joke and once he cornered me against the fence that separated the school from the street. He was pretending to punch me then all of a sudden this redneck trucker (complete with mullet, John Deere cap and silver dollar belt buckle) came out of his semi wielding a bat threatening Kirk to “get off of the small kid (me) and pick on someone his own size.” Well, we both got up and ran. After reflecting on it in adulthood, I was impressed that a redneck trucker would come out and try to defend a little asian kid who appeared to be being beat-up by a bigger white kid.
# 39,
No intimidation involved. I was just pointing out that you were posting that in the wrong thread.
WangKon,
Well thanks for judging the comments here for us.
I suppose your standard for whether a particular comment ‘fits’ in a particular thread or not depends on the degree to which you agree with the comment.
… and if it’s way off topic.
Not really, but nice try.
Everybody, let’s welcome our newest self-righteous, arrogant prick to the MH! mkaplan!
***applause***
#41,
Do you always stereotype people by their appearance and jobs?
My grandfather was a janitor when I was a kid. He always wore a flannel shirt and work pants. A redneck, right?
Well, he loved reading George Orwell and had been a bank manager and the town mayor before he retired.
By the way, the meanest bully I knew in middle school and high school was some rich Asian kid (being rich, he had a couple of morons that followed him everywhere who were always ready to jump in whenever he wasn’t doing so well in a fight).
SomeguyinKorea,
Gee, I dunno… I’m I the ONLY one who stereotypes what a red neck would look like?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245686/
#49,
You’re retort is a movie that bombed at the box office nearly 10 years ago?
All rightie, then…
BTW, I know a guy who could be Larry the Cable Guy’s twin brother. He’d give you the flannel shirt off his back if you needed it.
I’m sure you do. Btw, calling that guy who came out of the truck a red neck wasn’t my way of insulting anyone, it was just to add descriptive license. I don’t consider a “red neck” a derogatory term. I think Jeff Foxworthy is a pretty funny guy and I don’t think he makes “You might be a redneck…” jokes to heap scorn on a group of people.
#48 The meanest bully at your school was rich? And Asian? Unless you grew up in Vancouver or NWT, you went to a private school with very small classes/student pop, or lived in some small suburb in the woods, that story ain’t flying.
“…Btw, calling that guy who came out of the truck a red neck wasn’t my way of insulting anyone, it was just to add descriptive license. I don’t consider a “red neck” a derogatory term. I think Jeff Foxworthy is a pretty funny guy and I don’t think he makes “You might be a redneck…” jokes to heap scorn on a group of people.”
Right, sure. Right after writing, “I’m sure you do.”
BTW, a friend of my dad’s knows Jeff Foxworthy from when he was doing mainframe computer maintenance at IBM. He’s such a redneck.
#53,
Whether you believe it or not doesn’t change the fact it happened.
I went to 3 middle schools and 2 high schools (product of a salesman father). In my day, early ’80′s, when one was new to a school, you kept your eye out for the bully. The bully usually found you “Hey, new kid, 3 o’clock at the diamond, pussy”. It was right and good to sock the fucker in the nose and end what could have been a ‘bitch’ position in the school. Geeze, what has this world come to?
Bullying takes all forms, even among boys. You think fists would come flying at the slightest provocation, but it’s not like that. And as schools get bigger and bigger, there’s really no one bully over the entire school because kids tend to congregate among their own little groups and don’t come into close contact with others on a sustained basis. And honestly, two middle school kids fighting isn’t really fighting for the most part. It’s a whole lot of rolling around on the ground with one kid ending up top more on luck than anything else. High school fights I’ve seen weren’t much better either. So all this is really fairly harmless social dynamics. If you were unfortunate enough to be bullied, then you sucked it up til graduation and went on to become a doctor and hired the former bully as your lawn guy. But somewhere along the line, all this coddling and excess praising gave all the little snots some sort of entitlement issue where they weren’t willing to suck it up for 4 years anymore. And they’d come back with trenchcoats and guns or blow their own brains out because, oh horrors, they were bullied and marginalized.
Nowadays it’s the girls who brawl in the hallways and on the school grounds.
@ t song and anyone else, JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION I ASKED in #29 without making excuses like “it’s just not a fair comparison at all”. Yes or no will do, no excuses.
Making crap excuses like that because Korea is not a multicultural society insults Korean’s intelligence.
To say such things implies that Koreans are childish, or worse, stupid. That they don’t know the difference between right and wrong.
Again…
Would “mostly yellow” students in Korea show support for an immigrant in their school?
and one more…
Do Koreans know the difference between right and wrong?
Give an answer, not “it isn’t a fair comparisn at all” because Korea isn’t a multicultural society crap excuse cop out. In my opinion, if you think this is a good enough excuse, than you insult Koreans.
Koreans don’t accept excuses for racism when they are victims of it, so why should anyone accept excuses from Koreans for their racism?
Koreans would never and they don’t accept excuses for racism in say the UK, a country that wasn’t multicultural until after WW2 would they?
When anyone else in the world is being racist, they are assholes. When a Korean is being racist we have to understand their thinking, their history and the fact that they are not a multicultural society and any other bullshit excuse they give.
Anyone who uses racial slurs, or is racist in any other way needs a beating like the “white” bully got.
I applaud the Korean kid for teach that punk bully a lesson.
for teaching
Read the third box down in this link.
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=111164
Is the “Korea isn’t a multicultural society” excuse still valid in that case? Are there any unfair comprisons?
Things must be real tough for white guys in Korea….
This story made the front page of the Globe and Mail (“Canada’s national newspaper”), and was the subject of a National Post editorial. (The National Post is a conservative daily that competes with the Globe.)
The more I read about this story, the more completely disturbing I find it. I have written to the Ontario Premier about it, and encourage educated and reasonable people to do the same.
To clarify: I have written in the interest of getting the charges dropped against the Korean student.
One more thing: has this story made the Korean press? I’d like to see the Canadian ambassador to South Korea hauled on the carpet (metaphorically!) for this.
Boy oh boy. Did this kid have to reinforce the kung fu stereotype by coming up with this left handed only self defense acrobatics?
The correct move woulda been to break that nose by *head butting* him.
You must have lived in a nice neighbourhood…
In *my* middle school, fights included broken bones, chains, and sometimes knives. Oh, and gangs.
Depends how many drunk guys having lost their jobs the day before are surrounding said “white guy”.
cm: “Things must be real tough for white guys in Korea…”
Apples to oranges. As you know, if you follow the Korean media, school bullying is rampant in Korea. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And the comparison with what foreigners face in Korea is inacurate for several reasons.
First, you are generalizing from a single incident, ie. hasty generalization.
Second, you are making the false assumptions that foreigners in Korea do not encounter harrassment, or that there have not been instances of anti-foreign violence.
Third, you cherrypick, ie. ignore the most significant part of the story here – that non-Korean students stood up en masse for the Korean student. Would this happen in Korea? Historically, no.
Who in Korea stood up for the rights of foreigners when an American was kidnapped and forcibly taken to anti-American demonstrations, when a US soldier was stabbed during the 2003 anti-American frenzy, when signs were posted in shops stating that Americans were not welcome, when an American was attacked in the subway for showing affection to his Korean wife, etc. etc. I recall that the foreign victim was charged with the crime.
The question you should have asked is “when will Koreans exhibit the moral fiber of these Canadian students?”
Well, all that moral fiber won’t mean a whole lot if this assault charge sticks and the kid gets expelled from school. Let’s see what happens.
“Koreans would never and they don’t accept excuses for racism in say the UK, a country that wasn’t multicultural until after WW2 would they?”
I think you’re getting culture and race mixed up if you’re making a statement like that.
Keswick High School? Omg. I know that school, a friend of mine went there. I don’t think the school has that many Koreans compared to the schools in Toronto. Reading this article makes me really upset. When I was in grade 9 this white kid threw an apple core at me with some racist comment. I should have punched him in the face but i didn’t.
That’s was the first time I experienced racism and every time i think of that, it really hurts me.
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