Ethical Displacement

Am about reveal somebody else’s er, bad taste, and then mine for thinking that this is funny and perhaps also significant. However, if you don’t want to possibly be offended, move on. So, a friend of mine works in the states in a department that is heavily staffed by Asian women. Mainly Korean American women. On the day news of the Virginia Tech shootings came out, said department were collectively thinking- “Ok, shooter’s an Asian guy, please don’t let him Korean, please don’t let him be Korean…” Bizzare and completely besides the point, but understandable I think. A few hours later almost entire department goes: “Shit, he’s Korean”.

So the bad taste part (start moving away now)? Cue a two week discussion on which Asian race is the craziest. Truly, a non stop two week argument. The winner?- in friend’s opinion: the Koreans because we are a crazy, loud and passionate bunch (I don’t agree with this choice but I refuse to reveal who I think deserves ’craziest Asian race’ title- hypocritical?, so sue me). Someone suggested Koreans are the Sicilians of Asia- which I happen to think is a pretty good analogy. DISCLAIMER: I do not mean to suggest Koreans are more likely to be psychopaths than any other Asian race, HOWEVER- Fact: Koreans are nutcases. Fact two: it helps that they and I, are Asian… in all honesty, if you’re not Asian you’re not even allowed to think this shit. However, none of these race politics makes it any less funny or appropriate for me to call my western friends ‘whiteys’ (actually, have never done this, but trust me I’m going to start today). These things are complicated, I know. So, have I offended anyone yet?

Of course, there have been other controversies surrounding the tragedy besides the actual shootings themselves. Namely, ethical news reporting and the decision of NBC to show the footage and photos sent to them by the killer. I find this particular concern a strange one to consider. While I don’ t think anyone can dispute the significance of arguing the ethical boundaries of news reporting, I find it strange that people should behave as if there was any real dilemma in deciding whether or not to air the killer’s homemade footage. That is, in a media saturated society such as ours, in which a psychopath’s killing spree should be preceded by the creation of such a package as sent to NBC, at all, should tell us immediately that this footage was never going to be hidden away. The dilemma is thus never: ‘should we air this?’ but ‘can we air this, and if so, how much?’. To pretend otherwise is an exercise in meaninglessness, and perhaps, is to fundamentally misunderstand contemporary news reportage and thereby its actual ethical responsibilities and consequences. Felicity’s blog Screen Affect points to a really interesting post on all of this.

I’m also fascinated by the comparative focus on NBC’s actions over that of Seung-Hui Cho. Which action is more indenfensible? I know- they inhabit two completely different positions on a moral schema, however in this instance I find it interesting that people are more willing to address the ethical implications of NBC’s actions, than that of Cho’s. The easy answer is to suggest that Cho’s actions were so completely without reason that there is nothing left to argue; there is no grey area to discuss with Cho, but there is with NBC. I agree for the most part, but I can’t help thinking that surely there is more that can be done and said than dealing only with the aftermath of a tragedy?

Why is no one arguing for the prevention of this from happening again? I don’t want to suggest that people should start coming up with easy answers a la finger pointing at violent video games and films etc. as root cause, as has been the trend in the past, I’m just surprised that more hasn’t been said about what could have been different. So, I wonder, is the NBC controversy a displacement of the ethical dilemma of Cho himself? Why has no one spoken the contents of Cho’s statements besides merely reciting them? Why has no news commentary considered the significance Cho’s anger, acknowledging only that he had spoken, not his actual words?