Running from Race at Virginia Tech

Is race becoming the "R" word? We know "it" exists but we dare not say the word.

By now, the public has absorbed more about the shooting at Virginia Tech. Viewers can learn about the campus geography, the shooter's strategy, and how the massacre went down. We even get graphic details of how students died, how professors sacrificed their lives, and how others jumped from windows and heroically bandaged damaged arteries.

The news is coming through so fast, both on television and the internet, that the story has gained surprising breadth and depth in coverage. This proves my point in my last post about race and racism in America. Proponents for social justice cannot wait on Lou Dobbs and Keith Olberman to give us the gospel. We have to work, day by day, to make change happen.

As for the shooting, I'm not going to regurgitate the details. I'm both impressed and disappointed by the collective response. I'm impressed because people are coming together to talk about mental illness, school violence, and families in mourning. I'm disappointed because at every turn the talking heads do their best to avoid race. The race of the shooter was released then there was a backlash and his Asian identity was replaced by his name (which still says that he's Asian). At a press conference yesterday, following the rally attended by President Bush and Nikki Giovanni, race was the bullet that everyone seemed to dodge.

Have Americans become so distressed by race that even during a massacre, a national tragedy, and an international incident we cannot openly MENTION race, let alone have real talks about it?

I've heard a bit about Korean culture, male culture, and even "loner" culture on the news. Each of these components is impacted by race in America. We are visually and soundbyte oriented, and as part of this culture we make it our business to identify race (whisper: even if we don't talk about it).