By Kollengode S Venkataraman (written in October 2000)
Granted, in this gun-infested culture, none can stop stray individuals saturated with hatred towards people who are not like themselves going on a shooting binge, as happened on the fateful Friday on April 28th, 2000. And it is futile to rationalise the random and violent deaths of five victims of what can only be called a hate crime. New paragraph
We went into shock, numbed in disbelief that it could happen in a safe bedroom community, in an otherwise placid metro area. Or that it could happen to those among us.
Five people — a Chinese, a Vietnamese, a Jewish woman, a black and an Indian — were shot to death at close range. Obviously, with too few Native Americans around, the killer, Richard Baumhammers of Mount Lebanon, covered all the basic ethnic and racial groups other than his own. He knew exactly what he was doing.
If those affected by the violent deaths and life-threatening injuries are to seek solace in their religions, will they get it? Or do they have to only believe that whatever we are today is as a consequence of series of fortunate random events during and after our conception that abruptly ceased to be propitious? What some call fate.
Sandeep Patel, a 25-year-old young man full of promise, is left paralyzed. All our prayers are with him. Now that his life is saved, one hopes that all the wonders of modern technology would give him a semblance of autonomy for living.
For Anil Thakur, temporarily working in the US for a Canadian company and he happened to be hopping at the Indian grocery store on that fateful day, ten minutes this way or that way would have made all the difference. And for his young wife in India with 2 kids, the difference between a comfortable middle-class life in India and all their uncertainties that go with the widowhood in traditional bond middle class India.
For families of Thao Pham and Ji-Ye Sun at the Chinese restaurant, the US will appear like another killing field that devoured their bread earners. And for Anita Gordon family, a stark reminder of the Jewish experience throughout the centuries in Europe.
Sound-bite-driven local TV sessions in their hurry to go on to the next breaking stories were quick to talk about the healing process within days after the fateful day, even before the victims’ shell-shocked families came to terms with their tragedies and their personal loss.
Media reports and the shooter’s defence attorney have already profiled Baumhammers, the perpetrator of this heinous crime, as mentally disturbed, if not sick. With so much hard evidence against him, he made his lawyer’s job simple — insanity perhaps the only plea open to him. If he is insane, he was fastidiously methodical even in his insanity and, in the way he went about his business.
As the prosecution case unravels the details in the court, one hopes that justice will be done to the victims. With two cases of hate crimes, the year 2000 will be one long year for us in Western Pennsylvania.
In the meanwhile, does anyone — psychologist, psychiatrist or the people of the clergy — know how to console and comfort the victims’ families and answer why this should happen to anyone at all? And why should it happen to them? And what did they do to deserve this?
It’s cruel that today’s technology punishes people for no fault of their own by placing them in situations in which, in their low moments, they wonder whether getting shot and killed instantly is a better alternative to surviving only to live a life of complete dependence.
Wake up Call? Waking Up from What?
By Kollengode S Venkataraman.
“Wake up” call was the expression one heard several times among those gathered at the Hindu-Jain temple on the Sunday following Richard Baumhammers shooting rampage in Pittsburgh. A wake-up call implies that we were asleep, or at least in a state of stupor, unaware of, or unwilling to recognize, the reality around us. What metaphorical stupor we were alluding to is a good question to explore.
In earlier centuries, immigrants had no option other than interacting, understanding, and adapting to their host culture even as they retained their identity — like the Parsis in India, and the Indians in the Caribbean, Malaysia and Mauritius — also enriched the life of their adopted land by hybridising their cuisine and culture. They ran businesses, built schools, participated in governments and became part of their social fabric.
Today, inexpensive jet travel, cable and satellite TV, the Internet and instantaneous communications allow immigrants to be in touch with families and cultures they left behind. The net result is that people retain their affiliations with their ancestral lands, often reinforced by their selective nostalgia. Complicating this for us in the US is the American ethos of celebrating ethnic diversity and passionately respecting individual privacy; and our insularity as new immigrants.
Further, Indian immigrants arrived here seeking better opportunities, and not out of religious or social persecution. One can even say we are the beneficiaries of taxpayer-subsidized, inexpensive, high-quality English education in India and in the USA. A large proportion of us received higher education in US universities and hospitals. Having acquired economic stability through education, we have ensconced ourselves in the faceless and aseptic American suburbia in our 4-bedroom homes. Most of our lifestyle is relatively Placid — at least as long as one has a job, is in good health, and one’s marriage is intact.
Living in this virtual cocoon, we drive to our work through congested freeways, looking only at the tailpipe of the car in front. We listen to the radio, desi music or religious hymns. We cram our weekends with social calls involving elaborate spread of desi food, music and dance recitals by artists from India, religious language and dance classes for our children — and shopping. There is no time, nor any compelling need to understand the local culture, history, ethos and social nuances.
We glide through life physically living in the US, but mentally not having left our native gaum (village). We do not have to encounter or confront the troubling questions that often force us to review our beliefs, customs, and even prejudices till one is in the middle of a crisis. I speak this from experience.
But this lifestyle of ours is unsustainable without others working long hours in grocery stores, restaurants, newsstands, mobile food booths, and other places. For example, Indian entrepreneurs selling jewellery and clothes are constantly on the move, going from city to city for 3 to 4 days of every week. These men and women work long hours over 6 days a week and on all weekends. They don’t have any social life or even family outings and picnics
These two classes of Indian immigrants sharing common heritage nonetheless live in very separate worlds. The experience of children growing up in these home environments is starkly different.
In the past few months, in the wake of the success of the new dot.com companies, Indian immigrant success stories are all over the print media such as the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Money, and New York Times, portraying us as well-educated, talented, resourceful, and entrepreneurial immigrants. This visibility in the media comes with a price: we become natural targets for extremist individuals or other hate groups, as it happens in all societies. Mind you, these are the best of times, with low unemployment and a booming economy.
When extremists decide to take on immigrants, their convenient targets are the most publicly visible, least protected, and unorganised people like cab drivers and people working in ethnic grocery stores and restaurants, not the suburban professionals in their 4-bedroom homes.
What can we do? References to wake-up calls suggest that the status quo is clearly unsatisfactory. And we must do something different. For starters, as the latest wave of immigrants, we individually can take a few initiatives. Incorporating one or two of these (or others that suit our individual lifestyle) will make all the difference in the aggregate. At the risk of getting branded as a pedagogue, let me list a few.
- Understand what the Irish, Italians, Japanese, Jewish and even early Sikhs immigrants have gone through, and what the African Americans are still going through in the US. Then we will recognise that we are the beneficiaries of several changes in the laws of the land — for example, the Voting Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity laws, and the Fair Housing Act that other immigrants fought long and hard. We may also realise that our immigrant experience is not unique and is lot more benign than the socially orchestrated ostracization of earlier immigrants in the US up until the early 20th century.
- Proactively get involved in local community affairs, not only on issues that are important to us, but also on issues that concern us only peripherally, particularly on issues in which we as a demographic subgroup do not stand to gain, but society benefits. Like the people of Indian origin stand in South Africa standing against the apartheid. Being newcomers, the onus is on us to take the initiative.
- Most of us have taken US citizenship. We must exercise our privilege and vote not only for the presidency and Senate, but also in the state, city, and borough council elections. We need to be seen waiting in lines on election days, visibly participating in the political process. We need to participate in mainstream politics as we passionately do in the politics in our temples.
- In these times of prosperity among those who have made it, money is cheap, but time is not. Often, we raise or donate money to causes without checking if the monies are prudently spent for the causes publicised. The United Way scandal years back is a glaring example on squandering donations monies. But there are many homegrown desi varieties too. Therefore, along with your money, also try to donate the most precious commodity you have — your time. Money is no substitute for physical participation.
- Most importantly, we should stand with others and denounce violence against humanity because of differences in race, faith and ethnicity. “In this route, your effort does not go to waste, and you will have no guilt even if you practice this only a little but do it continuously. It saves you from anxiety and fear.” So, what are we waiting for to take that step? The quote is not mine. It is from the Bagavad Gita 2.40:
हाभिक्रमनाशोऽस्ति प्रत्यवायो न विद्यते ।
स्वल्पमप्यस्य धर्मस्य त्रायते महतो भयात् ॥
nehābhikrama-nāśo’sti pratyavāyo na vidyate
sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt.