Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

This past week Neal Rubin of the Detroit News tried to rewrite history.  He published an article on the 1982 case of the killing of Vincent Chin.  To summarize the case:  Chin was having a bachelor party at a strip joint when two unemployed auto workers, mistaking Chin to be Japanese, hurled racial epithets at him.  A fight ensued but was broken up.  All involved were thrown out of the bar.  The killers, Ebens and Nitz then got a bat out of their car, hunted Chin down the street and beat him to death.  For this murder, the killers were given probation, no jail time.  The case pulled the small Asian community of Detroit together to protest.  It drew national attention but the fact remains that these two killers got away with murder.

Now for unknown reason, Rubin claims evidence show that Chin is partially at fault by throwing the first punch.  This is a complete lack of logic.  Not only has Rubin failed to prove who started the fight, it is absurd to assign fault to the victim in this case.  Let's say a slur was aimed at that person's race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, would it not be reasonable for that person to stand up for himself?  It would be totally understandable that a black, Latino, Jewish or gay person may throw the first punch in this situation. Sure, a monk may not respond to a slur but I would think that no monk would be in a strip joint.  So if you are calling someone names in a bar, aren't you the one looking for trouble in the first place?  But let say Chin started the fight, it does not matter when it comes to assigning blame because that fight in the bar was OVER when they were kicked out.  If Chin had gotten hit, fell and hit his head and died in the bar, one can argue that accidents happen in a bar fight.  But the truth, and nobody disputed this:  Ebens and Nitz had time to cool off after leaving the bar but they chose to get the bat and hunt Chin down.  A lot of time had passed for them to change their mind but they chose to use a weapon!  So this was pure murder and you can't rewrite such history.  Chin is being slurred once again 32 years later.

The Chin case mobilized the Asian community.  We were not successful in getting justice for Chin then.  But we are a bigger and stronger community now.  We cannot let anyone insult us in the media today.  The Chin case has mobilized us again 32 years later. We have way more economic power today than 32 years ago.  If we get no apology from Rubin or the Detroit News, it is time to plan economic boycott and other pressures against them.