Thoughts on Ferguson’s other Minority Victim

With the second night of protest with the Ferguson decision, there is a lot of heated rhetoric about race and injustice in America.

I think one thing missing in many of the mainstream discussion about race and victims surrounding Ferguson is another minority group that often gets overlooked if you want to look at it through the lens of racial paradigm: Asians.  And this is not the first time this has occurred.

You might have remembered the security camera footage months ago that recorded Michael Brown stealing some box of cigarettes at a Liquor store.

That store was called Ferguson Market and Liquor.  According to CNN the store has been looted.

 

I think there is something sad with this ordeal.

Here is an Asian man who is probably like many other Asian small business owner: he probably works incredible hours to run the place and invest much of his money, resource and life to keep the convenience store going all the while having a small profit margin.

Then you have Michael Brown step in one day who decides to shoplift at his store.  He tries to stop Michael Brown but was physically intimidated by the bigger man.

The store owner did not call the cops for fear of being a “rat” since being a snitch will bring more problem for his business (it was a bystander that called the Police).

Then Brown was killed by a police officer away from the store.  The police officer was acquitted of any wrongdoing, people got angry and they decide to protest.  When one thinks about it, all of this is really out of his control.  Then people decided to loot his store.

All the while the Asian store owner didn’t do anything against Michael Brown.

He is a victim.  And a victim of a racial conflict between two other races that’s not his own.

I stumbled upon a webpage that had some derogatory remarks against the man and his store; I am going to post only the last paragraph of the ignorant article:

Poor store owner? Sure. It sucks to have your place ransacked, and getting paid out on the insurance claim will probably take him a while. But at least he’s not dead.

I can’t believe that a website that report on things “hip” and “emerging” would post something like that.  There’s nothing cool or hip about it.  Especially when you logically dissect it.

First off, I think one can see from the article that the writer is taking out his frustration with the supporter of the police officer onto the store owner.  That’s not right.  That’s the same logic that is driving the rioting and looting.  It perpetuate more victims and create more racial problems.

Second, the writer’s perspective against this store owner is from the angle that if you support the police you will be for this store owner and if you are for Michael Brown you will be against him (or find that its acceptable to make fun of the store owner’s plight).  I think that’s logically fallacious and the writer commits an either/or fallacy.  It is logically possible to think Michael Brown has been unjustly killed and still say that what has happened to this man with his store being looted is wrong and wicked.  If one is campaigning against violence en toto, why not be consistent and be against both scenario?

Third, just because insurance covers the property (that’s a big assumption given how Asian small business owners often are trying to lessen overhead costs), that still doesn’t make it right.  Insurance, like insurance for many things in life, never cover the full cost of the actual damage.  With this twisted logic should we then say that it’s okay for people to destroy someone’s house, commit grand theft auto and beat someone senseless just because they have insurance to cover for those damages?

Fourth, I think the line “But at least he’s not dead” is really twisted.  Sure the store owner is not dead but that still doesn’t make what has happened to him as “right.”

Fifth, the line “But at least he’s not dead” cuts both ways: it is a dangerous line of thinking that goes against the very position of Michael Brown’s supporters.  If one wants to use the thinking of “but at least he’s not dead” to justify an evil done to a person short of death, our ignorant writer would have to ask why didn’t Michael Brown not beat the officer in the first place and just comply with the officer just to be alive?   Again, this is not my position but I am merely taking this ignorant writer’s twisted thinking to it’s logical conclusion with the writer’s own beliefs and position: “Sure, it sucks to undergo racial profiling and cops cussing you out but at least you are not dead if you comply.”  Again, what sick line of reasoning with the statement “But at least he’s not dead.”

I am not against Blacks.  I am not against Whites.  I am not against Asians.  I think racism is a sin including reverse discirmination.  I have seen racism among my own kind and also racism among other groups.  All of us are sinners who need to repent.  I think it is good for all of us to search our hearts, repent of our sins and trust in Jesus Christ as one’s Savior from one’s sins.  God is merciful and only through Christ can there be unity with the plurality of various ethnicity because Christ is the greatest motivation for us to love others even when it is difficult and humanly impossible.