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"Driving while Asian?": Unfair?

Submitted by mschultz on 01/02/2009 - 10:36

Got an e-mail from reader Philip Cohen this morning upset about writer Augustus Cho's My View column in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News: "Driving While Asian?".

Cohen is a sociology professor at UNC and a friend of mine. We used to work together at The Ithaca Times, in central New York. The gist of his complaint is the column was unfair, probably racist and we shouldn't have run it. (Here's a link so you can read Cho's essay if you missed it.)

I ran Cohen's complaint by my partner over the breakfast table. He agreed with Cohen and said Cho was probably a self-loathing Asian and we shouldn't have run it. I asked whether he had read the whole column. He said he did. I asked whether he knew Cho was the chairman of the town of Chapel Hill's Transportation Advisory Committee. He laughed, said he didn't and that we still shouldn't have run it.

I knew Cho's essay, and the headline he gave it (I added the question mark to tone it down just a bit) would be provocative. Cohen's is the first feedback we've received, though he said it had been linked to on a friend's Facebook page, so we may get more. And we may get more still after I post this.

But Cho's column, if you read the whole essay, is that there is a reason why many Asians -- or Mexicans or any immigrant group new to a new country (and often new to driving altogether) -- may have problems driving.

"It is difficult to comprehend the Asian driving eccentricity ... unless you've lived and driven there [in Asian countries]," he wrote. "Then, the 'why's and the 'what's' begin making unconventional sense, bringing sympathy."

So what do you think?

Comments

يوتيوب | مطبخ

Thu, 11/12/2009 - 04:19 — DARSH33

That's bad, you could make

Tue, 07/28/2009 - 02:15 — makemine

That's bad, you could make someone hurt with your car

Best Car

pay no attention to the blowhard behind the Asian name

Wed, 01/07/2009 - 21:04 — sitnspin

In his recent piece, Cho creates statistics in his column to backup self-loathing opinion and "confirm" stereotypes. And in doing so, Cho does his community a disservice.

Cho often writes about his experiences as an Asian American, but I can't recall one article where I felt he represented my views or experiences as one myself. An opportunity to connect with readers, like or not, was lost.

I've read, with frustration, several of Mr. Cho's pieces over the last few years. In most, he inappropriately uses his "column" in the CH News to talk about himself. His self-reflections are often pointless, musings which say nothing interesting or poignant about the community or the world around us.

Raspberries to Augustus Cho for writing and to the CH News for publishing such nonsense.

Maybe, just maybe

Thu, 01/08/2009 - 19:28 — elvisboy77

You should avoid reading his columns if it is so upsetting to you. I find them humorous and informative. I guess you need to have the right sense of humor.

Your time may be better spent sitting and spinning, that would probably make you much happier.

I think

Tue, 01/06/2009 - 14:43 — TBlake

....it is much to do about nothing. I can see a possible humor interpretation, but more likely, to me the author (Cho) was trying to stir up commentary.

I think Cohen's commentary reads a bit too much like an Associate Professor of Sociology's knee jerk reaction when he himself is having a bad day.

I find some of the other comments revealing, others not so much.

Geez!

Sun, 01/04/2009 - 08:34 — elvisboy77

The PC police are now attacking self-deprecating humor in the name of racism.

And of course, Cho is a callous son of a gun, it's all because he is a republican- democrats _never_ act like that.

Sigh. Happy New Year.

Huh

Sun, 01/04/2009 - 05:13 — JohnA

I thought it was funny that I read the article maybe 6 hours before an Asian tried to make a right turn into an apartment complex in Chapel Hill from the left lane. And yes, he smashed into the car that was in the right lane. The Asian stereotype has been around far longer than this article. Usually "gimme" DWIs (several noticeable DWI driving cues) are either an actual DWI or DWA. Ask any police officer.

let's see the facts

Sun, 01/04/2009 - 12:03 — yyyikes

Very convenient. Will you provide date, time and location of this incident so that CHN can confirm it?

Cho has the right......

Sat, 01/03/2009 - 13:09 — Debrah

......to opine about any subject he chooses.

And if his experience has been of the nature he discusses in the column, so be it.

Others can disagree as commenters are doing on this forum.

However, to believe and attempt to promote the idea that the elderly are the only ones with less than stellar driving habits would be quite a stretch.

Perhaps those outdated PC urchins who find chronicling one's experiences truthfully "offensive" should actually spend some quality time behind the wheel instead of cycling or relying on public transportation around Chapel Hill all the time......(a la the now-deceased councilman Joe Hertzenberg).

Take it easy...

Sat, 01/03/2009 - 12:47 — ChapelHillGuy

I find it difficult to get worked into a lather over what I found to be one of Cho's LEAST offensive columns.

Get a life

Sat, 01/03/2009 - 11:52 — mjinchapelhill

It's a sad day when you you can't say anything anymore without "offending" someone or being labeled racist. Especially when the "offender" is of the race he is spotlighting.

Get a life people!

And by the way......

Fri, 01/02/2009 - 17:17 — Debrah

.....I lived in the heart of Tokyo for a few years and can say unequivocally that all Asians are not bad drivers!

LIS!

Of course.......

Fri, 01/02/2009 - 17:09 — Debrah

........reasonable people can all agree with Cohen on most points. Not exactly a new sentiment to say that stereotyping is bad.

On the other hand, stereotypes exist at all, necessarily, because certain traits and behavior repeatedly surface.

To put a fine point on it, there are indeed characteristics that make groups of people distinct in various ways.

Life would be smoother if everyone celebrated those distinctions, but life rarely works that way, does it?

And we must agree with "fhblack" that when someone uses epithets and stereotypes in a professional capacity, it's quite serious and should warrant the forfeiture of that person's position or something close.

Alas, this kind of punishment isn't suffered by all.

To wit:

The N&O editor Linda Williams sent out a memo to the entire staff earlier this year using the word "redneck".

This was a written message. Not something just rolling off the tongue in haste.

Williams was letting the staff know her thoughts about the day's coverage and the subject of Sarah Palin's soon-to-be son-in-law.....(whatever his name is!).....was the subject.

I had to wince thinking how perhaps some lower level N&O employees must have felt whose family might just be one step out of a trailer park or some rural existence---(as they work hard every day to move up the ladder)---and they had to read something so bigoted from a higher-up.

How comfortable would they have been to complain when the N&O has been cutting staff positions already?

Yet Linda Williams still has her job.

How many reading this believe if the tables were turned on Williams---(the other side of the "card" that this woman lives to play)---that she would not have demanded another employee be fired immediately for such open and easy bigotry?

The coverage of such an occurrence would take the newspaper's headlines for days if someone else had behaved in such a manner.

Such is the game of seasoned and selective bigotry.

Judgment

Fri, 01/02/2009 - 13:47 — fhblack

I thought the column was in poor taste and reflected poor judgment by the former Orange County Republican Party chair and a recent Republican primary candidate for the US 4th House District.

But, then when I read that former Tennessee GOP leader Chip Saltsman who wants to be The Republican National Committee chairman had sent committee members a CD this Christmas featuring a 2007 Rush Limbaugh's radio show song called "Barack the Magic Negro," and he saw nothing wrong with sending it, I wondered no more.

Don't stereotype Asians

Fri, 01/02/2009 - 13:01 — mschultz (author)

Here is Philip Cohen's letter, which will appear in The Chapel Hill News on Sunday or next Wednesday.

Don't stereotype Asians.

Pulling over Black motorists on the basis of their race led to the term "Driving While Black." The term was not intended to refer to any actual driving characteristics of Black drivers, but rather to the racist profiling by police. Now Augustus Cho, in his offensive column, "Driving while Asian?" (December 31), modifies the term to describe the supposed actual driving errors of Asian motorists.

In the 2000 Census, Asians were only 3% of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill population. Yet Cho has says that "Seven out of 10 times, it's an Asian driver" you see doing "something unusual" – such as "stop in the middle of the road to let someone in or out," "go irritatingly below the speed limit," or "pull out of a side street when you are only 25 feet away from it."

Not only are Asians only 3% of the local adults, but less than 60% of them are immigrants who were old enough to learn how to drive before they immigrated here. Even if they *all* learned bad habits as young drivers before moving here, it's hard to get from less than half of 3% to 70% of the "unusual" driving around here. Unless you're just playing to a stereotype.

Of course some immigrants – from Asia or anywhere else – bring habits from their home countries, or adapt to their circumstances here in ways that are atypical. But applying a label like "Driving While Asian" to the entire racial group is creating a stereotype. And once the stereotype exists, anyone who's heard of it may look at every Asian driver getting in their way as confirmation of the type – while ignoring all the Asian drivers who don't fit the mold, and all the annoying non-Asian drivers.

That's the danger of spreading stereotypes – and why the Chapel Hill News shouldn't have published Cho's column.
Cho's condescending call for "compassion" notwithstanding, his rant calls to mind the opening scene of the Oscar-winning 2006 movie "Crash," in which an L.A. police officer blows up at all Asian drivers. The cop, who is herself unfairly ethnically stereotyped, is a mostly decent person who delivers the irrational outburst at the end of a very long day. What is Cho's excuse?

--
Philip N. Cohen
Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Graduate Studies
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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"Driving while Asian?": Unfair?

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يوتيوب | مطبخ

That's bad, you could make

Best Car

pay no attention to the blowhard behind the Asian name

Maybe, just maybe

I think

Geez!

Huh

let's see the facts

Cho has the right......

Take it easy...

Get a life

And by the way......

Of course.......

Judgment

Don't stereotype Asians

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"Driving while Asian?": Unfair?

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