Found out about this over at Hyphen Blog and it’s very upsetting. An elderly Chinese woman in Oakland was viciously beaten by three men in their 20s.

Every Thursday for the past three years the 4-foot-8-inch, 103-pound widow would walk through the neighborhood removing cans and other recyclable items from plastic bins residents would put out for regular collection on Friday.

…

Hamilton said some residents heard a commotion and when they went to look they saw the woman lying helpless on the sidewalk with two men punching and kicking her and another beating her with what turned out to be the broomstick she used to carry her bags on her shoulders. During the attack the broomstick broke and the man started kicking her, Hamilton said.

(from San Jose Mercury News)

To do something like that to anyone – but especially to a defenseless great-grandmother who weighs 100 pounds – you have to not view the victim as a person, or even as a living being.

I have seen young and not that young non-Asian people mock or harass elderly Asian people my whole life here in racist-ass Boston. And as much as I hate that, it seemed those situations turning into actual cases of violence were more than rare. The only one I can remember immediately was the beating death of 70 year-old Sheng Hao Teng in 2003 by a severely mentally ill homeless man. That tragic case is the only one of its kind I can think of, until now I guess.

There are a lot of things I want to write here, but they are somehow just too painful.

I guess all I can say is I hope she recovers fully – physically, mentally, and emotionally. I also hope her assailants go through a process by which they confront and conquer their demons that spurred them to do something like this, and by which they are able to contribute positively again to society, and specifically contribute positively to the lives of the victim and her family. I also hope the people in the community where this happened are able to adequately express their sadness, anger, and concerns about safety, and work together to create an environment where something like this could never happen again.

Peace all.

Tags: violence

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 1:44 PM and is filed under stuff in the newspaper. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.