Wake Up and Smell the Violence: Frustration from the Philadelphia High School Attacks

I can’t remember how long attacks on Asian students have been going on at this Philadelphia high school, but I remember seeing links to it on Angry Asian Man a while back — in December, over thirty Asian immigrant students were attacked, with this latest story from Philly.com being the most recent. It’s disturbing,  frustrating, and makes me incredibly sad. For some reason, these stories catch my eye; maybe because  it’s close to home, and working with youth as my full-time job makes me sensitive to what’s going on at high schools.

But what gets me the most is that the violence is being targeted towards Asian students… and not a single, positive thing is being done in response.

The most recent assault victim and his family have been ignored at every point, whether complaint or inquiry. I can only imagine how emotionally debilitating it has been for the whole family, on top of the physical injuries he sustained in his body, which will stay with him for a long time. Not feeling safe at the place you spend eight hours a day can certainly do something to your psyche. The cherry on top of this whole situation: the principal of the school is getting a crazy huge bonus for doing and saying nothing about this situation.

Since I work (read: go to sports meets and games, do silly team building activities, facilitate discussion about reality in between) with youth, bullying and violence is often a topic that comes up with parents. Now that there are so many instruments of torture for young people, both virtual (Facebook and Myspace) and physical (bathroom doors and fists) it hear more and more of these troubling stories. The kids I work with attend a fairly diverse school, economically and racially, most of them are white and middle-class. I often hear of their interaction and friendship with the APA kids, and it makes me wonder how safe these kids feel at school. Though I never hear or see any overt racism, I fear the ways that the sleepy complacency of suburban life can often anesthetize us to some underlying problems that if not addressed meaningfully, which can explode to the surface in shocking moments of violence.

What’s ultimately at stake here for the APA community is a lot of things: at the very least, the continuous struggle of being caught in the middle in terms of identity and the right to a safe environment for education.

I do a little bit here and there, at least by mere virtue of being an APA in a sea of whiteness, and to “raise awareness,” but… is it enough? If nothing else, I am heartened and inspired by all the young APAs with their bold consciousness raising and courageous activism.