Scary Stories

The election is giving me a stomachache!

I've been following a depressing story about an Obama canvasser in Wisconsin getting attacked. Her last name is Takehara, so she's either Japanese-American or married to one (I think it's been confirmed she is JA now). A recent post from Asian Americans for Obama outlines a lot of my feelings.

Finally, it seems fair to ask to what extent this attack might have been racially motivated, not just because it was an attack on an Obama volunteer but because the target was an Asian American woman. This is especially true given what Takehara reported Goetsch said to her: "we're not his people." As an Asian American, hearing those words gives me a chill; it echoes those familiar phrases Asian Americans are so used to hearing, like "you don’t belong here" and "go back where you came from.” Let’s hope that the statement "you're not our people" was just misguided partisan rhetoric and not something more insidious.

Aside from one terrifying close-quarters encounter in college, I haven't been harassed in that kind of nakedly hostile way since the age of 15 or so. But hearing about the Takehara encounter gives me a sense of atavistic dread wrapped up in my childhood experiences of racist bullying. And I don't think the Takehara encounter will ever be resolved. The full reasons are never going to come to the surface.

As Yu makes sure to note, the recent race-baiting hoax by a McCain volunteer throws this case into sharper perspective, although the McCain case is going to get much more media coverage.

This might sound like a counterintuitive thing to say, but I'm not too upset at the woman who lied. Like anyone who makes up an outrageous charge and claims to be a victim of liberalism or racism or sexism or what have you... 1) they're mentally ill and don't carry their plan out in a logical way 2) they gain nothing from it in the long-term because they almost never get away with it anymore 3) it backfires and they suffer hugely from the negative attention.

On the individual level, that woman made her bed and is going to have to lie in it. There's little more to say. But I do blame elements of the media, the RNC and gullible racists in general for promulgating her story and getting so disgustingly excited about it. Whipping up hatred and fear of black men is something that has real consequences for millions of people. The race-baiting and Muslim-hating has reached a horrific level.

I was joking with out therapist today that if McCain got elected, she'd get a lot more business. She agreed, but then said that nobody would have enough money to pay for those sessions.

Moving back to personal stuff, Sunny had one very bad day last week in school. He got the lowest mark for behavior and was doing the opposite of what the teacher told him to do. It reminded me of what he did last weekend, when I told him not to take his socks off and he did the opposite. For getting a bad mark at school, Sunny got the pre-established consequence: the weekend video game time he earned for previous good marks all got wiped out. He was also grounded for the day and had to make an apology to his teacher the next day.

Talking to the therapist gave us some general insight into why he was misbehaving. She says it's probably revenge, and the revenge is because of not having enough control. He did receive a lot of disappointing news last week. Apparently the most disappointing is that the teacher told him testing week is over. Sunny LOVES testing. Part of his IEP states that he needs separate testing accommodations. From his point of view, testing is a wonderful, wonderful thing where he gets to go to a special room, gets special attention by a teacher's aide, gets to bubble-in fun worksheets, and when he's finished, play Uno with the teacher's aide (since he finishes the tests twice as fast as everyone else, he has plenty of spare time).

We already know he needs more control, it's just difficult to work out specific measures. The therapist recommended more work with art, which we're going to try over the next weeks. She also agreed with me that I shouldn't do too much academic work with him. I can leave that to the tutor in order to concentrate more on bonding and fun stuff.

Sunny really wants to go to a haunted house. We were actually going to go to one last weekend, but his behavior wasn't good enough. It's also tough finding the right place. Given that he has a recurring nightmare about a man with a chainsaw chopping off his foot, I don't think any of the adult-oriented ones would be a good idea. We finally found a good one that we're going to this weekend. It's geared around ghost storytelling and dark spooky places, not monsters and gore.

Here's a picture of Sunny getting into the Halloween spirit! He's wearing the scary, scary cereal box mask he made with his dad.