From: shay@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (George Shay)
Subject: Re: Racial Beating
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 17:40:28 GMT

fellow@natinst.com (Osbert Tan) writes:

>My question to the net is, how do you deal with this type of situation
>(i.e. racial slur), at the same time coming out of it with honor/dinity
>(you fill in the appropriate word(s)) intact and ALIVE ?

 
That reminds me something happened when I was still in the college several
years ago.
In a hot summer weekend night, 1989. My friends(One cuacasian male, one
asian female) and I went to a fraternity party. The party was good, we met
a lot of interesting people there. We did not see any racists, jerks,
rednecks maybe just because it was a academic fraternity. When we left the
party at 1AM in the morning, it happened. Accross the street from the
fraternity house, there was a bar. Since there were not enough parking lots
there, a lot of bar goers parked the cars in front of our fraternity house.
Before we got our car, 3 white guys in the parking lot started shouting the
racial slur and dirty words to us. Then with beer cans in their hands,
looked drunk, they walked towards us. My cucasian male friend asked them to
step back to stay away from us. They did not listen to, shouted a lot of
dirty words to my asian female friend. Sure I was not the exception. I went my
car, got the baseball bat from the trunk. With something on hands, I felt
the confidence. I stepped forward, shouted back, "Go ahead, f**k her, you son
of b**ch. move it, you mother-f**ker". They did not make the move and no one
was going to leave though. After about 15 minutes, a police car came. It
stopped then called several other policemen. An officer pulled out his gun,
and shouted, "everyone, step back, drop your baseball bat, put your hands on
the car". Another officer went forward to search me. Then my friends and I
explained the situation, and evidently those 3 white guys were drunk and
could not drive. I did not know what happened after we left. It happened in
N.C. the capital of KKK.

After this lesson, I always have something in my trunk which can be used to
defense myself, I have the baseball bat, have several long screw drivers, a
iron bar which is a part of my car tool kit but very handy with a sharp
head. I have a folded knife, 2 screw drivers in my briefcase I carry
everyday. I also have a small knife in my key chains, which I used to use to
peel the skins of the fruits though I seldom use it because I started
eating fruits with skins, it is better. Anyway, I always have something on
hand I can use for self-defense. In this country, you just never know that
is going to happen, and I do not die like Vincent Chen or James Lo(A
Chinese guy was killed in Raleigh, NC almost the same time as my case
happened. 2 white males took him as Vietnamese. Because they had a bad
experience in Vietnan War. They hate vietnamese people, What a theory!!!).

Oh, yeah, this went to the top of my head. Early this year, My friend who is
a korean american and I wnet to a bar. You know, here texas, there are a lot
of rednecks. A typical-cowboy texasan started saying something really stupid
towards my friend, we did not care it. Then he started hitting my friend
like a a boxer, not strong hits. My friend said leave me lone, that guy did
not pay attention and made a position like a boxer, say, 'come on, hit
me, you never dare do it'. That guy is about 6"3' more than 200 lbs and my
friend is just 5"8', about 150 lbs. Being a Tae Koon Toe black belter, when
that guy tried to hit him again, my friend grabbed him, and threw him over
his shoulder to the dancing floor and with a peaceful voice, said, 'never say
never'.

So, all in all, get something handy which you can use to protect your own
life. I do not mind killing anybody as long as it is self-defence. If *some*
whites want to hit my head like those 2 guys did to Vincent, I will use my
baseball bat to hit it back without hesitation. I regret I can not carry my
gun with my briefcase. It is unlawful and I do not want to get into trouble.
BTW, if laws can not protect innocent people, lawful or unlawful is
meaningless. 

My advice is fight back, but with something which can protect your own life
(not necessarily deadly weapons, but without deadly weapons, you just can
not push them back)and be ready, it can happen at any time.