The Argus’s mistake is telling

The Argus came out with a colored newspaper today, Tuesday, May 1, 2007. Congratulations—the Argus *does* look nice. But when we turned to page seven, the headline read, “Cho changes talk to discuss VA Tech.” Oh really? We thought Cho had died. The headline confused the scholar who came to speak about the VA tech shootings with the shooter, whose names are both Korean. Although the article itself did manage to get speaker Min Hyoung Song’s name correct, we’re dumbfounded by the headline with a big and bold “Cho.”

I’m sure this confusion was an innocent mistake, but it’s these kinds of mistakes that result in dangerous generalizations. “Cho” and “Song” are both common East Asian surnames, yes. Both are relatively short, foreign, and so that must make them interchangeable, right? No. Believe it or not, not all foreign surnames are the same, and the fact that such a blatant typographical error was made is inexcusable. Would such a mistake have been made had the names been “Bennet” and “Roth,” or even “Smith” and “Miller”?

Ironically, this article is reporting on a lecture that discussed race and its impact on the struggles of Asian Americans. The expectations of the stereotypical Asian American are to be obedient, work hard, succeed, and not cause trouble. In a survey I conducted, one graduate student remarked, “To be honest, it’s about time an Asian kid snapped.” The pressure Asian Americans face is something we all share in some way but try to deal with at the individual level. What’s there to complain about? Just do it. But the struggles of Asian Americans are mainly ignored in the media because they are considered to be “doing just fine,” an assumption that further contributes to marginalization and absolves the government and whites from thinking about the position of this “model minority.” By confusing these names, the Argus showed its own ignorance and disregard.

We understand that spellcheck isn’t always reliable and there are countless names to keep track of, but the implications of such mistakes are dire. What’s the point of being in color if the black and white is still flawed?