Asian American Empowerment - Chai Vang in the Media

©2004 By 3Line
Special to ModelMinority.com
November 27, 2004

On the Sunday of November 21st, Chai Vang shot eight hunters in Northern Wisconsin. It is not clear who shot first, but when the dust settled five lay dead and three lay wounded. One of the wounded later died in the hospital. The shooter has since confessed and is now in police custody. These are the more or less indisputable facts of the case as of November 25th, 2004.

I will not attempt to revise these basic facts; my purpose in this analysis is to examine the mainstream media’s bias in the reporting of this event.

For this, I will focus on the Associated Press’s coverage for the most part, since the AP is the principal source of news on this event, at least inside the United States. There are a few basic AP stories that have appeared, albeit with modifications, as feature articles in various media outlets. With an analysis of these articles, one can derive the general tone of the mainstream media towards Vang and his crime.

Anthropologizing the Subject

The fact that one man killed six in itself horrific, but that the suspected killer is an immigrant and a non-white immigrant at that it infuses the situation with a degree of sensationalism. In this modern world where we attempt to ascribe cause and meaning to all action, the suspect’s race and culture become convenient determining factors.

The initial report contained no mention of Vang’s Hmong ancestry or immigrant status for the very simple reason that the police “identified the suspect as Chai Vang but would give no additional details.” 1 Shortly thereafter, however, when details on Vang were released, a second article appeared, this time including commentary on Vang’s ethnicity. Of particular note is the line “Locals have complained that the Hmong, refugees from Laos, do not understand the concept of private property and hunt wherever they see fit.”2 This assessment is more than a bit condescending, for it implies that Vang acted not as an individual but out of a set of cultural imperatives. The Hmong’s and by association Vang’s inability to grasp property rights led to the fatal “culture” conflict in the woods. Vang’s identity is swallowed up by the faceless mass of Hmong refugees. He is no longer an individual but an anthropological type.

On November 22, this could be excused for a lack of evidence, for few details had actually surfaced regarding Vang’s personal life. However, the very same line appears following day’s article, where Vang is revealed to be a US citizen who had served in the National Guard from 1989-1995.3 This was the article in which for the first time Vang’s side of the story appeared in the mainstream media. Yet, again, there is an implication of cultural complicity in the crime. “Hunters have complained the Hmong do not understand the concept of private property and hunt wherever they want,” the article states immediately before discussing the suspect’s somewhat noteworthy service record. The mere suggestion that a man who had been a US citizen for at least 15 years is incapable of understanding the notion of private property in the USA is a suggestion made in exceedingly bad faith and reflects a tendency of the mainstream media to ascribe cultural characteristics to non-white individuals even when such connections cannot be made.

Then, there is the decision to name the weapon: the SKS carbine. The SKS is a light, gas-operated 7.62mm rifle operating on a tilting bolt with a fixed magazine of ten or twenty round capacity loaded from the top with a stripper clip—fully legal under the old assault weapon ban. It was designed by Sergei Simonov in the latter years of WWII and was adopted by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. Since that time, it had been shipped in massive quantities to other Communist nations such as North Korea, China, and North Vietnam, meaning that it had seen extensive action against the United States in the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts. Many in the older generations would associate the SKS with Asia, Communism, and a vague sense of threat.

Before I proceed further, I must point out that in the Columbine High School shooting, the media hardly mentioned the weapons used. Even the most detailed reports typically referred to the firearms as “9mm” and “shotgun.” This was true even when the actual murder weapons were depicted in photographs.4 The fact that the SKS was named in the very first report, before the police released any details about Vang, is nothing short of an anomaly, especially considering that the SKS is a fairly common weapon among hunters. It was probably not the author’s intent, but the association of an ostensibly Asian name with this Communist weapon conjures up images of Chinese and Vietnamese hordes threatening the security of the USA, subtly reproducing the modern yellow peril, with the foreigner using the foreign gun to kill Americans. Again, this contributes to a racialized caricature of the suspect.

It is doubtful that the weapon used be as much of an issue if it had been an American-made Ruger Mini-30, chambered to the same 7.62x39 round as the SKS. It is doubtful that the Mini-30 would be presented as a deadly variant of the AK-47, as the SKS has been in certain follow up news reports.5 The naming of the SKS appears in most of the feature articles on the shooting.

Dehumanizing the Subject

Whenever an individual commits a “deviant” act within a given society, a typical reaction is for that society to accomplish a moral separation from that individual. This is a standard process of defining what is normal through the actions of the deviant. In Vang’s case, this process means the construction of an identity that paints him as a methodical, merciless killer.

The earliest instances of dehumanizing Vang came with the basic facts of the case. This was a man who had killed six others. Compounding that was the fact that he had killed a woman and had chased down his victims, even shooting one in the back. These are the facts that both shooter and victim agree upon.3 However it is interesting to note that while the AP article on November 23 gave a brief outline of Vang’s side of the incident, there is no mention of the more humanizing sections of Vang’s testimony. It is not mentioned that Vang voluntarily jettisoned his ammunition and surrendered to the police, that he even waived his right to have a lawyer present as he gave his statement.6 Interesting as this may be, though, it is nothing compared to the media carnival that had sprung up around the term “sharpshooter.”

The term first appeared in the media on November 23, when more details of Vang’s life began to emerge. According to the AP, “he spent six years in the California National Guard and earned a sharpshooter qualification badge.”3 Sharpshooter—the term evokes a sense of cold professionalism and a willingness to pull the trigger. Vang the Sharpshooter was a professionally trained killing machine mowing down his hapless victims with the ease of swatting flies. Ruthless training. Mechanized killing. Almost immediately the media seized upon the word “sharpshooter” for it hooked the public imagination. Several large media outlets such as the Chicago Tribune and Kansas City Star even coded the word into their headlines. Respectively, the article headlines from those two publications read “Suspect Was Sharpshooter in Guard”7 and “Suspect in Hunting Shooting Spree a Distinguished Army Rifleman.”8

Only a tiny minority of news articles have correctly defined the term to the reader. “Sharpshooter” is the second grade of rifle marksmanship qualification, raking above “marksman” but below “expert.” It simply means that Vang was an above average shot, and that he hit 30-35 of the 40 targets in marksmanship tests. That is hardly an exceptional accomplishment, and hardly worthy of headline. However, the word sharpshooter occupies a semi-mythological position, just a stone’s throw away from “sniper,” the title given to John Allen Muhammad for his reign of terror, even though all of Muhammad’s victims had been shot at close range. In the popular consciousness, “sharpshooter” establishes an equation between Vang’s shootout with Muhammad the DC Sniper’s murder spree.

It should be said that the dehumanization of the suspect is not unique to Vang’s case, for it occurs in most cases where there is a crime of some severity. This dehumanization does not issue from a racial or cultural essentialization, though given that race plays such an important role in the perception of this incident in the public discourse, the association with race can very well be made. Nevertheless, I am concerned that this process of dehumanization could destroy any ability to empathize with the suspect and could put the very possibility of a fair trial to question.

He Said, She Said

On the issue of dehumanization, it is worthy to address the employment of personal testimony in the treatment of the shooting in the media. The initial article from the newswire included a statement from a 72-year-old hunter named Bill Wagner, who happened to be only a few miles away when the shooting occurred. In his words, the situation was unthinkable because "When you're hunting you don't expect somebody to try to shoot you and murder you.”1 Murder. From the very first AP article, the word murder was introduced, setting the tone of public perception in the days to come. In my personal opinion, it is thoroughly irresponsible for the media to introduce the language of conviction even before any formal charges had been brought up.

The subsequent articles treat Vang like a condemned man. The victims’ side of the events was automatically given a privileged status. From the second article published on November 22, one can see this clearly:

“‘The suspect got down from the deer stand, walked 40 yards, fiddled with his rifle. He took the scope off his rifle, he turned and he opened fire on the group,’ [Sheriff] Meier said…The gunman was ‘chasing after them and killing them,’ Deputy Tim Zeigle said. ‘He hunted them down.’”2

Here, the testimony of the victim is afforded the status of truth. It is not the survivor telling the sheriff telling the press; it is the sheriff telling the press directly as if the witness’s testimony were the result of his investigation. Though the media has become more keen to address both versions of the story since Vang’s statement had been made public, the bias towards the victim’s account still characterizes the reports. Whenever Vang’s side of the account is given, even if it corroborates Lauren Hesebeck’s account, it is always presented in the form of him telling or claiming. At all times his testimony lacks the voice of authority displayed in the preceding quotations from local law enforcement officials. His testimony is hearsay.

All this does is make Vang appear inherently untrustworthy, a perception that colors the interpretation of all information regarding the suspect’s personality or history. His military service means that he’s a trained killer. His calm demeanor at home underlined his cool, calculating nature. That no one among his family and friends had thought him capable of such an act was testament to Vang’s proficiency in deception. For some readers, the trial of Chai Vang was over even before it began.

The Hmong

"What happened in Wisconsin is in no way representative of the Hmong people and what they stand for. We stand before you as representatives of the greater law-abiding Hmong community to unconditionally condemn these atrocities," Cha Vang (no relation to the suspect), a leader of the Hmong community, announced on Tuesday.3

I am not Hmong, so I do not presume to speak for them, but I do see that this is an extremely frustrating situation. To ostracize Vang from the community would mean abandoning a man to a potentially unjust legal process; to support him would risk association and subsequent racist reprisals. Over the course of the week I have heard from my fellow Asian Americans arguments from both camps. Some think Chai Vang a lost cause, while others have gone so far as to proclaim him as a hero who stood up valiantly to racism. Neither of these extremes, I feel, is an appropriate response to this situation. Let us not forget that the man in question killed six people, most of whom were unarmed. There is no adequate justification for self-defense, and his crime is severe enough that open association from the Hmong community would be a foolhardy move. The last thing that is needed is an Asian OJ scandal.

However, making a pariah out of Vang is not an adequate response either. Due to the construct of race in mainstream American society, Vang will be known as the “Hmong Sharpshooter” or “that Asian killer.” From many Americans, reading about this incident was the first time they had encountered the Hmong, and I must say, first impressions stick. No amount of moral distancing is going to separate the Hmong (and some would even say Asian Americans in general) from Chai Vang simply because he has an Asian face. The media has already anthropologized him.

Thus, I am at a loss as to any specific action to prescribe. I can only say that one should condemn the action, but not the man. We, as Asian-Americans, must recognize the reprehensibility of his crime, but we, as Asian-Americans, must also empathize with him, for to dehumanize Chai Vang is to dehumanize ourselves.

References

1. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=272736
2. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=274388
3. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=278703
4. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/05/15/columbine.report.04/
5. http://www-cgi.cnn.com/2004/LAW/11/23/hunters.shot/
6. http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/special_packages/hunter_shooting/10255877.htm?1c
7. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0411250309nov25,1,7622837.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
8. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/10266812.htm