SunWuKong
06-23-2007, 02:54 PM
so today is the 25th anniversary of Vincent Chin's death. there were townhall meetings planned (http://www.apaforprogress.org/node/190") in some major cities in the country, and I went to the one here in DC. thanks goes to raacluse (http://forums.yellowworld.org/member.php?u=327) for posting about the meetings in this thread (http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=33116).
we got to watch Who Killed Vincent Chin? and had a discussion about the film and about the current concerns and issues that face the Asian American community. i also saw Larry Shinagawa there, he's an Asian American Studies professor and somewhat of an activist himself. i went to the meeting wearing my old beat-up Vincent Chin T-Shirt (http://blacklava.net/store/product_info.php?products_id=35). there was a guy that was filming the meeting with a handheld, and at the end, he asked if I would let him film the shirt for a few minutes. so if you ever watch a documentary that uses the footage from this meeting - I'm the guy sitting in the front row with the Vincent Chin T-Shirt.
anyway, about the Vincent Chin case itself, it really leaves you wondering, "what the hell happened?" a guy at the discussion said that he used to work as a public defender here in DC, and that he has defended murderers before. he said that a sentence of a three-year probation and a $3000 fine is not uncommon, even today, for a manslaughter plead where the defendants had no prior records. according to this article (http://www.modelminority.com/article259.html), the plead was for involuntary manslaughter. now I know very little about legal terms and the justice system, but why the hell were they allowed to plead involuntary manslaughter, instead of voluntary manslaughter? there was clear intent to seriously injure Chin. did Chin just had a shitty prosecutor? is this some failing of the justice system? legal technicalities aside, on the surface of it, a sentence of a three-year probation and a $3000 fine seems extremely light even if Chin had not died. i mean, they held him and hit him repeatedly with a baseball bat.
we got to watch Who Killed Vincent Chin? and had a discussion about the film and about the current concerns and issues that face the Asian American community. i also saw Larry Shinagawa there, he's an Asian American Studies professor and somewhat of an activist himself. i went to the meeting wearing my old beat-up Vincent Chin T-Shirt (http://blacklava.net/store/product_info.php?products_id=35). there was a guy that was filming the meeting with a handheld, and at the end, he asked if I would let him film the shirt for a few minutes. so if you ever watch a documentary that uses the footage from this meeting - I'm the guy sitting in the front row with the Vincent Chin T-Shirt.
anyway, about the Vincent Chin case itself, it really leaves you wondering, "what the hell happened?" a guy at the discussion said that he used to work as a public defender here in DC, and that he has defended murderers before. he said that a sentence of a three-year probation and a $3000 fine is not uncommon, even today, for a manslaughter plead where the defendants had no prior records. according to this article (http://www.modelminority.com/article259.html), the plead was for involuntary manslaughter. now I know very little about legal terms and the justice system, but why the hell were they allowed to plead involuntary manslaughter, instead of voluntary manslaughter? there was clear intent to seriously injure Chin. did Chin just had a shitty prosecutor? is this some failing of the justice system? legal technicalities aside, on the surface of it, a sentence of a three-year probation and a $3000 fine seems extremely light even if Chin had not died. i mean, they held him and hit him repeatedly with a baseball bat.