by KELLY ZEN-YIE TSAI
(Performed a draft of this for the Remember Vincent Chin Vigil in NYC Chinatown. You can peep it in the video link above – as always feel free to share/fwd/post!)
when the bachelor party is an execution
when the enemy is Japanese
when the victim is Chinese
when the jobs aren’t American
when the murderers are step-father and step-son
when the judge is a former Japanese prisoner of war
when the bat is a Jackie Robinson Louisville slugger
when the city is Detroit
when the CEO is Lee Iococca
when a billion dollar government bail-out leads to more plant closures
when executive pay outpaces worker pay 100 times to 1
when you’ve been out of work for three years
when you’ve been told, “”It’s because of you little muthafuckers that we’re out of work”
when you’ve had a few drinks
when you’ve thrown the first punch
Michael Nitz and Ronald Ebens paid a man $20 to help them track down Vincent Chin after leaving the Fancy Pants Strip Club.
They found him 20 minutes later at the Highland Park McDonald’s.
Ronald Ebens struck Vincent chin in the leg with a baseball bat and then bashed him four more times in the head as Michael Nitz held him down.
“It’s not fair,” Vincent said to a friend at the hospital. He slipped into a coma and died four days later. He was to be married 9 days after the assault.
Judge’s ruling: “These weren’t the kind of men that you send to jail…You don’t make the punishment fit the crime. You make the punishment fit the criminal.”
Michael Nitz: $30 a week for 10 years
Ronald Ebens: $200 per month
buy the life of a man in installments
for some, it may not cost anything at all
what was his name?
vincent chin
fong lee
what was his name?
sean bell
oscar grant
what was his name?
marcelo lucero
jame byrd
what was his name?
rashawn brazell
what was her name?
sakia gunn
a dead brown body a dead yellow body a dead black body
a dead gay body a dead lesbian body
targets within reach
eliminated in unnatural selection
the killers’ world
no more secure than it was before
Kelly Tsai’s website is Yellow Gurl