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| Lili Wang was killed while playing tennis. |
Lili Wang, a 31-year-old computer science graduate student at North Carolina State University, was murdered two years ago today by Richard Borrelli Anderson, a white classmate who
had become infatuated with her. Wang was already married (to another Chinese American),
but this fact did nothing to deter Anderson's advances, which appear to have been
racially motivated. According to press reports, Anderson had confided to a colleague that he liked Asian women because "they study hard, and they're very nice, soft
speaking."
Although no definitive conclusions can be drawn from these press reports, if it is the case that Anderson singled Wang out first as the target of his unwanted advances, and then for murder, because of her race, then the crime should be reported and recognized as a hate crime. In October 2002, ModelMinority.com petitioned the law enforcement community to urge that a formal investigation be opened on the question of Anderson's possible racial motivation. Even if Anderson cannot be brought to trial, recording the murder as a hate crime will serve as a precedent to educate the legal system about the potentially tragic consequences of the model minority stereotype and other subtle forms of racial discrimination against the Asian American community.
Lili Wang
By Stephen Bor
Special to ModelMinority.com
2003
My tongue is a death, rattle and roll
My tongue is a death, rattle and roll
My tongue is a death, rattle and roll
My tongue is a death
My tongue is a
My,
Sometimes life seems like an interruption.
I was in Boston this past October,
relaxing on a chubby Saturday night,
With two women I loved, and a brother.
We watched when Harry met Sally,
we had a fight with Dunkin Donut Munchkins,
and discussions on whether sex really got in the way of
friendships between men and women,
I told them that shit happens when men have preconceived notions of women
I was in Boston when POP! POP! POP! POP!
Lily Wang, four shots, two in the knees, two in the head,
crumpling like a ruby galaxy of rivers,
Staining red the tennis court floor at the feet of
Mr. Richard Borrelli Anderson,
Mr. "I prefer Asian women because "they study hard, and they're soft
speaking."
Mr. I applied for five handgun permits to shoot you the day I bought my 10mm
glock.
see, Richard and I went to the same school, and he always said he had a fetish
for Asian women. And I played it cool and kept quiet, until I realized that my
mouth was stuffed full of my own angry silence.
He'd propositioned Lily, and she'd turned him down because she was married.
And his rejection had become her death sentence.
My sister, my lovely sister, gems tearing inside your body,
My eyes are bleeding with bullet hole tears, and we die silently,
no cries echoed, no newsreel on race related killings, we die silently,
I'm sick of this laundry list that licks our lips with these names that we
wash with our tears and hang up to dry on the clothesline of memory.
How long are we going to remain soft spoken while exoticized fantasies wage war
on our families?
How many more names do I have to count for someone to hear me?
How many more names do I have to count for someone to hear me?
Amanda Zhao, Ji Won Park, Shim Mi-son, Shin Hyo-Soon, Lily Wang,
We count because that's the only way we know how to remember ourselves.
I want to puncture the sky with the sound of your laughter,
I want to terrorize the world with your beauty.
I want to tiptoe thunder at the sound of your memory,
I want to stamp my broken heart into the souls of our families,
Because we will never forget, lily
Devoted wife. beloved of mother, of father.
Your life plucked early by a 10 mm and a stereotype,
And now, listen to us cry,
Because there is no alternative to listening to us die,
Because my sister is wading knee deep in the sky
Listen to us cry
Because we have been silent for far too long,
Because I will be shouting
To my grave, somebody,
Listen to us die,
Listen to us die,
Listen to my tongue
Death rattle,
And roll.
