Remember Kenneth Eng? He’s the young gentleman whose column in a San Francisco Asian-American paper headlined “Why I Hate Black People” caused a certain amount of agitation back in late February and early March. Though it was that article that led to his column being pulled, it turned out that in previous writings he had also lobbed large quantities of idiotic, racist invective at any number of other ethnic and cultural groups — whites, Latinos, Muslims, working-class people, fellow Asians accused of self-hatred — on grounds, apparently, of some combination of inherent inferiority and complicity with some kind of conspiracy to devalue and degrade Asian people in America.
So then the Virginia Tech massacre happens and, returning to the Eng thread here, commenter “A Black Muse” asks the following question:
Ok, now, I’m just waiting for the Cho/Eng connection. Did you read about the disturbing behavior Cho exhibited prior to his rampage? Did it remind you of anyone? About two weeks ago, Eng posted reply to the FoxNews video to drone on about a concept he has no understanding, and in the middle of it states that the killing of cashiers, teachers and lawyers would make little difference to the world as they are people of limited awareness and impact on the world. (wtf?) […] The day after the shooting, Eng posted another video LAUGHING about it and congratulating Cho!
Well, now the connection is complete, per this article in the Village Voice today that contains comments in which Eng gives props to Cho for his actions and suggests that Cho may have read Eng’s “works” for inspiration. Behold:
Eng likes to believe that his own hate-filled writings about non-Asians motivated Cho, and as far as we can tell, he’s serious. Eng also claims to “admire” Cho for the worst individual mass-murder in American history, and tells the Voice that he, at one time, planned to go on his own killing spree while he was a student at NYU, but couldn’t afford a firearm.
“It’s speculative but I think that there is a good chance that Cho may have read my work,” says Eng. “I might have had something to do with [the VT shootings] because it’s kind of conspicuous that [Cho] would shoot all these people so shortly after AsianWeek published all my articles.” Cho, in his manifesto, railed against “you,” making no reference to race. But Eng believes he understands why Cho felt compelled to commit the murders and applauds him for doing so. “A part of me wishes I was Cho,” says Eng, who is the same age as the murderer, 23. “He is my hero.”
Hero, or if not that, then perhaps at least a meal ticket: It’s my understanding that Eng has been shopping around a book proposal in which he says he would defend Cho as being the “real” victim of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Apparently he’d already been planning to write a book after the AsianWeek fracas, suggesting to publishers that they’d make money capitalizing off the controversy; by that logic, of course, that opportunity is all the richer now. Now, Eng is very clearly one highly disturbed cat with a clear track record of unhinged bigotry and megalomania, along with some horrible writing, and as low as the publishing industry can get, I have (some) trouble imagining any reputable press would back this project. Still, this one bears some watching, as Eng seems if anything proud of his accomplishments thus far and ready to take it to the next level when what he really needs is professional help.
