January 21, 2008
Another DBD PhD Student MurderedNews
On Friday night, a doctoral student in the engineering program at Duke University was shot to death in his off-campus apartment (thanks, Zuni123). The parallels of this tragic crime to the LSU murders cannot be ignored; like then, our tip line is the conduit for confusion and frustration over another senseless murder. Via The Raleigh Chronicle:
The victim has been identified as Abhijit Mahato, age 29, a Ph.D. engineering candidate who was from India and was studying in the United States, Duke University officials said on Saturday afternoon.
“He was found by friends who came by the apartment to check on him Friday night,” said Kammie Michaels of the Durham Police Department. Mahato was pronounced dead on the scene when police arrived, say police.
Durham Police said they do not yet have a motive for the shooting. Their investigation is continuing…
Mahato, originally from Tatangar, India, was studying for an engineering doctorate degree focused on computational mechanics at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. He was in his second year in the program, says the school.
Larry Moneta, Duke’s vice president for student affairs, said the university has begun “reaching out” to Mahato’s friends and to his family in India, as well as to Indian and other international students on campus. It is offering counseling services and has begun considering appropriate ways of commemorating Mahato’s life.
One way they didn’t commemorate it was by finding it a happy opportunity to test a school safety feature.
Here’s how the victim’s adviser, Tod Laursen described him:
“He made friends very easily and always had a smile on his face,” Laursen said through Duke University. “Our research team was particularly close to Abhijit. He was very well read in both poetry and literature, and enjoyed conversation with others about what they were reading.”
More about a stolen life:
On his website at Duke, Mahato said his hobbies included reading books, playing chess, and photography.
Before coming to Duke, Mahato worked for two years for the GE Global Research Center in Bangalore, India where he focused on finite element analysis, a computer-simulation technique used in engineering.
Mahato earned his mechanical engineering degree from Jadavpur University in India in 2001 and a master of technology degree from the Indian Institute for Technology in Kanpur in 2004.
Mahato was very proud of his Indian heritage and seemed to enjoy talking about his hometown.
“My upbringing was in Kolkata; the City of Joy, the city of intellectuals, and much much more,” said Mahato on his website at Duke. “My native language is bengali. We, Bengalis, have a very distinct and rich culture.”
Mahato’s website is here. May his memory be eternal.
anna on January 21, 2008 01:00 AM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
This is scary and awful, coming so soon on the heels of the unsolved LSU murders.
I wonder whether graduate student stipends have been falling in value in relative terms, pushing graduate students into living in more dangerous areas? I also wonder whether international students on limited budgets wouldn't be safer at, say, a U. of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign than at an urban campus (not that Duke is urban). Still, maybe that's reading too much into a couple of events. . . . I'm not trying to stereotype urban areas as unsafe, just pointing out what I take to be the reality that a relative lack of money could lead to fairly unsafe situations for a newcomer.
Some of these universities really need to spend some of their growing endowments to provide more on-campus housing for international students, patrolled by campus police.
The Tabloid of India mentions that he had been extorted by some local hoodlums in the past.
Terrible.
Our thoughts are out to the family and friends.
such sad news :( may he rest in peace. he must have worked so hard to get that far in life and pursue his dream, to have it all taken away in a senseles act. we need to begin a nationwide non-violence movement. i truly hope our new president gets serious about decreasing violence in this country.
See pp. 4-5 of linked report from U. Penn. for some evidence about graduate-stipends/lack of on-campus housing being a problem for international graduate students (admittedly, it's hardly conclusive--but it is suggestive). Money quote:
"As the table shows, even in those departments that distribute a minimum stipend over 9
months, and even under the assumption that students in those departments will find summer
employment with an income that will cover their living expenses over the summer, a typical
graduate student’s apartment does not represent affordable housing."
As a current Duke student, I would be wary of categorizing this tragic murder as a hate crime or a racist attack at this stage.
Of course, it another matter that the Durham Police is being very tight-lipped about this matter and is refusing to release any more details about this.
This week has also seen a tremendous spate of crime including a dozen robberies- including 2 armed robberies tonight. There is a common perception here among the Duke student body that Durham is unsafe for students. Durham and Duke Police is often seen as being more concerned about breaking up parties and citing students for drinking than concentrating on more serious crimes. Duke Lacrosse scandal was a case in point
Fair enough, but who's done that? This is a straw-man. It's about economics, and where international graduate students can afford to live, I think.
This is a petition to the Indian Government for taking a more proactive role in this regard-
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?abhijit8&1
As far as the administrative response to this tragedy goes- so far the general student body has only received this email-
"Alert -- Shooting Death
A man believed to be a Duke University graduate student was found shot to death at an apartment complex in the 1600 block of Anderson Street, several blocks south of the Duke campus, at approximately 11:30 p.m. Friday. According to Duke Police, the incident is under investigation and more information will be shared as it becomes available. Updates will be posted on www.duke.edu/today. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Durham Crimestoppers at (919) 683-1200 or Duke Police at (919) 684-2444."
(Along with an update posted on the Duke website and on the student newspaper's website)
Larry Moneta sent out the following email to a listserv catering primarily to international graduate students -
"To the International community at Duke University:
Let me first express my genuine sorrow for our loss. I know that I
speak for many at Duke, including students, faculty and staff, who
are stunned and saddened by Abhijit Mahato's death. Since the time
we first learned of this tragedy, we have been offering support and
assistance to his many friends, fellow students and co-workers and
will continue to do so in the coming weeks. We have also been in
touch with his family in India and are honoring their wishes for
Abhijit's remains. It is my understanding that the Hindu community is
working on plans for a memorial service and I'm sure that information
about that service will be shared as it develops.
At this time, Durham Police continue their investigation into
Abhijit's death and as we have information we can share, we will do
so. I'm sorry that I don't have much information as yet about the
circumstances of the death, but we consider this investigation of the
highest priority and Duke Police are fully cooperating with Durham
Police to resolve the case.
Please do feel free to contact me directly if I can offer support or
direction or answer any specific questions you may have about this
tragedy. "
As the President of the International Association at Duke, we are continuing to stay in touch with Duke administrators regarding this horrific tragedy. Indian embassy officials are coming down to Duke tomorrow afternoon as well.
8 · rob said
As a current Duke student, I would be wary of categorizing this tragic murder as a hate crime or a racist attack at this stage
Fair enough, but who's done that? This is a straw-man. It's about economics, and where international graduate students can afford to live, I think.
I agree with you. Just wanted to caution against that presumption- considering that has been a valid concern regarding earlier incidents. I apologise for any misconceptions.
OK, good--tell them that they need to put undercover Duke cops monitoring areas where a lot of off-campus Duke students live. You won't do well with protection from Durham police, because the political economy is such that they will inevitably patrol higher-income neighborhoods more. Duke has a lot of money--make them use it for better personal security of its students!
What a horrible tragedy. My thoughts are with his friends and family.
SDM
This is really sad. Beefing up security on campus is a good thing.
But how does one go about protecting students who have to live off campus because of lack of funds?
rob you make a good point..."undercover Duke cops monitoring areas where a lot of off-campus Duke students live".
I am not confident that the University Board member will approve it. One thing Indians are good at is thriving, even while the government sleeps.
Maybe an organizing effort by the students themselves could be far more effective?
I call copycat! I don't know if this has anything to do about Jindal being gov., i sure hope not. i am one step away from setting up a "Brown Panthers"....I hope it never gets there...but my blood boils!!!! Small prayer......"Oh God may we please spare the innocent students" ...that only being a start!
I am sure this is a targetted attack. Either a copycat or the same group that killed in Baton Rouge. With the anti immigrant rhetoric of Lou Dobbs on the rise...hate crimes were just round the corner.
Terrible tragedy. Was the place where he was found murdered considered a dangerous place?
Latest news.
Durham & Chapel Hill are both extremely unsafe. There's a large group of poor and often uneducated youths who live in the area and prey on students. More often than not this turns out to be minority on minority crime.
Many of the South Asian born graduate students choose to live near or adjacent to the high-crime areas often for financial reasons. To be fair, sometimes they do this out of ignorance or trying to (understandably) pinch a penny. Duke & UNC never properly report crime data. When I lived in the area I had:
- A house robbed. (The kids stripped posters off the walls & took clothes.)
- My roommate and I had cars stolen.
- A car was burglarized.
- Had several incidents in bars where racial epithets hurled by some good ole southern boys.
There are some pleasant facets to the RDU area, but there is certainly a vicious seedy underbelly.
My sympathies to the family. I hope this case will get the attention it deserves. Imagine if this was a white blonde female engineering student. It would be on every day on FoxNews with Greta Van Sustern following every nuance.
At least incidents like these will send a message to people in India, that America isn't just a hyped up "baywatch-esque" version of itself. the poor white community around this area has for many years resented furriners encroaching on their land.
Aaahh... white people and women, always the villains, eh, HMF?
Sorry for that tangent. Condolences to the family of this innocent man.
What's up with these crimes in these southern schools. First it was LSU. Now it's Duke. And all these schools are located next to poor neighborhoods. Man, that really stinks.
This is very sad.
I don't know a lot about Durham, but in 2006 relative of mine found racist, anti-semitic, white-supremacist propaganda flyers in her driveway. My family is (ethnically) Jewish.
What's up with these crimes in these southern schools.
The south is the fountain of truth, justice, peace and goodwill towards all mankind. Nothing bad has ever happened there.
I think this incident and the LSU murders show that colleges definitely need to beef up security at off-campus housing.
My sympathies to the family.
7 · Akash Bansal said
This week has also seen a tremendous spate of crime including a dozen robberies- including 2 armed robberies tonight. There is a common perception here among the Duke student body that Durham is unsafe for students. Durham and Duke Police is often seen as being more concerned about breaking up parties and citing students for drinking than concentrating on more serious crimes. Duke Lacrosse scandal was a case in point
That seems to be a serious problems at many universities. Here at Rutgers, which borders a sh*tty part of New Brunswick, both the Rutgers and NB police overreact to student parties. It's not uncommon to see up to ten police officers storming into a harmless party, dragging out students, and slapping ridiculous fines for noise violations. At the same time, there have been at least 9 armed robberies and more than a few rapes at the hands of local youth and the police haven't done a thing. I don't see this crime as being race related; it's yet another case of crappy campus security.
What an awful story. My heart goes out to his family, to have such hope and promise so senselessly cut down. :(
Was the place where he was found murdered considered a dangerous place?
Hi, Durham resident checking in here. People who live outside of Durham are afraid of the whole city. People who live inside Durham, and know better, are still skittish about downtown (which is where Duke's located). So in answer to your question - yes. Durham has some really nice downtown areas, but IMHO it's a little bit like Richmond or Washington DC, where you'll be driving through a well-to-do neighborhood one minute and a terribly poor one the next. I did not go to Duke, and I've always wondered what kind of warnings out-of-state and international students receive about the local neighborhoods.
Article on Duke's bad town-gown relations, which focuses on the lacrosse scandal but gives a more historical perspective if anybody's interested. Even in the comments section, you can see some of the resentment Duke inspires. The suggestion for Duke to provide its own undercover cops is a good one, because I don't see the Durham police bending over backwards for Duke anytime soon. It is a tragedy that innocent people like Mr. Mahato have suffered retribution for institutional sins they had no part of.
the poor white community around this area has for many years resented furriners encroaching on their land.
HMF: Durham race relations are pretty fucked up, but your view of them is simplistic. Check out the article I linked above: it's not as simple as a bunch of angry redneck yokels hating on the brown man (which is not to deny there are people around here who fit that description).
As far as Duke and Durham goes, it's more a case of rich, white private university antagonizes the hell out of surrounding inner city black population, demolishes local neighborhoods in order to expand, declares itself exempt from Brown vs. Board of Education, etc. etc. This boomerangs back on Duke when Durham, which is roughly 45% black, decides it really doesn't give a damn about the university's problems. Throw in the decline of Durham's once-thriving black middle class, and you've set up some very, very ugly racial and economic tensions in the city.
Now we don't know who killed Mr. Mahato, so I don't want to leap to any conclusions about what racial tensions (if any) might have been at play. But, this is what I mean by innocent people paying for institutional crimes - the town-gown tensions, and general lack of safety in downtown Durham, have been brewing for a long time. Mr. Mahato had no hand in any of this and it is tragic that he is the one who paid for it.
I am afraid I don't understand. Doesn't this happen everyday to other poor brown people living in the same neighborhood? Is there something special about the killing? Was the boy somehow "special" -- more special than the other innocent brown people in the neighborhood who are killed? Is it his religion? The others are not Hindu and he is? Is it his nationality? The others are not Indian and he is? Is he worth more because he is of a higher caste? Because he is smarter? Or are the other brown people who are killed in Durham really not innocent at all and he is innocent?
I really don't know why there is so much brown-on-brown killing. I doubt there is much that white folk like President Brodhead can do about it. I do think that playing favorites, by specially protecting some brown people and ignoring other brown people would work. I suspect it would just cause more tribal/ethnic/religious/caste brown-on-brown killing.
I second Rob's comment about Champaign-Urbana. There are fewer brown people there and therefore less violence and killing. They may be poor in Champaign-Urbana, but they kill at a much lower rate.
28 · Big Bill said
Er, Bill, where did his religion or caste enter into this discussion? The fact remains though, that the victim was South Asian, that this blog is read primarily by South Asians (of both ABD and DBD varieties), and that the subjects of most threads here are related to the South Asian diaspora. So why are you surprised if readers here are shocked by the victim's death and are discussing it?
I might have missed something, but is there some a priori evidence that suggests that this is a "brown-on-brown" killing?
I think this tragedy at Duke and that at LSU also speaks to the necessity of having a good, rigorous orientation to the overall communities in which new foreign students come to study. I don't mean just the school-based orientations where people make overarching statements like "don't go to above/below these streets past 6pm", but really the history and understanding of what is happening to the community such that parts of it have become high-crime areas due to certain economic factors. Having campuses take more initiative in helping students secure SAFE and affordable housing where there lower crime rates seems imperative. These crimes are awful and horrific; campuses MUST take a greater role in playing a true 'host' to students coming from abroad to ensure the students will be safe and their studies unencumbered.
In addition, many great universities are located in very impoverished communities. It should also be a great priority of these institutions to reach out in every way possible to help communities in need-- many campuses do this, and still others remain ivory towers. I know this because I currently attend a serious ivory tower located in front of the most populated homeless shelter and just below the major prostitution ring in DC. We do a lot to help impoverished DC residents in general, but we could be doing so much more to help reach out to our immediate surrounding community so that our WHOLE community is safer overall.
I don't mean to sound callous with my remarks here...
The homicide rate in the USA is roughly 6 per 100,000.
I don't think I will be orders of magnitudes off when I say there are approximately 100,000 students from India ( I vaguely remember seeing 70,000 somewhere a few months back. Not sure if this is total or new arrivals per year). Considering how at least some of them live in high crime neighborhoods, the cases we have encountered over the last year or so is just the statistical reality...
*there are
sorry for the typos above
30 · ylrsings said
this is true...rich private univs spending so much money on their students without being beneficial to the local community at large is going to be big socio-economic problem ...privatized education in US and India will have to deal with this problem in future
Are more students being killed these days or do we just have better reporting of it in the desi community because of websites like Sepia?
Bridget Jones said
I also don't want to sound callous, but why is it the responsibility of the university to provide charity? If anyone should be helping the impoverished neighborhoods, it's the government. The schools have no obligation to do so. To me it sounds like extortion: "Give us money or we'll rob your students"
the cases we have encountered over the last year or so is just the statistical reality...
Statistics are usually overwrought by emotion. In 2001, the suicide number exceeded the # of people killed in terrorist acts by nearly 10 times. So technically, in '01 you were a bigger threat to yourself than al-qaeda was. But politicians weren't stroking fears of suicide prevention that year were they.
Blacks commit murder at a higher rate than other races.
That's only per 100,000 of the population, if you look here, you'll see the rates are very close.
36 · HMF said
not that this is relevant to the discusion, but those rates don't look close at all. unless you mean the % of offenders being 52 for blacks and 46 for whites, but if you consider that their % of the general pop is 12, 84 repectively, that's a pretty huge gap...but not nearly as huge as the gender gap.
Such awful news. My heartfelt sympathies to Abhijit's family.
Guys, whether you are student or otherwise, if you are brown, please be careful.
but those rates don't look close at all.
closer than the per 100,000 rates.
I wonder if the coroner has established a TOD. These PhD guys are usually working so damn hard, and coming in and out at very odd and late hours, at least according to my experience.
This is terrible and disheartening. Heartfelt sympathies to the victim's fam & friends.
27 · Mary Mary Not Contraryinstitutional sins they had no part of.
the poor white community around this area has for many years resented furriners encroaching on their land.
HMF: Durham race relations are pretty fucked up, but your view of them is simplistic. Check out the article I linked above: it's not as simple as a bunch of angry redneck yokels hating on the brown man (which is not to deny there are people around here who fit that description).
No, you really think so. So your saying that HMFs Yakub Theory of the White Devil is a bit unrealistic? You mean "Blackie = good, Whitey = bad" is too simplistic?
My guess is that as in the LSU murders the perp was NOT a heavyset White man with a beard driving a pick up truck with a "Send the foreigners home" bumper sticker, a gun rack, a dead dear in the back of the truck, flying a confederate flag who listens to Rush Limbaugh and country music.
Nor is he a BMW driving, rich spoiled lacrosse player.
The statistics are pretty clear, except to a math wiz like HMF. HMF your lack of basic math skills makes me almost doubt that you are Desi at all. I though math ability like spiritual serenity was genetic with Indians. You learn something new every day.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm
But as I said in a post on the LSU murders, I think there is a class/education level bias here as Mutineers identify more with the grad school demographic than the gas station attendant/cab driver/store owner demographic.
It's all horrible but if Abhijit Mahato was a gas station attendant/cab driver/store owner killed by typical black robber/murderer it wouldn't be an issue on SM.
camille (#41) correct generalization, but a couple of schools (GW, since foggy bottom is a pretty nice area and you would have to go further southeast or east to encounter the "bad" areas, and berkeley do not fit); on the other hand you could add stanford to the list. a few years ago similar problems were starting to crop up in charlottesville (robberies predominantly committed by black school kids living on the "other side of the tracks",-- i.e. the housing projects, though these are actually pretty nice one's--on uva students), but thankfully there are a few grassroots organizations--with memberships from both the student population and local community organizers-- in c'ville that try to address these issues, and last i heard the university was starting to do something. but still you have to merely visit the uva campus (the cafeteria is a microcosm of the campus) to realize the starkness of the class divide. service workers are predominantly poor (african-american) residents, while the college kids are mostly rich (and white, given the correlation between wealth and race in this country).
I still don't see how the universities worsen the existing socioeconomic problem. Most, if not all, provide thousands of jobs for locals, even if they are mostly custodial and dining service related.
As for the race issue... most of these violent crimes occur in inner-city neighborhoods in which I don't foresee any Mutineers venturing into. In the 'burbs where I assume most of us live, the guys breaking into your house could be black, white, Latino, or (if immigration from India becomes relaxed) Mumbai's finest goondas
call me sexist, but i bet a man did this
35 · Johnny Valker said
it is not charity. it is outreach, don't the very same students try to boost their CV by including social service, community activities and don't the very same schools give some extra points such factors during admissions ? Handling crime/preventing is govt's business but socially useful outreach activities is not business of govt alone. why should church involve in charity in the name of religion ? A social organization has to be involved in outreach which can create social capital otherwise there is no difference between walmart and university.
34 · lion said
With proliferation of news media everybody want attention and sensational news.
My guess is that as in the LSU murders the perp was NOT a heavyset White man with a beard driving a pick up truck with a "Send the foreigners home" bumper sticker, a gun rack, a dead dear in the back of the truck, flying a confederate flag who listens to Rush Limbaugh and country music.
oh yes. you rail against blanket statements, conjecture, and lack of data, and I can see how that's completely consistent with the completely informed, balanced, statistically backed "your guess"
I though math ability like spiritual serenity was genetic with Indians.
It usually fails when we begin to count the number of white racists in our midst, the numbers just go too high.
37 · Manju said
Manju, happy MLK day! :P
49 · Rahul said
I'm sure Nikita Rau's celebrating.
i bet the culprit's under age 35. i hate young people.
I bet the culprit is not Manju. I hate everyone except Manju.
This is so wrong. But it made me LOL.
Someone upthread from Duke said that they signed a petition to encourage the Indian government to take action- what exactly can the Indian government do, if anything?
I subscribe to the prejudice+power theory of racism, but only partially, because I think it's foolish to go on and on about how all whites are racist, when many of the crimes committed against desis that have been covered recently have NOT been perpetrated by whites. Minorities are racist, too, and a bullet in your head is proof positive of some kind of power. So let's hold off on the generalizations.
Organize a bandh. Burn some buses. Break some storefronts. You know, maintain the venerable communist party tradition of citizen unrest that is alive and well in West Bengal.
call me sexist, but i bet a man did this
The sexism on sepia mutiny is out of control
53 · nala said
Someone upthread from Duke said that they signed a petition to encourage the Indian government to take action- what exactly can the Indian government do, if anything?
Maybe they could send in the armless Thakur saab from Sholay to take care of the hoodlums?
Bridget Jones: Churches, mosques, mandirs, etc. do community service because they see it as what God(s) commanded His(their?) followers to do. The sole purpose of a university is to educate; not to benefit those who have no affiliation with the school. And if we are to talk about moral obligations, surely the good citizens of the surrounding ghettos should understand that pointing a gun at defenseless college students and demanding their hard-earned beer money is also wrong?
No, it's not... universities are centers of learning and research, they're part ivory tower part social innovation, and they are part of the communities they're nestled within.
Manju, happy MLK day! :P
Likewise, I look forward to your future misrepresentation of the good doctor.
This is from Abhijit's website:
That's adorable.
54 · nala said
Crime is crime plain in simple black store owners get killed also,there was a black store owner on U.ST here in DC a few years ago that got killed. I am tired of folke trying to claim that it is a hate crime. Seems like in every thread here blacks get brought up no matter what.
Not that it matters, but it's hard not to compare the publicity this murder (and the previous LSU ones) generated, to the 'Natalie Holloway' saga. With all due respect, I haven't heard squeak about these murders, aside from a corner CNN citation.
So where TF is Nancy Grace ???
I didn't speculate on the race of the killer, nor did I say that it was a hate crime. I was responding to posters who were talking about how this shouldn't be surprising since white people ('yokels,' etc.) are all racists. I'm guessing that white people who read these boards may feel pretty put upon too.
My beef is with the South Asian American organizations that gloss over the very real fears of desi small business owners.
i agree with doug. the point of my absurd sexist and ageist comments was to point out this post has nothing to do with racism. what the racism of white southerners or anti-Semitic flyers or browns having to be extra careful has to do with this post is beyond me.
not all crimes are hate crimes. people should be allowed to rob and kill without being called racist.
Durham police released a crime alert on their web site on 01/19. Apparently there have been more than 30 robberies targeting Latino victims since the beginning of this year of which 9 happened between January 18 and 19 including the fatal shooting of Doleres Gomez on Friday. This report excludes Abhijit's death and a few other incidents over the weekend reported later . [link]
When we've come to this realization, it is a happy MLK Jr. day after all!
WOW--that's a serious bombshell!
5 · naz said
Nationwide movements spring up from the grassroots. I encourage you to organize your own community to kick this off and not wait for a figurehead to impose change from the top.
35 · Johnny Valker said
Others might call "justice" what you call "charity." Regardless of what you call it, though, it just makes practical business sense in the vein of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
57 • Johnny Valker said
From Duke's Mission Statement:
not all crimes are hate crimes. people should be allowed to rob and kill without being called racist.
I've been saying the same thing for years.
As sad as this murder is. There was another desi killed this weekend on this side of a world.
A young 1 year old girl was killed by her father here in my part of the world in Vancouver. The girl had made the mistake of being a girl, when she should have been a boy. The father had 2 daughters already, so he had to kill his daughter, cause other people in his community were losing respect for him cause he had 3 daughters and not had male son yet.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Canadian_Sikh_kills_two-yr-old_daughter/rssarticleshow/2716494.cms
nala and Harbeer: in an ideal world, I'm sure we would all like to see the university and community holding hands and breaking ground for an orphanage together. despite Duke's well-intentioned but formulaic statement (which is similar to those made by other schools), no amount of money thrown at the surrounding community is going to put an end to the animosity between the two. the billions of dollars funneled into impoverished neighborhoods over the years has not made an impact- they still remain cesspools which continue to breed criminals. before these communities demand money from universities and large corporations that happen to be located there, they need to learn how to clean up their act. they can start by stopping the harassment of college students.
uh... what billions of dollars?
here in NJ, the worst performing school districts (read: poorest) receive a tremendous amount of state aid in order to make them compete with the top performing ones. Five years ago, the budget for the Newark school district was 800 million, most of it courtesy of non Newark tax payers. If I'm not mistaken, there are around 31 such districts throughout the state. You can do the math to figure out the amount spent (wasted?) on education alone. After 10 years, these schools remain at the bottom of the list, with no significant drop in crime either.
Yeah, those children of immigrant doctors who settled in Plainsboro are really suffering as a result of tax money going out-of-district. How do they get through the day at their multimedia-equipped, doting-staff-filled schools?
72 · Johnny Valker said
I think your ideal world would look more like a plantation or a sweatshop.
Show some self-respect and just admit that I got you. By "well-intentioned" you mean for their image, right? Your reading of this statement implies that Duke was not sincere and that insincerity is acceptable. Sorry holmes, I hold people to their word and so does the law.
Then I suggest that Duke surround itself with a moat containing a dragon and a very high wall.
Keep talking buddy. You're really showing your true colors now.
You didn't even bother reading the article that Mary Mary Not Contrary linked to in comment 27, did you? No, you've got your mind made up and to hell with the actual facts!
73 · nala said
this may be an accurate description of newark, where the racist democratic establishment kept their people enslaved to social welfarism, but inner-cites like Harlem have long enjoyed a renaissance. bill clinton referred to harlem as an "emerging market," magic johnson started developing property, merril lynch and BoA started making loans to entrepreneurs, pension funds started to develop affordable real-estate,national chains were invited in, and the result was job growth while newark continued to shrink and the average income in harlem grew faster than the national avg.
universities and their tired charity mindset should stay out. banks should get in.
can't imagine why someone would do this
God bless his soul, and give peace to his loved ones
oops. i quoted nala quoting johnny valker (oh, i just got it) so those are JV's words, in case some of you are worring that nala suffers from britney spears' ailment.
Manju - what you quoted in #77 isn't what I said, but what Johnny Valker said.
I think what a lot of college students at the aforementioned schools mean by 'helping the community' isn't giving away money, but more things like helping with local tutoring programs (e.g. Boys & Girls Club), things like that. Some of these schools are supposed to be 'the cream of the crop,' and they have reputations for being extremely liberal, but the attitudes of many students toward the people who live in the area is still very off-putting and condescending. Also, it's really just in the best interest of the university to care about what's going on in town, e.g. think of New Haven twelve years ago versus now, things have improved a lot and so has student quality of life.
Yes, it really did take me that long to post that comment, that I didn't see your correction, Manju...
63 · nala said
My beef is with the South Asian American organizations that gloss over the very real fears of desi small business owners.
I agree with that 100%.
not all crimes are hate crimes. people should be allowed to rob and kill without being called racist.
I agree with you, problem is, many times the assailant removes all doubt. Of course in this case we don't know, what I had meant to say (which wasn't clear, I agree) was if indeed it's uncovered that it's the result of a sub standard living, uneducated white person who's lived there and feels that as his territory, it wouldn't be much of a surprise, given the propensity of those residents to harbor those feelings.
publicity this murder (and the previous LSU ones) generated, to the 'Natalie Holloway' saga
but white privilege doesn't exist, right?
And if it was the result of a substandard-living, uneducated black person who's lived there and feels that it's his territory? Would that not be much of a surprise either, given the propensity of those residents to harbor those feelings?
Not really... you really don't hear black folks saying "go back to your own country, etc.." when they themselves have been treated like 2nd class citiznes, sure they might commit acts for other reasons (and I guess if the end result is the same, it perhaps doesn't matter)
but given the DOJ stats I quoted earlier, GIVEN a homicide has occurred it's only slightly more likely that the assailant is black.
85 · HMF said
you really need to get out a litte more
43 · sigh! said
I guess this depends on how you characterize neighborhoods :) The southside of (the city of) Berkeley, which is overwhelmingly populated by (UC) Berkeley undergraduates, has relatively high levels of muggings, car jackings, bike thefts, etc., and as you move further south towards the Oakland/580-980-24 freeway border (and also in West Berkeley, near I-80) you see higher violence rates as well. Stanford, meanwhile, is in Palo Alto, which borders the former "murder capital of the country," East Palo Alto. That said, I know very few students who live in East Paly, and it certainly is not within the a 5-mile radius of Stanford, no? I am happy to omit GW from the list, though :)As for the race issue... most of these violent crimes occur in inner-city neighborhoods in which I don't foresee any Mutineers venturing into. In the 'burbs where I assume most of us live, the guys breaking into your house could be black, white, Latino, or (if immigration from India becomes relaxed) Mumbai's finest goondasIt sounds like you believe that socioeconomic disparities, poverty, and injustice are all "natural" pre-existing conditions. Many of the universities mentioned in this list have VERY poor town-gown relations, and others have exacerbated or created these "inner-city" problems you allude to. Also, I can't speak for Duke, but hardly any of these universities pay their share of property taxes, either, which -- when you are a sprawling campus -- does not help regenerate funds for local government initiatives.
Also, please speak for yourself when discussing "suburban Mutineers." This is a reoccurring and inaccurate red herring that comes up anytime folks discuss crime and poverty on this blog -- not everyone grows up in your vision of desi suburbia, and not all of us choose to live in that suburbia later in life, either. If you have a critique that actually addresses ANY of the substantive points raised in this discussion, that would be helpful. It sounds as though you've staked out your position and are firmly committed to your corner.
Manju, while both Harlem and Newark are overwhelmingly African-American, there are substantial differences in their economic structures (unrelated to the nefarious democratic establishment, to which you refer). For one thing, Newark has been a shrinking city for the past 10 years, while Harlem has been anything but. I understand the attempt to draw parallels, but I don't think these two provide an accurate case. Newark is more comparable to Detroit than it is to Manhattan/NYC. I don't mean to egg you on because I really don't think this has a place in this conversation, but is this claim based on your actual, lived experience, or on your "rational assumption" of how you think black folks interact with desis?77 · Manju said
this may be an accurate description of newark, where the racist democratic establishment kept their people enslaved to social welfarism, but inner-cites like Harlem have long enjoyed a renaissance. bill clinton referred to harlem as an "emerging market," magic johnson started developing property, merril lynch and BoA started making loans to entrepreneurs, pension funds started to develop affordable real-estate,national chains were invited in, and the result was job growth while newark continued to shrink and the average income in harlem grew faster than the national avg.
fair enough, but do you think that renewal will spread to smaller cities, especially those that lack Harlem's cultural past?
nala: i agree with you that it's hypocritical for self-styled liberal students to show only contempt, and a little bit of fear, towards their not so affluent neighbors. i assumed earlier posters were referring to the university shelling out tuition/endowment money in order to help the local crackheads.
Camille- have I told you how confusing it is for someone not from the area (or maybe just me) to figure out the geography & demography of the Bay Area. For California in general, actually. Though I still think it's insanely awesome that there's an area called the 'Inland Empire' (even though the area itself may not be that awesome).
Word.
Heh... agreed.
88 · Johnny Valker said
its a nationwide trend. check out this organization
Manju, have you been a troublemaker in Dr. Phil's getting real program again?
He would, but every time he crawls out from under his desk and peers through the window, he sees more members of whitey's army prowling outside.
If it's such a sure thing, who's stopping them? Isn't this America?
This is scary and very tragic. I hope the killer(s) get thrown in jail soon.
91 · Rahul said
there's no sure thing but they're getting in. BoA the most, then merril, and goldman has a new community development fund. and then there's a host of smaller lesser known socially concious VC and private equity funds. it's a fairly big thing, not as big as some other socially-conscious ventures like greentech, but pretty big.
Yes. You got a problem with that?
That explains it. Abhijit was targeted not because he is indian but because he looks hispanic.
Two comments:
First: Circumstances probably propel DBD grad students to "shadier" neighborhoods
To begin with: Grad students are paid quite poorly [18 dollars more per year than a minimum wage earner: per Jorge Cham's presentation: )] - especially true for the snootier schools/departments [They expect you to come there for the "research opportunities" and brand name (snob value)]. Quite often, a student applying from India will merely picked the highest rank program he or she has been admitted to (or received aid from). For many of them, there is the additional desire / imperitive to save money from even this meager payckeck to buy annual/biannual air-tickets and send money and gifts home. The net result is as stated.
Second: (vivek beat me to it - and so i merely second the opinion) Abhijit was probably killed because he was perceived to be mexican (brown). With brown (mexican) v/s black tensions rising across the country (have been reading with increasing frequencies stories alluding to such gang wars), perhaps we should be specially cautious.
but is this claim based on your actual, lived experience, or on your "rational assumption"
both. at the very least, blacks claim less personal ownership (ie, the are quicker to acknowledge the presence of native americans as the true owners, etc..) to the land as whites do.
he sees more members of whitey's army prowling outside.
If only I had the correct sequence of youtube videos to get me past that initial 5 feet.
you really need to get out a litte more
True, I really need an audience w/that diverse group that you perhaps hang with, the upper west side elite, the upper east side elite, the battery park elite. so much can change in an 80 block difference you know.
Dhoorendhar: just out of curiosity, do Indian grad students receive any allowance/aid from the Indian government?
Dhoorendhar: just out of curiosity, do Indian grad students receive any allowance/aid from the Indian government?
No, Only if they are on GOI (Government of India) various fellowships (which are not that many), and/ or bilateral fellowships like Fulbright, Ford Foundation (then most of the money comes from the foundations).
Majority of Indian graduate students are on research/ teaching assistantships, and/ or individual institute fellowships, and lot of them self-financed.
Aside from the freeway system, what's confusing about the Bay's geography/demography?
ummm I think you have a point. Many AA's do this to themselves , with old school pathology 'acting white' or otherwise ,othering themselves,sometimes without realizing it. It's supported /enforeced by the wider community of 'real' Americans.
Consciously [The Good Shepard]; Edward Wilson; "The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting."
I have met (white) Americans and Europeans who feel suprised/perplexed/cheated when they actually meet me because a real American , in their view, is a white American. I daresay with the Latino/AA turf war/ immigration debate- more blacks will start embracing a nativist view. I don't endorse this in the negative sense. On the otherhand I don't get how someone whose grand/parents came to the US in the 1950's from Poland/Italy or anywhere else , should feel more 'authentically American' than someone whose family has been here from day 1, or at least from the same time the Europeans showed up.
Condolences to the Mahato family
On the otherhand I don't get how someone whose grand/parents came to the US in the 1950's from Poland/Italy or anywhere else ,
It's what Malcolm described as the phenom of "white immigrants getting rights handed to them the day they step off the plane that black and brown folks haven't been able to achieve in 200+ years" but there's no reason to turn the discussion any further in this direction.
Would it make sense to write the governer or mayor or representative of this state to urge for a thorough investigation, reminding them that even people with darker skin, born in other countries are human beings as well?
I don't think one needs to patronise blacks and make excuses for the behavior of the criminals that come from their community. However, I find it interesting that many Indians who come the the US are so openly racist. Why not just call a neighborhood an unsafe neighborhood ? Is there no crime in India? What do they call those neighborhoods in India? Black neighborhoods? It is especially funny when they make such references in Atlanta where blacks span the upper, middle and lower class demographics.
If a black guy was the killer in this case, fry him. But I do not see why this is seen as anything but a robbery related killing.
A lot of schools hand out I-20s like a christmas party and the F1-visa process at many consulates is a mere formality. In our days there were a huge number of rejections and that regulated the influx of grad students. Another factor was the quality of schools we applied to, today there are many schools that take students even without a GRE score.
so back then for n I-20s we had n*(3/4) visas but now it is n^3 I-20s and (n^3)-10 visas. With such a large number of students flying in, even the best schools have run out of not only on-campus housing but even off-campus housing near the univ that fall under the patrol area of the campus-police.
I know kids that arrived this winter who live 5-6 miles from school and commute by local transit each day. Strangely enough a lot of schools are adjacent to high crime localities, which doesn't help in anyways.
Now who do you blame? school, consulate? students? or the dollar dream?