I think most Desis can empathize with the overly strict Desi household growing up as a teenager in the U.S. But this story has a tragic ending. (h/t Muna)
From the beginning, Houston police say, they doubted 17-year-old Danish Moazzam Minhas’ story about finding his mother’s bloody body in their apartment.
The Lee High School student told investigators he’d spent the entire night out and came upon the crime scene when he returned home that morning in late November. The attacker, Minhas told detectives, must have surprised 43-year-old Tabassum Khan while she was counting money she planned to spend on bills and the traditional Muslim feast of Eid. [chron]
Fingerprints left at the scene were tracked back to a classmate of Minhas. The classmate, Nur Mohamed, told cops he was hired by Minhas to kill his mother for $4,000. He only collected $1,000.
He is now charged with solicitation of capital murder, authorities said, and has confessed to arranging the killing because he felt his mother was too strict.
Khan and Minhas came from Lahore, Pakistan, about 10 years ago. Minhas’ father is not in contact with anyone in the family, his cousin said.
Then Minhas told police he “loved his mother to death” but she was too strict, [Police Sgt.] Harris said. “I don’t think he realized how that sounded. … She gave him a curfew, chores and other things a responsible parent does.” [chron]
I find this story so sad. I totally empathize with being a teenager in an overly strict immigrant parents Muslim household. I can only imagine how much that must have been compounded in this story since the mother was a single mom raising her only son in Texas. But for Minhas to feel as a teenager that he had to go to such premeditated efforts to murder his own mother because of the strictness is simply tragic. Though I am obviously not condoning the murder, I do think there multiple factors that make this a complicated immigrant story. Makes me wonder what kind of resources could have been provided to the family and the South Asian community to have prevented the murder. Sadly, I feel in this case, very little.
das da so gay. why he even do da so bad boy? he give da immigratns da bad names
can you describe the factors that might have 'complicated' this story? Might they be related to the insufferable angst experienced by solidly middle-class desis who think they're at the bottom of the SES ladder?
I'm not seeing the 'nuance' in this matricide narrative.
usually in these cases, whether South Asian or not, mental instability trumps all other "motives."
The poor mother pictured here.
that is incredibly tragic. i agree with abhi, mental illness (its getting better but still is not fully addressed by desi community) would be a factor. to plan this for weeks he must be in some other zone. the fact that he is showing no remorse suggests he is still in it.
RIP. prayers for her family and loved ones.
Resources? By who? Its crazy to read that somehow some resources should have been provided to prevent people from doing bad things. Did they ask for something and did not get? If we are going to make statements that we have to give resources, I guess we all have to devote 75% of the time identifying who needs resources and providing those resources to the point that we ourselves will need resources.
I read a lot on here and rarely comment but somehow that last line made me want to respond.
maybe we should direct some of those resources to those who are seeing nuance in this.
Really sad. Hardly anything justifies killing one's own mother. His father isn't around , the boy is 17 - where did he think he could go ?
I feel really sad for the boy, what drove him to this. He could have been mentally unstable but how is a parent to know if he really is mentally unstable or if its an extreme case of being a teenager ? Would the school have picked up on some of this behavior ? As far as resources go , should parents be told what's okay, what's not, what to look out for ? But every household has their own ideas when it comes to raising kids....
usually in these cases, whether South Asian or not, mental instability trumps all other "motives."
yeah. killing your own mother is one of the culturally universal taboos. see orestes. that being said, most whack-jobs don't do this sort of thing, so i can see various pressures increasing the likelihood of this sort of manifestation of psychopathology.....
So not only do we have a legion of psychologists running around this site, but they're so uncannily talented that they can diagnose psychopathologies based on a press release!
Impressive.
Well, clearly this kid had mental health issues. It is a popularly known fact that South Asians/AAPIs are the least likely ethnic group to access mental health resources, and additionally, the mental health resources that are available are not culturally appropriate to South Asians (having a translator, practitioner understanding Muslim/desi culture, etc). And by who? Here in CA Mental Health resources are doled out through the county, via a pot of money garnered through taxing millionaires. It was done through a referendum in 2004. I used to work for an org that would provide culturally competent mental health resources to South Asian and AAPIs. Si yes, mental health is a health issues and resources here doled out by the state. Considering CA is one of the most bankrupt states and TX has more money per person, I'm surprised that this resource doesn't exist there.
If this kid was diagnosed and enrolled in a culturally competent wraparound mental health program, I have no doubt his mother would be alive today.
LIVE FREE OR DIE! SECEDE FROM SOCIALISM! OR FASCISM! OR COMMUNISM! OR HITLER! (must be one of these, right?)
Something tells me that if his father had been overly strict, he wouldn't have lifted a finger against him.
Gawds, these haters are making me click less n' less on SM. Don't know why they don't go away n' start their own blog instead of wasting my precious scroll time to get to the main points. Thanks for posting Taz, thanks for being the fabulous you, and thanks for making a constructive argument. Do you thin our culture would foster or value such external resources? Community name, pride, etc.? I remember a cousin had a mental issue, but his father insisted no Western therapist could ever get into the head of an Eastern boy (and his issues). BTW: he was diagnosed as bipolar years later.
Well Orestes killed his mother to avenge the death his father. I usually find that when people use Greek mythology to further help their point, they are usually doing it wrong. Yes Oedipus married and slept with his mother but he didnt know that Jocasta was his mother since he was abandoned by his parents when he was a baby. I am not saying that it makes it allright but the message changes given the proper context.
Sorry for being offtopic, carry on
I don't think this despicable crime has anything to do with the immigrant experience or any sort of cultural issue at all. The kid involved seems to be a sociopath, and it is frightening to think that he could get a classmate to carry out the crime for money. I don't see what could have been done to prevent it, as its not like we have a widespread problem of matricides in the south asian or other immigrant communities.
I think we all know a few desis (if not a ton) who could use some quality time with a therapist. A cursory glance at SM comments would indicate just that. Problem is there's a pretty big stigma attached. Forget parents, its from ourselves. Do any of you know adult desis that are unashamed to admit they have seen a professional? We prefer to keep these things bottled up inside. not good.
We have a ton of issues folks we either deal with them or risk much worse.
Agreed- we're so ready as South Asians to blame ourselves, our culture, or whatever. But the same thing happened with a white kid last month-Cleveland kid Daniel Petric killed his mom and attempted to kill his father because they took away his Halo video game. A sociopath is a sociopath regardless of culture.
Why is his name even being released if he is a minor?
yoga fire - you're being an arse. yes, really! and i don't need a crystal ball or a machine to confirm that.
AK - i think you miss the point that Taz is making. she is talking about accessibility to mental health services - services that are either not available or are not sought after because of cultural misunderstanding about mental health in general. it's not about blame - it's about recognising why we do the things that we do. people do better when they know better.
yoga fire - how would you, as an individual, go about advocating for better mental health services on its own merit?
What's up with the Texas-bashing? I mean, it ain't like it's the first time. (Seriously, though, I've lived in California and I've lived in NYC, and I've lived in Houston, and desis are desis wherever you go...)
For the record, I saw a new-agey vegan therapist (who was also a massage therapist with all the candles and incense and Deep Forest cds) and who happened to be a Republican(???)...also in Texas. Her name was Marx but she wasn't Jewish--who knew!?!
Clearly, the therapy didn't work but you see my point. Texas and its people will surprise you.
So.. does that mean she cures vegans?
Really? "Support"? People need "support" to not kill their mothers?
The US is a nation of immigrants. And yet there is a surprisingly low incidence of people killing their mothers.
I taught the young man's sister. They were not solidly middle class at all as implied by one of the posters. I think this is an instance of sociopathic behavior-no one saw this coming, not his teachers or friends or family. While it's clear he could have used mental health services, I don't know what would have prevented this from happening.
And even if we were going to make mental-health services more broadly accepted and available, would it really be worth it to spend it on teenage existential angst or would we rather spend it on soldiers with PTSD? Or even the obviously schizophrenic homeless people I see on the streets every day chattering with people who aren't there? Or would it make more sense to spend it on rehabilitating drug addicts? There is a lot of actual complexity there and just hollering about how "SOMETHING MUST CHANGE!" and "NOT ONE MORE!" doesn't help.
Whites have access to mental health too and don't have the same hesitancy. Yet, how come they have interfamily crimes too?
I grew up in a single parent household. Even if we assume his mom was unreasonably strict, the guy was SEVENTEEN. Soon, he would be independent anyway. The guy is loco. What kind of wimp is he that he could not break free of whatever shackles he felt he was burdened with? But then as you read the Houston chronicle article, it becomes apparent that this is a spoiled brat who couldn't take any criticism from his mother. He must have been caught taking drugs with his murderer friend, who knows.
“He's very manipulative, very cunning,” the detective said of Minhas, “and he was trying to put his spin on it
What troubles me more is the Somalian classmate who was willing to commit such a heinous crime for a mere 4 grand.
Cures them AND smokes them.
Houston. Austin is just for whitey (and Asians when they're students, I guess).
I am glad that you accept the sovereignty of Texas.
Hi Anita! Come back--it's cold here now, too!
i still cant even believs it. now he go to jail instead of da schoo, where he probably not even talk to da guhls and insted he die da virgin. unless he drop da soap, i sees it in da movie
Now, while I am not taking sides with this guy and condoning him of his actions, having lived in Texas for several years, I can empathize with him, even identify with him for some extent. It is easy to see why in a place like Texas, one is subject continuously to a pressure-cooker environment, while the society and desi community in large is in denial. Texas is as materialistic as the rest of the US, but it has, as the flagship of the southern states' culture, another special trait, dehumanization, vilification and desexualization of the non-white male, even more so a recently landed immigrant, infact it is part of the people's ethos. Being slighly older at the time, I could understand and perceive it and cope with it, but I wouldn't expect a growing teenager, not least someone born in the US as I assume this guy was, to understand and handle this culture. Add to that a lack of resources and support and that fuels the flames further, especially where material sufficiency is canonized and if you don't seem well-satiated then you are an outcaste. If you are an outcaste you make friends with other outcastes and this is when socially unacceptable behaviors like killing other people happen. Young people, who often don't hold good jobs and lack resources to match with the peer pressure and social pressures, are subject to such tendencies. But this changing this culture requires effort and some sacrifice of their priveleges, it is much more convenient to dismiss this as a social aberration and move on and hope it will be forgotten eventually. Counselling might help but doesn't eliminate the root cause of the problem. Desi parents, who are themselves unaware, and treat their children just like the whites do, but they must realize that their offspring is dealing with a very affluent and dominant society as a minority community which require some special considerations and grooming.
also, i'm not sure "tragic" is the right way to describe the decisions made by Minhas. That implies that there was something to be salvaged. We are not all born with the potential to be fully-fledged human beings with the moral faculties of an animal as social and cooperative as we are all supposed to be. This fellow knew all the buttons to push in order to convince his peers and teachers that he was normal and not a threat. Something which even the garden variety non-violent introvert cannot do on a regular basis.
Think of this in a different light--if the paid assault was not homicidal but sexual, would there have been any question of moral salvage or the difference in provision and the seeking out of mental health counseling in the desi community there? Then, this post would have been Feministing bait.
Whoa whoa things may have changed since you grew up. I have lived in Texas for six years (two different stints). I find it to be a wonderful state (at least all the major cities) with really friendly people and a great lifestyle/cost of living. It is VERY stress free compared to living on either coast. I say this having also spend multiple years living in California, Maryland, Colorado, Michigan, and Illinois. Don't mess with Texas please.
As a teenager I really despised my dad....for all the reasons related to strict parents...but I don't now consider this to be because of Desi values, as much as dysfunctional upbringing amongst the Pindu communities and the warped Male society values of India..but then again I see many normal desi families who are so liberal compared to my dad and realise that in all sociities its the working class backward mentally mixed up with dysfynctionalism....as a Teenagar I fantasied about stabbing him..killing him...but was that really because I was too weak to stand up in the first place?
As an older person now, I realise it is better just to leave that home, let him live his way, and let me live mine..so with advantage of Hindsight, I now think it wrong. I know a student at my school who did murder his father cos he got fed up..but that is so wrong..
So back to this case..It's disgusting he paid someone to kill his mother...It's not like I see any evidence she abused him in the extreme ways we know people can...this has nothing to do with being desi...the guys in this case are guilty....
Honestly, while and outside observer may say they were too inattentive to my needs, the best lesson my parents thought me was how to be self-reliant, take my lumps and move on without holding a grudge.
Yoga Fire I'm only focusing on flaws of Pindu values..re the nature of this thread...I get what you are saying...Killing your mother is like killing God...she created ( with dad's help) you...
I remember a young Desi couple, recent immigrants, who were having marital issues and the wife wanted to go to a marriage counselor and the husband refused saying there is no way the counselor could understand Desis or Desi marriages. He did not want to be confronted with the possibility that perhaps all he had been taught by his family regarding marriage and husband/wife roles were wrong, I guess. And I guess he ASSUMED that's what the counselor would tell him.
Regarding culture specific counseling - there are just some things that are WRONG no matter what culture you come from. There are some universals. Or are there?
I don't know.
One of my (Desi) male friend's wife is trying to divorce him. She's non-Desi. A Desi couple asked sat down with her to try to intervene and find out what's wrong, if the couple could be saved. When she explained all that she had been through with him, the couple said, "what?! In India that's normal behaviour. We learn to tolerate."
I don't know.
Are there any answers?
I just don't know anymore.
This young man Minhas seems like a very cunning and calculating individual. Not not like a lonely, desperate soul, but rather like someone who knew EXACTLY what he was doing.
Also to note, his mother made him do chores. My experience has been that Desi families with sons and daughters both lay the majority of "chores" on the daughters. He may have felt "emasculated". That's no excuse for his behaviour, but men feel threatened when their masculinity is questioned, even by their own self-doubt.
Taz,
I am sorry but I will remember this post as your least well-thought-out one.
Most teens living in conflict situations with parents (or in dysfunctionality) either run away or self-destruct to different degrees. Perhaps, relatively less frequently, there are crimes of passion in moments of impulsiveness and anger or helplessness and rage.
But what does it take to methodically plan one's mother's murder, and hire, and be the lookout for the assassin? This too in a country where even pre-teens know about emancipation laws, about child welfare and services, and where a teen can run away and hope to make a decent life without being exploited in horrible ways. A sociopath/psychopath? If so, what kind of resources would it take to prevent a sociopath from carrying out his/her ruthless self-centered impulses and ideas?
I can even try and understand and forgive the idiocy and cold-bloodedness of the classmate because the victim meant less to him than the promised dollars but the son's thought process is alien to me. And I am sure it will be alien to you too--so stop trying to fit it into the "strict brown parent" framework. I don't know anything more about the story than what I read above but for some reason I am thinking of 'The Bad Seed' -- with the original ending.
@Wanderer: Whatever, dude. I lived in Texas from ages 5-18, went to public schools with a juda, and had a blast. My parents were strict (and stricter on my sisters) but were too busy hustling to really know the score. (Which was not really as great as it sounds--having absentee parents. And that's REALLY the problem, if you ask me, but maybe I'm just projecting like everybody else on this board is.)
But today it's a different story altogether. I am back in Houston now and was talking to my friends' 11-year-old sixth grader about why she doesn't like school. Now, this is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, precocious little girl (who takes pride in her nerdiness) and she rattled off a list of "the popular kids" with whom she doesn't fit in there were quite a few desi (Hindu/Muslim) names on it, so I was like, "What? [Insert desi name]--is that kid Indian?" to which she responded, "Um...yeah?" to which I responded, "What? Back when I was in junior high..." to which she responded, "Groan..." and rolled her eyes.
No one really knows anything about the case.
Was the parent a strict islamist who was forcing her son to go to five daily prayers while the son just wanted to party?
Did the son have an anti-social personality without any conscience?
Was the son a manipulator?
Did the son want his mother's life insurance?
Did the mother want her son to go to college, land a cushy professional job and make tons of moola, and when it was clear the son wasn't be going anywhere, the mother turned abusive?
Was the son an out of control ABCD taking old style revenge upon his mother?
Was it a high school bet among friends?
Did his mother take away his halo game?
Did his mother badtalk him in front of relatives and friends?
Did he have undiagnosed schizophrenia with psychotic symptoms?
Was he decompensating because he could get his cocaine high on time?
Who the fuk knows...
"Well Orestes killed his mother to avenge the death his father. I usually find that when people use Greek mythology to further help their point, they are usually doing it wrong"
Oh I don't know. Our narratives don't fit all the myths and legends to an absolute tee.
The full context is a panorama of dysfunctional human behavior (and some nice stuff too.) Clytemnestra murdered her husband because he murdered their daughter Iphigenia, to appease the gods, send winds for his war ships, and grant him victory. She had her reasons. After Orestes commits the murder, the female Furies will not leave Orestes in peace because vengance for his father overruled mercy for his mother. Meanwhile the narrative voice insists on the primacy of fathers and loyalty to fathers, going so far as to view the mother as a sort of incubator while the father was real parent. In those days, biology was debatable. It's probably far more complex, but some critics have boiled this this play down to the war that was going on between the (probably) older matrilinea/matriarchal l focus with the then more current patrilineal/patriarchal society. Aphrodite, born from the forehead of Zeus, even chimes in on the father's side.
This brings back personal memories. I once knew a girl who committed suicide in her dorm room and had the play "Orestes" at her bedside. She had murdered her mother a few years earlier (eventually got off on an insanity plea since she'd been only 14 at the time.)
So although there were critical differences in the situations, the story raised demons still too much for her to bear 5 years after the fact.
Commentators such as Yoga Fire make it hard to have dignified, intelligent discourse on this site. It isn't that he doesn't have a right to share his POVs, it's that the way he gives his opinion (authoritatively, threateningly, and condescendingly) makes one less likely to engage in discussion. Individuals such as him don't realize that rational, calm discourse gets more respect and credit than over-the-top rambling.
I fully sympathize with the lack of mental health outreach in the South Asian community, but i have a hard time drumming up sympathy for someone who methodically paid someone to have his mother killed, no matter how strict she was. That said, while I can't make a full psychological diagnosis, I strongly suspect he was mentally unstable because he had a picture of his and his mother together as his profile picture on Facebook--if he hated her this much, why do that?
I suppose it's a double-edged sword for me-- I understand that he was clearly in need of mental health care, and would have gotten the help he needed if he'd received some, however, I am also disgusted with the fact that he contracted his mother's murder.
I may be misunderstanding Yoga Fire's comments but I took them as a just his reaction. Sure it was caustic but people do not always write in the most preferable way
Amazed at the level of emotion when so little is known about the incident.
For starters, is the boy to be considered guilty before there has even been
an attempt at presenting his case ?
Not a 'for' or 'against' post here, just that one should withhold judgment either
way until a bit more is known. And in the absence of that, I find Taz's pov
giving the boy the benefit of the doubt and wondering *what* (if anything)
could have prevented this to be the most compassionate reaction.
Shalu416, you have mentioned Yoga Fire by name already! In contrast, you do not name those whom you find reasonable!
Yoga Fire is following the first rule for an op-ed writer: your readership can revile you, but they cannot ignore you!
"but they cannot ignore you!"
Actually, that' exactly what I do...scroll past these pseudo-inflammatory posters to get to the heart of the comment(er)s.
I actually dont mind YogaFire's comments. They are direct and to the point. I do not feel sorry for that teen one bit. Unless she subjected him to some unspeakable abuse, the guy needs to pay for it.
Pravin: i'm sorry you feel no sympathy towards this boy. No act should be seen without its context in society at large. He was an immigrant of color in a potentially racist culture. His mother, an immigrant woman from a patriarchal culture, was obviously traumatized and transferred this societal trauma to her child. The boy in turn, due to a societal lack of concern for his mental health, did not get the help he needed so that he would not plot with his classmate to coldbloodedly murder his mother. No doubt his classmate was equally if not more so traumatized because he too is of color. As you can see, the context here is that of racist uncaring society that drove an innocent colored boy to madness and a colored woman to death. A jury of his uncolored peers cannot but indict and throw their own selves in jail.
The upcoming new Werner Herzog fillum (produced by David Lynch) My Son, My Son, What Have You Done is based on similar, true story.
It's good to have sympathy for people. Being religious I do sincerely try to acknowledge the divinity in everyone. But when it comes to our duties as people here on Earth, the first is to uphold the righteousness and that means having an intrinsic love of justice and hatred of injustice.
Making excuses for people who do things we know to be wrong really just lets everyone else who harbors dark thoughts and evil intentions convince themselves that they're not really bad, just misunderstood. And that, dear friends, is a dangerous lie that can let people justify all kinds of evil deeds to themselves.
Yoga fire, great comments. keep it up.
Also, I'm pretty sure 7*6 is Jonathan Swift reincarnated.
I see what you did there. I commend you sir, and am in full support of your estimably modest proposal.
just goes to show
Thats freakin wack like my rents r strict but i wouldnt kill them!!!