By now, most of the world knows that Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been released from North Korea, due in large part to the behind-the-scenes political efforts of the Obama administration and Al Gore/Current t.v. (their employer) and the very public humanitarian aid of former President Bill Clinton.
I think everyone is ecstatic at this news (I know I am). And yet, the conservative forces, particularly through the mouthpiece of Fox News, has been harping about what we "lost" in "negotiating" with terrorists. But one of the most disturbing things when listening to these talking heads debate the wisdom of sending such a high profile figure as Bill Clinton to negotiate the release of these two journalists is the consistency with which Hannity and his guests refer to these two professional Asian American journalists as "girls."
[If you'd like to see the actual footage, you can click here and see it on Current t.v.'s website]
Seriously? Can't we just all take a moment and feel good that these women are home with their families? Did you see the way that Euna Lee hugged her little girl--totally made me cry!
Anyway, I, for one, welcome Euna Lee and Laura Ling home with both open arms and an open heart and hope that they will be able to be at peace with the family and to heal after this harrowing ordeal. And kudos to Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and the host of other folks who worked behind the scenes to make this all possible.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
I was surprised and then again not so surprised that their husbands were non-Asian. You can call this Mixed-Race America and I am all for mixing races, but it can make for some ANGRY ASIAN MEN some of the time.
As long as Kim Jong-il didn't get anything monetary from the Clinton visit, I don't really care about that. Going in and doing what was necessary — and just the prestige of the Clinton visit was probably enough for (believe it or not) the image-conscious Dear Leader — was the right thing.
But I feel great disdain for these two and their colleague Mitch Koss, the one who got away in time. They knowingly endangered the lives of the people on the video they were carrying with them when they willfully crossed into North Korea, and their brazen act almost certainly caused the North Koreans to make sure that porous part of the border was plugged up.
To put it bluntly: They are almost certainly responsible for the torture and/or death of one or more people.
FB,
I take it your reference to "ANGRY ASIAN MEN" is about the disparity of inter-racial relationships, gender-wise, among straight/hetero/breeder couples. In other words, Asian American women seem to be dating, inter-racially, with white men at a much higher rate than Asian American men are dating, inter-racially with white women (and perhaps we can add other racial/ethnic groups as well--other than Asian that is).
I think my own response should be probed, further, in a longer post, because I take what you say seriously--there is some anger, somewhat justified, by Asian American men at the way that they have been sexualized and portrayed in American media/society.
However, as an Asian American women who has dated, predominantly, inter-racially (and many of my former partners have been white men) I would say that it's complicated and hard to reduce this to a case of wanting to be part of the majority culture and/or to be a sell-out or a race traitor (all names that have been hurled at me at one time or another).
So please do come back and leave a comment when I do write a post about this in the near future--I think I'd rather reserve this thread more to the point of the post, which is about Euna Lee and Laura Ling's return.
Which brings me to Kushibo.
From the accounts I've read, it's unclear that they "willfully" crossed into North Korea--different accounts I've read suggest that they were either tricked into accidently crossing the border and/or kidnapped and taken across the border. If you can point to a reputable source that shows that they deliberately trespassed into North Korean territory, that would be helpful.
As to your larger point about their work endangering others' lives, you are probably right, which raises larger questions about investigative journalism and the relationship of reporters to informants or others helping them to bring a controversial and provocative topic to light. They were on the China-Korea border investigating human trafficking--certainly a topic that is under-reported and needs global attention.
Should they have not pursued this story? What is the responsibility of journalists to the story versus the people whose lives they impact in searching for the story?
In my opinion, there are not firm lines about this. But I'm not sure that blaming them, as directly as you do, for the torture or death of people is quite ... right. Certainly most of us in the U.S. are responsible, in many ways direct and indirect, for the torture and death of people living in other parts of the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, developing nations around the world) in the last century and currently.
My last question: do intentions count for anything? Because certainly it would seem that their intentions were to bring to light an important story about modern-day slavery and not to cause harm to others in their investigation.
Jennifer, prior to their release, there were a lot of people speculating they were tricked, but it has become clear since then that they deliberately went onto North Korean soil. The border up there is a river. It would be like crossing from Mexico into Texas accidentally.
Thank you for the link Kushibo, although I have to say that I'm peturbed by the not-so-veiled misogyny (which I can't help feel is being fueled by a not-so-subtle "Orientalization/racialization") of the two journalists and Lisa Ling.
After all, is it their age, gender, ethnicity/race or all of the above that prompts Fox News reporters to call them "girls" or people on this commenting thread to refer to them as "Junior" reporters (the infantilzation and condescension made clear)?
I have been in South Korea for the past month, so I haven't heard the Fox News commentary. (Fox News could have gone either way with the story: there's communism-bashing on the one hand and Clinton-basing on the other).
I, for one, have been very critical of Lee and Ling, but also of Mitch Koss, their seasoned cameraman who managed to get away while they got caught. For me, gender has nothing to do with this, except that, statistically speaking, it is more likely that the North Koreans they placed in harm's way are women than men.
Kushibo,
I am not, necessarily, criticizing you or your opinions about Laura Ling and Euna Lee and their actions on the China-N. Korea border. What I am critiquing is what I perceive to be a general infantalization and condescension towards them by both mainstream media (if we consider Fox to be mainstream) and certain blogs comment threads, the link to the one that you provided being but one example of the ways in which people's criticism of these two journalists is couched in a way to maximize censure against them through a combination of misogyny and racialization.
The fact that there gender predominates at all in most news stories rather than referring to them more consistently as "journalists" as we would when referring to other correspondents, like deceased journalist David Bloom, suggests, to me, that these two people are being considered, first and foremost through a gendered lens, a gendered lens that I believe is also colored by their racial difference from mainstream white America.
Jennifer wrote:
the link to the one that you provided being but one example of the ways in which people's criticism of these two journalists is couched in a way to maximize censure against them through a combination of misogyny and racialization.
I have not read through the commentary for that particularly post at the blog I had linked to regarding the admission they'd deliberately set foot on North Korean soil, but the description you give doesn't surprise me.
I provided that link from that blog because The Marmot's Hole is widely considered to be the blog of record for Korea-related issues. The commentariat there includes no small number of people just as you described, yes. And that is why I wanted to specifically separate
The fact that there gender predominates at all in most news stories rather than referring to them more consistently as "journalists" as we would when referring to other correspondents, like deceased journalist David Bloom, suggests, to me, that these two people are being considered, first and foremost through a gendered lens, a gendered lens that I believe is also colored by their racial difference from mainstream white America.
That very point came up several times in some other prominent "K-blogs" like Korea Beat, and I think it may have some validity. But I submit that it may be only part of the reason behind the phenomena you state.
I would have to see some specific examples that you found of this, but off the top of my head, I can imagine — as a "journalist" myself and someone who works on documentary content — that the requirement to vary terminology in order to avoid repeating the same words over and over again, causes writers and readers of news, and pundits, to dig deeper and deeper into the bag of terms they can use for each several paragraphs. "These two women" would inevitably come up a few times. I don't submit that as an excuse, but it could be a partial reason for the phenomenon. If camaerman Mitch Koss had been held in North Korea, too, the stock descriptions would necessarily been different, even if all other things would have been the same.
And that leads me to another thing: Are they journalists? I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that as a job description. If we consistently refer to them as journalists, are we being accurate or are we morphing them into something different.
Though language purists might argue that Laura Ling is more like a documentarian than a journalist (if her work is not shown on actual news programs, as David Bloom's were), most would agree with the term: Laura Ling is a journalist.
But what about Euna Lee? In her catch-all role as support staff for Laura Ling, was she also a journalist? (Because of the news of their release, I'm having trouble finding a link that describes her roles and duties, though I am finding quite a few "two young girls" comments, even from women.)
I don't ask that rhetorically or to diminish her role or importance: I know from experience — both playing her role and relying on those who play her role — that it is often people like Euna Lee who make the whole thing work. But is she a journalist?
And the same thing could apply to Mitch Koss, whose need to get a good shot from a little farther away, I'm guessing, was the sole reason he wasn't put up at the Pyongyang Palazzo as well. He's a cameraman, a seasoned one who might be able to suggest a few things, but still there at the direction of Laura Ling and possibly even Euna Lee. Is he a journalist?
What I'm saying is that a need for variation and for accurate description means there are fewer terms one can keep using, and unfortunately "these women" or "these two women" come up. That doesn't explain or excuse a description of them as "attractive women" or "young women" needing to be saved or whatever (I did NOT watch any of this on the news, only read about it, and "journalists" tend to be more careful in print than those pundits and talking heads who start creating words with little more than a list of talking points in front of them.
I have seen examples of what you're talking about, but not a lot, because I have missed almost all of the television coverage. And since I have approached this topic from a very different point of view (one that is decidedly less sympathetic) and have also been very consistent about my equal criticism of their male colleague Mitch Koss, maybe I'm not seeing the sexism and infantilism so much because I'm not (I don't think) imparting much of it myself.
Sorry for the long response. I'm used to writing news commentary and documentaries, long documentaries. By the way, I look forward to your post addressing the Angry Asian Men meme.
Kushibo,
Thanks much for your long and thoughtful response. I don't really have much to say, but I will say that you provided much for me to chew on, esp. regarding the question of whether to refer to the two women as journalists. Since I'm not in that profession, I hadn't thought much about the distinctions that you provide, and certainly one of the problems in news bites, whether in print or t.v., is the brevity with which you have to convey, concisely, information about something that may not be so easy to explain (like their status/profession).
Anyway, thanks for stopping by--I've enjoyed this thread and will look forward to hearing from you again, perhaps when I do take up the question of inter-racial gender disparities with respect to Asian American men & women.
Post a Comment