Angry Asian man.

As an avid reader of ColorLines, I was very disappointed to see absolutely no coverage of Seung-Hui Cho or the "Virginia Tech massacre" in your May/June 2007 issue. Its absence was particularly deafening given your mission to "prioritize the critical stories other publications ignore."

And yet, in some ways I'm not surprised. While I've always enjoyed reading your publication, I've grown accustomed to its scant focus on East Asian Americans, in general (Jeff Chang's witty but old articles--the latest was 2002, I think--notwithstanding). But when an East Asian "American" person of color commits the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history, and "the National Newsmagazine on Race and Politics" idly stands by, I could no longer stay quiet.

Ironically, ColorLines' silence parallels a similar silence within the East Asian American community, where not talking about problems is considered dealing with them, and discussing mental illness remains the ultimate taboo. Cho's crime hints at the ongoing but seldom mentioned struggle East Asian American men face: a Western culture that still ignores them and a Confucian culture that still implies men who don't succeed are better off dead.

Ultimately, what Cho committed is as complicated as it is tragic--all the more reason it deserves your expert analysis. Alas, the only ColorLines writer who seems interested in exploring this issue further is Malena Amusa, who posits on a recent RaceWire blog that today's "era of angry Asian men" may have finally killed (no pun intended) yesterday's stubborn stereotype of the meek Asian male.

I agree, but for now this angry Asian man is less angry at stereotypes than he is at his favorite magazine for dropping the ball. On behalf of angry Asian men everywhere, I just hope they pick it up again.