By now, it feels like almost everybody has heard about Minghui Yu, the Graduate student who died a couple of nights ago right on Broadway. Or at least everybody in the Asian community. My parents, from hundreds of miles away, called me with worry to warn me not to go out at night. My uncle, living in Providence, called me for the first time in weeks when he heard about it. Two Chinese girls during lunch were discussing the details of his accident.
It seems like it is the circumstances of his death, and not the death itself, that has shocked us the most. His tragic story brought us the rude awakening that we, as Columbia students, were not safe in the Morningside Heights neighbourhood. Conversations about his death around me weren’t centered around Yu, but focused rather on the facts: the racist fact that he was harassed by two black teenagers (my parents), the sexist fact that it was a male that was assaulted (Barnard girls), the academic fact that he was a promising statistician (the University). Buried among these was a muted sigh of relief that “thank goodness it wasn’t me”.
There was a vigil held in memoriam of what we are told was a bright student who was a leader among his peers. I thought about going to show my respects, to comfort and to be comforted among the mass of student mourners. But, as I walked by Low Plaza on my hurried way to dinner, it just didn’t feel right to join the procession. I felt for his death, but more so for the loss experienced by his family and his girlfriend. In a strange kind of racial unity, I couldn’t help but empathize and mourn in a simple way, even when I had no idea he existed until his death.
The idea of mourning as a result of race troubled me, and kept me from discussing Yu’s death in any way. I felt like a fraud at a funeral; the one mourner who didn’t know the deceased but came anyways as part of the crowd. Come to think of it, how can most people, Presbo included, express sincere condolences when they didn’t even personally know Yu? Somehow, amidst all these facts and circumstances, the person that Minghui Yu was in life, was lost in his death. More than half of his facebook wall is filled with RIP messages, mostly from people remain unknown to him. What bothers me is not our unity in our grief for the loss of his life, but rather the popularity of the mere act (or facade) of mourning that can strip this tragedy of true meaning.
My feelings, what I can honestly say are only shades of sorrow, go out to the parents, girlfriend and friends he left behind. I truly hope that they are able to find strength and solace through this difficult time.
