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NO MORE MR NICE GUY
"I would have gladly given them the shorts if they just let me know," said Pang. It isn't at all unusual for big-city cops to receive a constant stream of gifts and free lunches from people they protect. Some people, including Pang, consider that business as usual. But he felt betrayed when he caught the cop stealing from him. How could a cop who was supposed to protect him steal from him after he had just suffered a burglary? "I was never gonna let him get away with it," said Pang.
Coming from a hierarchical society in which an individual doesn't question authority, the younger doesn't challenge the elder, the weaker doesn't contront the stronger, Pang's actions were doubly surprising. But the impulse behind them may be catching on across the country. MILWAUKEE SHOWDOWN The past winter was one of the most severe in recent memory for Milwaukee. Heavy snows blanketed homes, streets and the spirits of its normally hardy residents. The street maintenance workers gave up trying to keep side streets plowed. It was left up to each resident to keep his own parking space dug out. One Asian American man dug a space for his car, hefting snow with a battered shovel until his shoulders burned, then marked the space by putting out a wooden sawhorse in accorance with the custom in those parts. A while later he noticed that someone had stolen his sawhorse. He put out a ratty old aluminum-framed chair upholstered with fraying plastic weave. Someone took that. When he returned home, the streets still weren't plowed. Even worse, another car was parked in his spot. |
"Do you know who parked in the spot I just cleaned out?" he asked his neighbor. The neighbor denied knowledge and slammed the door on his face. The man returned home and was told by his wife that the car in the space did indeed belong to the neighbor. He marched right back and demanded, "Move your car, damnit!" "Hell, no," said the neighbor and slammed the door again. The next time the Asian American returned to the neighbor's house, he was wielding a shotgun. The neighbor quickly moved his car, then called the police. The cops sorted things out and laughed when they learned that the shotgun was broken. It had been a good, old-fashioned kick-in-the-pants bluff. Not every act of assertiveness by an Asian American is a bluff, nor ends so harmlessly. Page 3
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