# a racist memorial **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 31, 2002, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418 "2002-08-31T06:10:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/41 "2002-09-04T18:27:20Z")
Wait, now under this standard, fire stations wouldn’t be able to honor just fallen firefighters, as that would be exclusionary. A police memorial for fallen policemen would also be taboo. Why in the world wouldn’t an ethnically cohesive group be able to decide to recognize and remember members of their group? ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/42 "2002-09-04T18:34:55Z")
I think the resentment is on a black-white basis only. No one is upset over the British, no one would get upset over a fireman memorial. But look at the bruhaha over the statue that was to be made out of that picture. You know, the one of the firemen raising the flag at ground zero. That the artist thought the colors of the firemen needed changing says something. That sooooo many people got upset over the “multi-culti” statue says even more. I despair that we’ll never get over this black-white thing in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Venoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@Venoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Venoma)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/43 "2002-09-04T18:36:58Z")
Sigh. I certainly don’t resent having such a memorial held - but to think that people thought only whites suffered? Who WASN’T told that members of dozens of nationalities died? Who DOESN’T know that NY is one of the biggest melting pots of ethnicity in the US? I surely didn’t think there was any more white suffering than black, or native american, or asian. The suffering I saw was all human. :mad: ☹ One step forward … one step back. ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/44 "2002-09-04T18:45:07Z")
Well, if there’s going to be a black memorial and a white memorial, there will certainly have to be a latino memorial. I feel we’ve been undersrepresented in this tragedy. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/45 "2002-09-04T19:33:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr Jinx \* > \*\*Most recently we’ve had Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor. Now, both of these movies were epics, with _massive_ casts and _massive_ audiences. Guess how many black soldiers there are in both those movies combined. One. Cuba Gooding Junior is the only relevant black soldier in either of those movies \*\* Actually Vin Diesel is black (and Italian) and he didn’t have an insignificant part in Saving Private Ryan. [cynic]He wasn’t even the first of the group to die, as is usually the case with the black character.[/cynic] ---
**Author:** ![JimSox5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5a626/32.png) [@JimSox5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimSox5)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/46 "2002-09-04T21:02:40Z")
I could see that distinction being made if the attacks happened somewhere like good old Covington. . .all white with one black family. But, New York??? Seriously, who thought of anybody getting killed with any other title than American? Yes, I could see if the person was a family member, but still, do you see them as any other ethnic group than American? ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/47 "2002-09-05T01:09:20Z")
[complete hijack] Jim, I remember the quote in your sig from Dr. Katz. I thought Emo Phillips said it. Well, I know he said it on Dr. Katz. Who ripped off whom? [/complete hijack] ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/48 "2002-09-05T01:59:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JimSox5 \* > \*\* Seriously, who thought of anybody getting killed with any other title than American? > \*\* Maybe all the people who knew that a lot more than just Americans died in the **World** Trade Center? People from all kinds of countries died, not just Americans. But really, I think you made my point right there. People have ideas about what they picture when they picture a victim (in **JimSox5** ’s case, an American) and they tend to overlook the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/49 "2002-09-05T04:11:58Z")
**Biggirl,** thanks for the cite. They count Hispanics as a race, or a “racial/ethnic” group, while I usually don’t think of them in racial terms, so that’s why my figure was off. No prob. **Even Sven,** it may have been called the World Trade Center but it was really just another office building at this point, pretty ordinary in its makeup–just really really BIG. That was another reason it hurt so much–nobody in America thought of it as a symbol of anything besides the imagination of engineers and maybe the hubris of the Rockefellers. Except the murderers. ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/50 "2002-09-05T04:56:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gigi \* > \*\* > Actually Vin Diesel is black (and Italian) and he didn’t have an insignificant part in Saving Private Ryan. [cynic]He wasn’t even the first of the group to die, as is usually the case with the black character.[/cynic] \*\* Well, seeing as how I just finished watching this, you’re wrong. Vin Diesel is in fact, the first of the group that sets out to find Pvt. Ryan that gets killed. By a sniper while doing something stupid. The medic doesn’t get killed until they try to take out the machine gun nest and the rest of them, with the exception of the BAR man get killed trying to protect the bridge near the end of the movie. Your friendly movie fact for the moment… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/51 "2002-09-05T11:06:11Z")
Has Vin Diesel ever played a character who is supposed to be (within the movie) at least part black? (I don’t know, since I haven’t seen many of his films.) In _Saving Private Ryan_, his character is presumably supposed to be just Italian in ancestry. It’s like with Keanu Reeves. Despite being a quarter Hawaiian, a quarter Chinese, and a half English, I think that all his characters in movies are presumably supposed to be white. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/52 "2002-09-05T15:39:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Xploder \* > \*\* > > Well, seeing as how I just finished watching this, you’re wrong. Vin Diesel is in fact, the first of the group that sets out to find Pvt. Ryan that gets killed.\*\* Damn, I remembered wrong. The cynic proved right again ☹ Wendell, yeah, it looks like he was supposed to be Italian (Dominic Toretto) in The Fast and the Furious, yet Jordana Brewster (Spanish) played his sister. Huh. I’ve read that the ambiguity of his “look” in trying to get acting jobs led him to make the short film Steven Spielberg noticed. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2002, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/53 "2002-09-09T11:39:25Z")
Just bumping this up to report that the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office, the AP, the Dept. of Defense, interviews with relatives, and the companies in the WTC have indeed released a breakdown by race of the WTC victims: 70% White Hispanic 9% 8% Black 6% Asian 7% Other or Unknown I don’t know how any of these categories were defined–where would the Egyptians go, and dark-skinned Caucausians like Indians–but FWIW, here it is. Also, 59% were from my state of NY. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2002, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/54 "2002-09-09T11:41:07Z")
Just bumping this up to report that the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office, the AP, the Dept. of Defense, interviews with relatives, and the companies in the WTC have indeed released a breakdown by race of the WTC victims; it was in the NY Times yesterday: 70% White Hispanic 9% 8% Black 6% Asian 7% Other or Unknown I don’t know how any of these categories were defined–where would the Egyptians go, and dark-skinned Caucausians like Indians–but FWIW, here it is. Also, 59% were from my state of NY. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418/55 "2002-09-10T16:18:46Z")
Dont’ mind me, I thought this was about the reported defacing of the Iwo Jima Memorial. The story is that unknown persons paid a nocturnal visit to the memorial recently and covered it with pro-Iraq graffiti. When the mess was discovered, it was cleaned up by park police and a visiting retired Marine. I’d post a link but I can’t seem to find one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-racist-memorial/126418.md?page=2)