University officials said that security officers said that a female student said that her Asian classmate said that he wanted to shoot this professor.

Always, always first ask yourself," our pop used to say, poking my sternum. "What do I know? Really know. What? And what am I assuming."

The tail end of his lesson was never a question. It was an admonition. "Hati-hati, Joh (Beware, my boy)," he’d say. Then he blinked firm twice, turned my skinny shoulders clear around, and sent me off.

Our father schooled his sons during difficult times. Politics were mean. Economics were unstable. Our energetic nation had lost her momentum.

We grew up in a complex place — Indonesia spoke in 900 languages; neighbors observed one or several of our precious planet’s five major religious traditions. Families were black and brown, yellow and white.

In those tense times and in that vigorous place, it was all good parents’ quiet duty to teach acceptance and conciliation to wild kids like our pop’s boys. We all shared a densely peopled island, so either we lived together well or we lived in hell. We either asked ourselves what we know, or we assumed our biases. Up to us.

Maybe those times and that place are a lot like ours. Our Portland. Probably best I stick myself in the sternum daily. Likely we’d all benefit by looking long into each other and by asking: What do we know. And what do we assume.

A familiar chill

Earlier this month, a blog belonging to a Portland professor whose 30 years of good work I know well, caught my eye then iced my porous bones. The chill started right here, right where our father used to tap me. It followed my ribs out and around, then it leached into my heart.

His web entry named two federal agencies by their well-known acronyms — one with jurisdiction over alcohol, tobacco, and firearms; the other we task with taking out terrorists, kidnappers, interstate and international criminals. Both, he blogged "played important roles ... in this serious campus security issue." He thanked his university community for their outpouring of support.

On first impression that’s an avalanche of facts. Bad ones. But really, here’s what’s we know about what was blogged: University officials said that security officers said that a female student said that her Asian classmate said that he wanted to shoot this professor. And we know the student owns guns.

That’s probably too many tiers of hearsay for serious people to say what’s true, but something I know for sure on hearing all this is that it immediately brings me back the last two college campus killers. Crazed students with guns. Both Asian.

Another thing I can tell you about with certainty is my dread over this Asian grad student’s face stapled and taped to campus lampposts and entryways; my chill when his photo appeared in every college kid’s, every teacher’s and university staff’s, e-inbox first thing next morning. It’s a very familiar chill. One Oregon ethnic minorities know well.

The problem for me is that I also know well that young Asian Portlander, the one that professor said triggered two muscular U.S. government organizations — the professor whose work I so admire. I am conflicted.

I know how conscientiously this grad student leads interracial neighborhood conciliation and how consistently he’s contributed to local community building. I know others’ affection and respect for him. For sure.

Another problem is knowing his physician father. And knowing his gentle mother. At very bottom, my problem is his mom looking so much like ours. More to the point of this essay, these two moms sound exactly like another Asian ma I know real well — the one who eight years ago looked straight into a KGW camera’s red eye and told Oregon that her boy did not kidnap or rape or murder that lovely young Corvallis coed. Neither cops nor prosecutors believed Dong Kim, or her son.

Three years later, Joel Courtney confessed to causing so much unimaginable sorrow to Brooke Wilberger’s family — but no one took responsibility for the terrible harm done Sung Kim’s. For the haste, for the bias, built into our assumptions.

Our familiar ruts

About our present situation, I can’t claim having done the science, but I’ll bet half my next paycheck that a flash poll of 1,000 Portlanders would evidence a tidily racialized divide over what respondents assume happened between the accused and the accuser, between the accuser and all those downstream officials triggered by her accusations. Mainstreamers on Side A, ethnic streamers on the Side B. Like we all saw with OJ and Kobe. Like Oregon Asians observed in Sung Kim’s case.

We know as a matter of American historical fact that race matters. And that the power difference between races matters even more. The asymmetry of it. The awful familiarity of it, every next time it comes around.

What we know from asking around, I mean those of us unabashedly biased in favor of this outspoken, if soft spoken, grad student and community problem solver, is that the Oregon Health & Science University psychiatrist who examined him, cleared him soon after those campus security cops locked him up. We know the Portland Police Bureau did not charge him with a crime. Any crime.

We know his humiliated Asian family took him straight home. And we know they took their phone off the hook. For the shame of it. The shame of it all.

We know those law schools that admitted him this fall, took back their offers. We know their scholarship dollars are now off the table.

We know damage was done.

"Always, always first ask yourself," our pop used to say, poking my sternum. "What do I know? Really know. What? And what am I assuming."

I know now that our father’s big lesson was an admonition for those of us schooled during mean political and unstable economic times. Times when ordinarily generous folks lose their discernment.

Times when dutiful adults must tell their kids and themselves: Ask, always ask, what we know and what we assume.

Times like these. Places like ours. Our Portland.

Nota: Again, our sympathies to the Wilberger family and our regrets for having to bring up your sorrow as part of this story.