Who Killed Vincent Chin?

Tonight, I watched the 1989 Academy Award nominated documentary called "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" For those of you who don't know the story:

"Vincent Chin was a Chinese American industrial draftsman murdered in 1982 in the Detroit, Michigan enclave of Highland Park by two white autoworkers, Chrysler plant superintendent Ronald Ebens and his recently laid off step-son, Michael Nitz. The murder was controversial because of Ebens mistaking Chin as Japanese and the subsequent miscarriage of justice that occurred during the criminal and civil trials of Nitz and Ebens. Ebens instigated the incident by declaring, "It's because of you little motherfuckers that we're out of work," referring to U.S. auto manufacturing jobs being lost to Japan.

On the night of June 19, 1982, a fight ensued at the strip club where Chin was having his bachelor party. The group was thrown out and after a heated exchange of words subsequently parted ways. Ebens and Nitz searched the neighborhood for 20 to 30 minutes before finding Chin at a McDonald's restaurant. Chin tried to escape, but was held by Nitz while Ebens repeatedly bludgeoned Chin with a baseball bat. Chin was struck at least four times with the bat, including blows to the head. When rushed to the hospital, he was brain-dead and died after four days in a coma."

Watching the documentary definitely makes you feel powerless but also angry, since the directors interviewed the murderers, who are sitting not behind bars, but in their own living rooms, and pass their actions off as just a "mistake." More disturbing is the denial that there was any element of race behind the murder - but as Helen Zia points out, Chin would not have been murdered if he wasn't Asian American. Even worse, Chin was Chinese, not Japanese, who the murderers obviously had the biggest problem with. More problematic, is that Ebens and Nitz did not spend more than one day in jail - a gross miscarriage of justice.