Forward:
In May of 2023, Chikei Rick Chow fatally shot Cyrus Carmack-Balton in the back because Chow believed Carmack-Balton had stolen several bottles of water. In June of 2026 Chow was found not guilty. This was written the week of the acquittal as an exercise to make sense of all the angering emotions I had when I learned the news.
- an open letter by Zack Vander – Eastside Potluck Society Member
To Rick Chow
Hey, Dick, can I call you Dick? You will probably never see this but I still want to have a semblance of respect. So, Dick, I know you are more commonly known by Rick, but I know a few Ricks and all of them are Dicks. And Dick is short for Rick which is short for Richard. One of those quirks of the English Language, to turn someone’s identity into a phallic caricature of themselves.
But that is what you are, aren’t you, Dick? Dick Chow, choking so hard at the cock of White Supremacy that you play exactly how they want you to. Is your need for acceptance so much that you decided to take on a white name and their violence? Is your need for acceptance so great that you took every lie they spun and swallowed it whole like bad seed, letting it sprout into the very actions which define you?
Whiteness is a love letter to violence, and you, Dick, have taken both hands to the handle, finger caressing the trigger of racism. Because that is what it is, that you have taken the hatred and lies that Western Culture spins and wrapped it around yourself like paper armor. Is it not enough to grab at business and capital like a poor man’s capitalistic wet dream? Do you also have to believe the model minority mythology that pits one person of color against another?
Of course you do. You need to. You have to push someone down in order to prop yourself up. Again, your love of whiteness and your loved perspective on whiteness has led you to become so anti Black and violent that your own ancestors wouldn’t recognize you. How lonely must you be at night, in the middle of the dark, staring up at the sky and not recognizing the lights of our ancestors showing you a path back home? But maybe, you too reject this, and take on the white-washed Christian Jesus as your guide, a man known for crusades and chattel slavery.
And of course, you pass this down onto your child, who has swallowed your advice like so many advils and tylenols. Do you really not know that your perceived proximity of whiteness will not save you? That only collective community can save you? That only dismantling the systems in place and listening to those whom are wiser can save you? That uplifting women can save you? That uplifting the most marginalized in our society is the only way forward?
Dick, there was a moment that night where after chasing down Cyrus Carmack-Belton and shooting him in the back that you tried to save him. Was the weight of guilt finally too much for you? That you realized that this was a line you’ve bent and straddled before finally realizing too late that you’ve crossed? Or is this too another lie? Is this too something that you tried to tell the jury to placate them. “Look, I’m one of the good ones.”
You will probably never read this. But others will. And they should know that it isn’t enough to say “Look, I’m one of the good ones.” They need to prove it. Fuck you, Rick Chow, and fuck every Asian that grips tight to whiteness. Rest in Power, Cyrus Carmack-Belton.