ramblings and thoughts about the Virginia Tech shootings

i'm sad that we live in a world where a fatal 'domestic dispute' on a college campus is no cause for alarm. A white student named Emily and a black student named Ryan were shot... domestic dispute or not... this is cause for alarm. Regardless, there was no way they could have expected or assumed that the campus needed to be shut down... and I'm not at all saying that it should have been. I've just been irritated that every news report I hear says the police thought it was "just a domestic dispute" over and over again. Like shrug, another day at the office. Any violence should be a cause for alarm in my world... I've discovered over the past few days that there were other issues at play. My pal wrote a bit about this issue and with her permission, I'm pasting it here:

I think, actually, that their decision is more a reflection of information they have based on what has been, and not on the changing nature of our culture. What happened yesterday was an anomaly of what we have known. But it is not nearly such an anomaly of what we are becoming - placed in context of the overall level of violence in our culture - mobility, access to guns, stress, entitlement, rage, a completely meritless war, warped construction of masculinity laced with violence that depends on the oppression of women for the roots of its construction, the most powerful man in the world blatantly acting in irrational, disrespectful, and oppressive ways, AND the continuing hate against women that entitles men to express their rage by using all of the means that are now at their finger tips.

In addition, it turns out that another reason they didn't respond was this "person of interest", a man they were questioning (Emily's boyfriend) as a possible suspect... because Emily's roommate had divulged that he (the boyfriend, named Karl Thornhill) had guns and that she had gone with him recently to a shooting range.

i'm overwhelmed with the ache I feel for everyone that has been affected directly or indirectly by this... the victims, their families, the survivors, other students that no longer feel safe at their schools, every person who feels sick to their stomach or ache in their heart about this tragedy. And yes, believe it or not, I even feel ache for Cho Seung-Hui.

i'm angry that the media continues to miss or discuss how so many school shootings (a) are often directed against girls or women and (b) could have be prevented. This is an opportunity - but it's not used as such.

Notice I wrote, 'directed against girls or women'... not because of girls or women. Day before yesterday, an Australian paper started their article about the shootings with a picture of 18 year-old Emily Jane Hilscher, the first victim, and printed "THIS is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US history." Um, hold the phone (as my grandma used to say). WHAT? She sparked it? I just noticed that the paper has noted the negative reaction to the author's language. They insist they were not trying to blame Emily for being shot. The problem is this is what always happens. Her skirt was too short, what was she doing out at that time of night, etc. Even though, Cho Seung-Hui wrote a note that said "you caused me to do this" - it was not in fact caused by anyone or anything but Cho Seung-Hui and more so, the US's addiction to violence. And also, to be clear, this is the worst school shooting in history... not the worst shooting in history (as some have asserted)... ask the native people.

Ok, so the last time I checked, each individual is responsible for his or her own actions. I believe that a person who takes responsibility or holds him or herself accountable for his or her actions is the standard we should set, is how we should socialize our children. Say a lamp falls off of a table, every child within 10 feet of the lamp yells "I didn't do it!" We need to raise our children to say, "it was me, I'm sorry, I'll clean it up". And as adults, we need to acknowledge the accountability and have fair and consistent consequences. But we don't. We raise our children to blame one another. Then are children grow up with the guilt and shame of believing things completely out of their control were their fault (parent's divorce, sibling's sexual abuse, their own sexual abuse, a pet's death... you get the point).

Boys are allowed to be angry, not sad - and never to cry. Boys are allowed and sometimes expected (in the US) to externalize their anger with violence... whereas girls, aren't allowed to be angry and since they have every reason to be pissed off as hell, they tend to internalize their anger (which manifests in the form of eating disorders, self-mutilation, low self-esteem, etc.).

But then when an angry young man (not originally from the US) is responsible for the worst shooting in history, we have to find out why? Why would this man do this? He had a history of stalking women, was suicidal at times and was sent to counseling. His writing tutor was so afraid of him she had an assistant with her when she tutored him.

Another article I ran across, shed a little more light on some of the warning signs. One of his professors, sassy poet Nikki Giovanni, said of his violent writings:

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of
his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk
and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy.
It was the meanness - I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people - it
was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including
taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to
class, and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken
out of her class, saying she would quit if he was not removed.

His fellow students were "waiting for him to do something":

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former
classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an
AOL Web site.

"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't
have even thought of."

He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry
about whether he could be a school shooter."

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to
hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But
when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying,
bawling."

Something tells me that there's a reason his writings were "like a nightmare". Something tells me his life was a nightmare to him, a nightmare he wanted to end. It's awful that he had to create a nightmare to end his own.

So Ms. Cambio, a.k.a. Ms. Violence Prevention? What have you got for us? What is the answer?

Well, my gut tells me this could have been prevented. Even though he was hospitalized at one point, and obviously was potentially dealing with some major mental illnesses, he did not get the help he needed. (oh right, boys aren't supposed to get help, especially not from a therapist) It's hard for anyone, especially someone that's extremely troubled, to establish enough trust in a short period of time to have therapy actually be helpful. As a country we need to be more proactive and less reactive when it comes to violence. I don't want getting onto a university campus to become akin to getting on an airplane. But, of course, I don't want anything like this to ever happen again. Where's the middle ground?

If I had the time and the energy, I'd like to analyze all of these school shootings sites listed on the school violence resource center website and see if we can glean any potential prevention points. Maybe they've done that already. Anyone looking for a dissertation topic?

All I know is, we need more violence prevention programs (if you want to know of some good programs to donate to, let me know), and fewer guns. Please. The early shootings, even before Columbine, should have inspired some change... and by change, I'm not talking about more security, metal detectors or banning black trench coats. Why does it have to come to this? Please, please, please let me see a world, in my lifetime, where prevention is made a priority. For our children, for our grandchildren, for ourselves.