April 18, 2007
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NOT HOLDING MY BREATH
I’ve been out of town on a business trip and in meetings so I’m way behind “news-wise” on the Virginia Tech tragedy. I’ve been trying to catch up this morning.
When I first heard that the student was a South Korean here on a student visa, my first thought was that the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world would immediately make this about immigration. I hope that doesn’t end up being the case, but I’m not holding my breath.
I did read that many South Korean students are fearful of reprisals, and that makes an unimaginable, horrific event that much sadder. History has proven time and time again that deranged, deluded, homicidal people come in every age, religion, and ethnic background. I hope that everyone can stay focused on the needs of the families who tragically lost loved ones, and on the fellow students and faculty that have suffered through such a horrible, life-altering event…
…and not on the color of the shooter’s skin or where he came from.
Comments (21)
I think I am first! So far it is not about his skin…but there is lots of unrealistic blame being thrown around: gun control, video games, why didn’t teachers do more….etc…..Nobody is talking about personal responsibility….
i heard last night that a columnist went through every stereotypical scenerio in the book before the killer was officially identified. and then she went on the immigration rampage and how we have to stop letting foreign students in our schools. heard about another column where the writer challenged the manhood of the men who were shot and killed and why they didn’t “take down the gunman.” (methinks somebody watches too many action flicks where nothing ever happens to the handsome hero) heard about a couple of other groups and writers who are saying that if all students and staff were allowed to carry weapons, this wouldn’t have happened (no, it would likely be much worse)
In fact, I wonder if Kim Jong Il will use the guy going nuts as an object lesson for his captive audience, about the colonialist West with its perverse morality driving a poor hard working Asian lad nuts. The boy’s parents were dry cleaners and he was a loner with a cap pulled down over his eyes, sunglasses, no friends, he’d put a question mark for a name and he used a question mark to try to talk to girls on AOL. He’d stalk them and creep them out and the police would talk to him. But nobody ever really got him to get help and he went to a crisis center once or twice but then he bought a Glock in March 2007 and that was that.
These kids didn’t even have to join the Army or the Marines and go to Iraq to get shot. This is actually the first real big shooting up of a campus that I can remember, since the 9/11 happened. It’s a lot bigger than Columbine, it’s a lone shooter with one or two Glocks and lots of bullets in an innocuous backpack, and usually Asians are considered model minorities, like the Jews. I mean there are Asians who gamble and Asian pimps and massage parlors, but what little violence they have, is usually kept quiet and kept among themselves. The stereotype is that they are “inscrutable” and there actually is an expression in Chinese that translates literally as “not happy not sad”, which means inscrutable, and the topic of inscrutability is discussed (my wife tells me) in the business section of Chinese newspapers.
This may have been a kid who was maladjusted, picked on, he didn’t want people to see his face, he didn’t want people to see his eyes, he didn’t want people to know his name, he was probably very self-conscious about being a greenhorn and hated being teased and laughed at. He hated pretty girls, he shot and killled one very beautiful girl with dark wavy hair who had gone to the same high school as him. He hated himself, and at the end, he made sure that he wasn’t going to be anybody’s sex slave behind bars.
I echo the sentiments of your post. My fears precisely.
That’s very true. I think a lot of people mistake, culture traits with the color of their skin.
Just because everyone in your race is taught a certain thing, like for asian people we take off our shoes when we enter a house. I have met asian people that don’t do that because they were never taught. I think that goes for a lot of things.
AMEN!!! Excellent post. My husband has already been blabbing about that and it really irritates me. I tell him all the time that anyone anywhere could have done the same thing. VERY good post!
Good post. I think we should just focus now on giving the families time to grieve.
Very well said. People can become badly screwed up whatever they look like or wherever they’re born.
VaTech’s lesson, I think, is that you cannot stop crazy people from doing crazy things. I only hope that we can put our finger in the figurative dike of crazy that pours from these situations.
(No, not Rosie.)
wow, great post. Personally, i didnt even think of the prejudice against the south korean community that might arise from this shooting, but you’re totally right, it would just make a bad situation so much worse if people turned this into a racial thing.
Good point. Mentally ill people (and I believe they will find that he was, if there’s anything left to autopsy) are everywhere– in the workplace, in the neighborhood, and in the school. My son takes medication for a seizure disorder, only after the first medication prescribed caused him to hallucinate. Who knows what might have happened if he had access to a weapon during one of those episodes? It is so sad…I have eleven former students at VA Tech, and as of Tuesday, all were present and accounted for.
I know nothing about guns, but that gun shop owner who sold the gun……. what did he think the man was going to do with it, light a birthday cake? You don’t need a gun like that “for protection” do you? Somebody help me here.
Hey, I agree with Trotta109. I am a lifelong gun owner and hunter. There is no need for a Glock 9MM handgun let alone selling one to someone without a permit. A killers weapon is all it is. Used by criminals until the police found out they were outgunned and bought their own.
It is tragic no matter how we look at it
Yes, but those deranged, deluded, homicidal people are always male. Lock ‘em all up.
I was just glad it wasn’t an arabic student – then things would have really hit the fan.
What a wonderful post! Now….if everyone would just take it to heart.
I wont get on a soap box. It is a sad tragedy.
I bet his folk’s cleaning business will be in trouble. I can’t think of anything more difficult than having your own son do something intentionally that is so awful and destroys innocent peoples lives. How much shame would a parent bear (or is it bare)? How could you not take responsibility as the parent? It reminds me of a saying I heard years ago that said,”Remember who’s child you are!” Of course it was in reference to doing things and realizing your actions will influence the people you most care about or maybe I should say the people who most care about you. Blessings
I’m afraid that it may come down to that because the media is starting to make a big deal out of it. It’s sad that it happened in the first place, but worse that anyone would play the race card. I believe he was a truly sick human being and mental illness is not something that strikes because of race.
LOL no…but Rosie made it about gun control! Does that one count?