Thoughts on the Virginia Tech Shootings

You can blame gun laws all you want. You can say that he was crazy. You can blame campus security for not going into lockdown. You can point the finger at Hollywood for glorifying violence. But you can just as easily blame communism or astrology. You can just as easily say it was the fault of President Bush. It doesn't make it true. The truth is that while gun laws, Seung-Hui Cho's mental state, campus security, and media violence all played a part in the events on April 16, by blaming any one of them we're completely sidestepping the truth. The truth is that it is our fault.

Disagree all you want, but consider this: in a society where it is possible to be pushed so far away by fellow humans that murder and suicide seem like the only way out of life, is it not obvious that there is a problem within that society? What about the fact that Seung-Hui Cho is not the first of his kind? What about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? We push people like this to the edge and then act surprised when they jump off the cliff and drag people with them. Has it not occurred to us that we are part of the problem? Certainly it is impossible to pretend that Cho's actions were justified...but how can we hope to prevent things like this from happening in the future if we don't even understand why Cho did what he did?

It's no surprise to hear that Cho was abused by his peers. And typically enough, he was abused because he was different. He was a resident alien, he was quiet, he was autistic, he didn't speak English very well-that's already plenty of material to make fun of him with. The question is, why do we do it? Most of us have made fun of someone who is "different" at one time or another. Why? What do we have to gain from it? It's clear from events like this that we actually have a lot to lose.

Our society is not as accepting of differences as it claims to be. Organizations can promote diversity all they want, but diversity in the sense that they promote it in only includes people of different races; people of different religions; people of different sexual orientations. Beneath that, though, we do the opposite of promote diversity: we promote stereotypes. We only promote diversity in the sense that we have increased the number of stereotypes for members of society to fall under-but as long as they fall outside of those stereotypes, we still don't have to accept them.

And we don't. We tell them to "Go back to China," in the words of Chris Davids, a high school classmate of Cho's. Even now that Cho is dead we still make fun of him. He's become a topic for lighthearted dinner conversation. On April 18 the most popular article on CNN was one in which Cho's teachers talked about how mean he was. When his "multimedia manifesto" was played on NBC news, Brian Williams, NBC anchor, just commented that "No two or three sentences really make sense when viewed together," with a smug look instead of actually addressing what Cho was saying.

That's the way we all seem to want to look at it. We want to look right through the possibility that he's right and we are partially to blame. So we dismiss him as crazy. We interview his roommates and hear about how quiet he was, wondering why he never said anything, yet now that he's saying something we're ignoring it because his grammar is imperfect. It's easier than taking partial blame, it's easier than giving up the right to criticize differences, and above all, it's much easier than coping with the idea that maybe we could be pushed to do the same things under the same pressures and abuses.

Things like this should obviously not happen. When they do, we should use it as an indicator that something is wrong. But we don't. Instead we use it to entertain ourselves in some twisted way. We slap a catchy name on it like "Campus Massacre," and check in daily so we have something to talk about with our friends. The news is selling it to us and we are buying it. We want to hear all about it. We want to know all the horrible details. Why else would news viewership increase dramatically every time something like this happens?

This recent school shooting was the worst in US history. That's immediate marketability, and that's why news stations flocked to the story to report it to the masses. Interestingly enough, this is not even the first school shooting of the year. On Jan. 3 there was a school shooting at Henry Foss High School in Tacoma, Washington. But only six students were killed and eleven were wounded. Yes. Only six students were killed. That's the way our media operates, and that's why few people have even heard of it. It doesn't grab our attention if only six people die. Why not wait until 33 die?

In some contradictory way we want things like this to happen. First, when we bully people because of their differences, we start the chain of events that can ultimately lead to these tragedies. And when they finally happen, we act surprised-but only on the surface. As much as we talk about how horrible it is, we cannot take our eyes off of it. On the contrary, we direct all our attention to it. We act like we're all fellow investigators in a nationwide case, and come up with our own theories on why it happened. We read his "disturbing" plays and say that it should have been obvious that he was insane-overlooking the fact that people like Quentin Tarentino at the forefront of our entertainment industry write the same kinds of things. So why are the makers of Saw not going on shooting sprees?

The bottom line is that when things like this happen it is terrible and unjustifiable, but it is bound to happen over and over again until we, as a society, make steps to really become more accepting of people who are different from us. We need to end stereotypes, and instead of talking about how every one of us is unique, we need to strive to actually make every one of us unique. We need to stop promoting conformity through pop culture so that those who choose not to conform aren't left out of society to go crazy on their own terms. We need to recognize that this is a flaw in the way we live, not just one person commiting random acts of violence.

Ironically, we are giving Cho exactly what he wanted to begin with. He wanted all this publicity. He was a neglected member of society who saw a way to get its attention and he did it. He took the coward's way out of his problems. And we put him on TV.

The harsh reality to face is that we have to feel sorry for Cho. We don't have to support what he did-and hopefully we won't-but if we don't have compassion for the Seung-Hoi Cho's and the Eric Harris' of the world, they will do this over and over again, and we will never be prepared for it.

Imagine for a second if Cho had just killed himself and no one else. First of all, it wouldn't be on the news at all, because, in a sad, nationwide sense, no one would care. But if it were on the news, think about how different the angle would be: instead of saying his plays were twisted and disturbing writings from a mentally unstable young adult (which incriminates him, the murderer), the same plays would be portrayed as cries out for help from a poor, tortured soul.

We have to look at it that way while mourning the loss of the other 32. After all, he did kill himself-and had he no reason to kill himself, he wouldn't have killed anyone else, either. If we are going to say "never again" about things like this, we have to act on it, and that doesn't mean get better security or remove violence from art or change gun laws.

So many selfish people are using this tragedy as a platform for nothing more than political gain, claiming either "if he hadn't been able to legally purchase this gun so easily..." or "if other students had guns with which to defend themselves..." You can take the weapon away from the killer or give the victim defense, but the better choice is to take the motive away from the killer.

We need to reach out to people who feel alone and hated and before that, we need to stop hating them. The problem is that these things are deep-rooted in every single one of us and it is easier for us to convince ourselves that something else is to blame, be it Cho's alleged insanity or the second amendment. Cho took the easy way out of his problems-let's not do the same with ours.