Reflections on the Virginia Tech killings
It’s not the first time it happened over there. We all know about Columbine, after all. But, despite seeing it happen before – and even more incredulous, given Columbine was virtually done by kids – it still manages to horrify you and make you face that question that seems to have no real answers when asked in a situation like this: why?
Right now, the killings at Virginia Tech have created two very unfortunate situations: a… “re-heating” of the Gun-ownership laws of the Americans, and a fear in the resurgence of anti-South Korean feeling in the States.
Partly, I would say Media is to blame. One reader/reactor in the International Herald Tribune site was right in saying that the presentation of the killer, particularly in headlines, was bordering on the irresponsible. “South Korean student kills 32.” Why the focus on the gunman’s ethnicity? As the reader pointed out, Cho Seung-Hui may be ethnically Korean, an immigrant no less, but he was virtually American. The young man, after all, received education in the United States, from Primary all the way to college. I saw a report that said Asian-American males suffer from psychological stresses more than any other ethnic group, but this is beside the point. Journalism class warns the writer that the headline and the lead are often the only ones read, as readers barely have the time to read the entirety of an article. Such racial attribution often leads to very, very unfortunate fallouts, like increased prejudice against the race in question.
It would have been more prudent to say, “college student kills co-eds in worst shooting in the US” or something like that. All the important and necessary facts are in that hypothetical header: the who, and the what (has been done). Cho was a college student, he killed his schoolmates via gunfire, and it was done in the US and is really, really, horrific. His ethnicity should not have been an important enough fact to merit being part of the header, unless this is the mid- to late-1930s and we’re in Nazi Germany. Stating his ethnicity so squarely in headlines, and emphasized further in news reports, will make the wrong people make all sorts of wrong conclusions that would lead to so many very unfortunate events.
And then there’s the issue of gun ownership in the United States, virtually a right codified in that country’s Constitution itself. Anti-ownership advocates say that the ease in which Cho gained access to the high-power firearms used in the killings again points to the danger in that supposed right. Meanwhile, pro-ownership people say its the person pulling the trigger that kills, not the gun itself.
That debate I will not join in because its a discussion that has rather deep roots and deserves a more thorough treatment somewhere else.
But I do believe that the ownership issue dilutes the main point of concern here: the killer himself, and how come someone like him went off like that and was not noticed sooner? Dwelling on the gun-ownership issue is like putting the blame on the tools and not the user. Tools are mindless. A chopstick is utensil used for eating, but in the hands of an expert, it becomes a deadly tool for killing.
I don’t understand the coverage done on Cho; the guy is obviously wonkers. Delusional, at the very least. The bastard compares himself to Jesus? Geez. He calls his classmates rich brats who live hedonistic lives? One Virginia Tech student said that this was surprising, since V-Tech studes generally view themselves as blue-collar family kids. Cho even called the Columbine killers martyrs.
He was a very disturbed person who seemed to revel in his isolation and constantly rebuffed attempts by the people around him to “re-connect” him to the flow of Humanity. Cho, if his words in his so-called “manifesto” are to be believed, chose the path he trod and stubbornly kept to it. His words are a total disconnect to the reality around him, concocted perhaps to give him justification for his acts.
We were taught in morality class that those who consider themselves “human” usually do heinous acts against their fellows after they have removed the aspect of humanity from their victims. “Dehumanization”, I think was the term. When my proteges used to ask me how can genocides happen and be conducted so easily, I ask them when was the last time they whacked a cockroach and did they feel remorse over it?
I grieve for the Virginia Tech community. Campuses, especially sprawling ones, are sanctuaries for the young minds that live in them. Those of us who have passed through the halls of our colleges and universities and called them home can imagine how it must feel to have that home violated in such a horrible way.
But I am also awed by the strength of their community, by the way the students, faculty and administration have worked hard to put meaning to tragedy and begin healing from the pain of loss. This, more than anything, showed how disconnected Cho was from his community, how much of a deviant he was.
Meanwhile, as I track the news reports, I am appalled by the way the media has covered this incident. It is almost as if there is a fascination over Cho, the way he made a multimedia presentation for his madness, neatly packed and postage-stamped.
He was a sick bastard, with all due respect to his parents. People who committed such a horrific act should only be examined as part of a profile to prevent future incidents, not set up as if he was some anti-hero.
