[ ed's journal apr.22.99 ]

[ j o u r n a l ]

The following online journal entries are from April 1999.

They are taken from older version of my website and emails I sent to friends.

[ 0 4 . 2 2 . 9 9 ]

Thursday. 11:29 AM. The following is an email message that I wrote after my friend Kate expressed her feelings about the Columbine High School shootings. It got me thinking a little and this message was the end result. I'm not sure if I'm done thinking about it. I'm not exactly sure how much there is to say about it.

Here's the letter:

Greetings all--
I am glad that someone has started a thread about this whole situation. Though, I am concerned that the attention we will give to the tragedy will be overwrought and unnecessary. What makes this tragedy any more or less than the deaths that occur every day in our own backyards? But, since we have extraordinary circumstances, we must have extraordinary reactions. (There are tremblings of Matthew Shepard's story in this one. And has all the media attention and the "should'ves" and "would'ves" and "could'ves" made any changes?)
I agree with most of the sentiments of everyone that has written so far. And I have really avoided reading about the whole situation for fear that I'll simply become incensed about the ignorance and blindness and self-denial that people have when it comes to tragedies. But I glance at the articles online. I was waiting for the second the phrase "games" came up. Every time something like this happens, I am also hyper-cognizant of the notion that "adults" and "authorities" are going to seek some sort of twisted logic in that somehow the gunmen "got the idea" from a TV show or music lyric or role-playing game.
I think we all have to take a step back and look at the way we live our lives and imagine our lives in relation to other people. Speaking from my own experience, I find that people rarely understand their own social location and rarely take steps to better themselves and their own community -- be that their family, their neighborhood, their workplace, their city, or their country. Teaching freshman for four and half years, I can see where some of the seeds of ignorance and confusion come from. Unfortunately, too much of this is wrapped up in class and opportunity. And I was dealing with the young people that could make it to college.
But we all need to open our eyes a little bit. We need to see ourselves more clearly. Every now and then I think that it would be great to have the power to just point to a person and say, "May you have 24 hours of perfect self-clarity." We can see all the little lies and denials and imperfections we have in ourselves. And how we treat ourselves is mirrored in how we treat others.
Do I blame the young men in Colorado for their actions? Yes. And they are wholly accountable. Do I blame their parents? Yes. If they were negligent in attempting to recognize warning signs and at fault for doing nothing about it. Do I blame the community in Littleton? Yes. "Outcasts" must be "cast out" of something. And if we cannot learn to understand -- not necessarily embrace -- but at least understand and communicate with the diversity in our lives, then people will always feel segregated and put out.

[ 0 4 . 2 2 . 9 9 cont. ]

We must all take the responsibility for living an honest, communicative, compassionate, respectful, humane, and human life. In do so, we remind the people we touch and meet and marry and live with and parent and teach that they too can live in such a way.

I was watching the news on the day of the shootings. And the one of the local news affiliates was interviewing a student after the school had been evacuated. Who did they pick? A young man, clean cut, white, handsome, shirtless with a muscled body. His comments were pretty vapid. But they spent 10 minutes talking to him. Finally, someone gave him a shirt. Is this coincidental? Perhaps. But on a deep level, I think the choices made were very clear. Here is a man that is not an "outcast" -- in fact, he's the picture of Americana and "normal" -- the perfect spokesman for the "tragedy." What correlation does that set up? That if you aren't normal, you're doomed to be sociopathic. A coincidence, here? I dont' think so.

Regardless, it's too easy to say that the gunmen were "predisposed" or it was in their "genetics" or it was a result of "games" or "gothic industrial" music. It's too easy to say that it was the parents or the school or their friends. It's too easy to say that there needs to be stronger morals and stiffer ethics and clearer ways to distinguish right and wrong. But, still, we seek out the easy answers to a very difficult question.

I challenge everyone to look for the deeper answers. I come from an upper middle class background. I went to a very good high school in a very wealthy part of the country. I received a good education. So, who am I to talk? I know my social location. And I know that I take on what I can change, what I can fight for, what I can challenge. I cannot save everything. But the battles I pick, I do with conviction.

I ramble and ramble. But, I hope I made some sense. This was simply a way to talk about the whole issue. And I think we should talk about it to a point. Then take it off the air and out of the newspapers and print stories about how to make our society work. The focus needs to change.

[ i n d e x E D ]

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