A Call to Action?

Dear U.S. Media,

Without question, the Virginia Tech shootings were, and are, and will remain to be, a tragedy. There is a great deal of pain in the Blacksburg, VA, community, and in the entire college community of the United States. The institution on which students like me, like my younger sister, like my friends, like my future children, has now become the focus of drastic security measures, viable and understandable fear, and restriction. I realize the necessity in ensuring the safety of our future professionals, world leaders and humanitarians—nothing could be more important. I ask, though, if the response of tighter security patrols, locking entire buildings during class hours and closing public roadways is the correct response to such a tragedy.
It is obvious that we are afraid. In the instances after first learning of the events at VT, I myself became very concerned for the safety of my friends in colleges all over the United States, from California to Florida to Maine. The thought, “if it happened at one, why couldn’t it happen at others?” absolutely crossed my mind, and this thought terrified me. I will admit it, openly, plainly, and simply—I am very afraid. But I am afraid not for my life, but because I believe that the motivation behind such violent attacks is of legitimate concern. Furthermore, as citizens of such a powerful country, we should all be concerned about the motivations which lie behind tragedies.
Yes, obviously this individual suffered from psychological problems, but this is no reason to cast off his actions on such problems as feeling isolated, alone, backed into a corner and trapped—hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousand college students in the U.S. have shared at least one of these feelings. I, myself, have felt them. I, myself, have been to a college counseling center, and refused to return for counseling because it did not change how I was feeling. Talking did not solve the problems I had with my social environment.
Perhaps one of the reasons I was so terrified and distressed upon reading the news, when I finally felt able to do so, was that I expected the motivation to lie in feelings of isolation. I expected such a tragedy to be caused by the social problems which still exist in our American culture today. Perhaps one of the reasons I was terrified is because I know exactly what it feels like to be alone. I know what it feels like to be so full of wrath, anger, rage and violence that you almost cannot stop yourself from performing an act of violence. This is why I am afraid.
I am afraid because our culture has not changed in reaction to the school shootings at Columbine. It has not changed due to the tragic events at Broughton High School in Raleigh, NC. Our government, our citizens, our “peacemakers,” our politicians, our professionals, our teachers, our students, and our children absorb tragedy after tragedy, blaming each on “the mental problems of proven mental patients” or “the proto-type loner” or “the outcast,” which both distances such groups from the event, and dehumanizes the perpetrator/victim of such events.
We must realize that we are all connected. It is so apparent in the hours and days after a tragedy such as this one that we deeply care about our own humanity and the lives of individual humans. Prayers are said, people are memorialized, remembered for their best actions and deeds, tears are shed, and tremendous popular support is shown through National “Hokie Day” and even in the college medium Facebook, in groups such as “A Prayer for VT students.” Yet this empathy is exclusive. We pray for the families of the victims, but do we pray for the family of the perpetrator? We memorialize the heroes of the tragedy, but do we remember the best actions of the student who committed such perverse and tragic actions? We create college-network Facebook groups, espousing respect for the dead, yet, in these very same groups, students spit violent threats and hatred towards international students, towards Koreans, towards immigrants, and towards this particular victim of American greed culture who felt so trapped into isolation by his fellow students that he desired to send a message through violence.
Violence can never be justified, but it can be explained.
America needs an explanation, and you, the U.S. Media sources, ought to give it to them. Let you not recount that this was an isolated mental patient; let you not claim that it was entirely his fault. Yes, it is true that, in finality, his choice was his to make, but that a choice made in desperation, in isolation, is really no choice at all. Let you finally do an exposé on school culture so that we do not have to be treated to another media frenzy at the helm of a tragedy.
When is enough violence finally enough violence?
When is enough violence finally enough violence?
When are the “isolated loners” finally going to be realized as social creations, not as “psychotic individuals?”
When has the American public absorbed enough tragedy to once and for all demand a change? To demand an explanation for why violent tragedy continues to occur?
I am afraid, I will admit this. But let it be known that I am afraid for my safety because the American media refuses to pursue the real factors behind the copious violence in our nation. Let it be known that I am afraid for my safety, not because my classroom has no lock, but because guns are legally purchased fifty yards from my classroom. Let it be known that I am afraid for my safety, not because there aren’t strict regulations on who is allowed within the campus boundaries, but because the media has normalized violence.
We expect violence. Yes, there are tragedies. Yes, 33 people died. Yes, no one could possibly have predicted the events which unfolded in Blacksburg yesterday.
But why is this outbreak of violence so threatening to the American public? Is it the number of deaths? Hundreds of people die each week at the end of handguns, and yet there is no outcry. Is it the individual who pulled the trigger, some 85 times? Our soldiers fire more than 200 rounds per outing, and there is no outcry. Is it the identity of the people targeted? Is it the “unexpected” nature of the events?
Why should we expect violence? Why is there no public outcry for the terrible triple homicide which occurred in Littlestown, PA, last night? Why is there no outcry at the gang violence which occurs in my hometown of Durham, NC? Why does the American public care more about their students and professors than their working poor? Why does the American public speak out against violence when there is a school shooting, but not when a rural husband takes a rifle and shoots his wife six times and his three kids three times each and turns it on himself?
Violence begets violence, and the world is a violent place. What message does this culture send to our children? What message do we want to send our children?
Do we honestly want our children, our sons and daughters, to grow up accepting violence as the status quo? Do we honestly want our children thinking that the death of a migrant worker at the hands of a farm contractor is less valuable than the death of a prominent lawyer? Why has such value been placed on violence?
It is time for America to speak out against violence, all violence, once and for all. It is time for the media to perform real journalism, and pursue the underlying story. No longer will I accept my media corporations taking the easy way out and casting the violent stabbing and murder of a woman outside a known abortion clinic on a gang member, who cannot be helped. No longer will I accept that violent tragedy such as school shootings are conducted by outliers of society, and in their isolation their psychotic problems are the blame for their actions. It is time for the American public to cry out for an end to violence. It is time for the American media to give answers.
I am afraid. I am afraid that America will not seek to end the cycle of violence which we all allow to exist. I am afraid that the American media will forget this tragedy, cast it aside as a psychotic-driven murder which will never happen again. I am afraid because it has happened again. It happened in Columbine. It happened in at Virginia Tech. I am afraid because, if this culture does not change, it will happen again.
Let this be the last tragedy schoolchildren, your sons and daughters, the future of this country, ever have to face.
Enough is enough. Speak.

With great grief, terror, and peace,