I haven’t much to say about the Virginia Tech Massacre that hasn’t already been said in all the blogs I visit. Except that I’m fascinated that people seem to be so surprised that American society could produce such a cold-blooded killer. Not that all of us people of color who have been bullied in our youth, come from poor backgrounds, and in all other cases felt invisible go on regular shooting rampages on college campuses. I mean, we’ve already established that Cho Seung-Hui had serious psychological issues that went untreated his entire life, and nobody deserved to die on that campus Monday.
But when tragedies like this happen, we all act so surprised, as if we as a society have done everything we possibly could to prevent things like this from happening: we’ve helped the poor, we’ve given the mentally disabled proper treatment, we’ve welcomed immigrants with open arms, we’ve become tolerant of every race and religion…
I mean, given the current political climate in this country, we don’t realize how lucky we are that we’re not living in a warzone right now. No, we have such a luxury of ignoring the damage we’re doing to our neighbors, that when we see even a fraction of the violence that we’re inflicting on people half a world away, suddenly we’re so surprised that people could be so angry and disturbed. We are really not trying to wake up.
But I’m not here to make people hate me. The people in my links have covered the Virginia Tech Massacre far better than I could.
- The Fighting 44′s has a post on Cho Seung-Hui being diagnosed with autism and showing all the signs of a textbook killer.
- As always, Angry Asian Man is staying on top of all the ongoing coverage.
- Not surprisingly, Jin has already recorded a tribute song.
- O Dub at PopLicks considers the movie, Oldboy.
- Sepia Mutiny handles the sloppy mainstream media coverage.
