One of the many trees on the drillfield wrapped in remembrance.
One of the Hokie Birds wearing a maroon and orange ribbon.
I grew up in Blacksburg. My dad is a Va. Tech alum. Although i have not lived there for years I still consider Blacksburg my hometown. I am stunned by today's tragedy. Simply stunned. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mullerz/461838207/ Photo Courtesy of Melissa J. Muller
Permission: Melissa J. Muller http://www.flickr.com/photos/mullerz/461838207/
Monday, April 16, 2007 It was a crisp, clear, bright autumn day, the kind of day you drink in with every essence of your being. I was sleepy, woken early by my parents for the drive from Nashville to Blacksburg. But I was excited. Not only were we attending a Virginia Tech football game, I was going to see my brother, a student at VT and horn player in the marching band. The campus was quiet, beautiful, almost idyllic, and I was overwhelmed by my first views of college life. My brother attended Virginia Tech in the mid-80's and graduated with a degree in nuclear engineering. His devotion to his alma mater has continued, as an alumnus and frequently attending football games. It isn't surprising, the mood of the campus that day was intoxicating, and had I showed any inclination towards engineering, science or mathematics, I might have returned there for my own college education. Blacksburg itself was a village filled with charm and friendly people, hip hangouts and the best record store I had ever been in. I am grieving the shootings at Virginia Tech, the shots that rang out across the peaceful campus, killing many, wounding others, and deafening the ears of college students that today learned one of the hardest lessons life can teach. I mourn the deaths with the families, friends, and teachers, and wish them all peace in the days and months ahead. But mostly I mourn for the siblings who, unlike me, will never again have the joy of seeing their brother or sister on campus after a sleepy drive through the fog laden mountains to that small college town that has lost so much today. posted by melusina at 9:15 PM -- Original Source: http://litochoro.blogspot.com/2007/04/death-in-america-ode-to-siblings.html Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5.
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Virginia Tech tragedy continues to hit home
By Messenger Post and wire reports Posted: Apr 18, 01:00 PM EDT On a campus proud of its unity, the gunman's anger and detachment alarmed those around him. While parents of a 2004 Irondequoit High School graduate learned their son escaped harm in the Virginia Tech massacre Monday, another relative of a Virginia Tech student is mourning the death of her niece. Virginia Tech students and supporters lifted thousands of candles to a sapphire sky Tuesday to remember the 32 people killed by a campus gunman. The vigil testified to the unity on which the mountain campus prides itself. But in the hours after Cho Seung-Hui's rampage, it was obvious the close-knit school was a community of which he never felt a part. The gunman, who turned his gun on himself after carrying out the worst shooting massacre in modern U.S. history, was a sullen loner who left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic. Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings — pages filled with twisted, violence-drenched writing. In screenplays he wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall. In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them. Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Among those killed in the massacre at Virginia Tech was 19-year-old freshman Mary Read, who had multiple ties to the greater Rochester area. Read spent summers in the Finger Lakes region, visiting relatives who included her aunt, Mary Courtney. Courtney was interviewed Monday from her Palmyra home by NBC (channel 10), and a portion of that interview appeared this morning on NBC's "Today Show." Courtney expressed grief for the loss of her niece and the others killed in the shooting. In a "Today Show" profile of Mary Read and other victims, Ms. Read was noted as a student who liked to make cupcakes for her friends. Ms. Read was especially close to Courtney, whom she was named after. Ms. Read called her aunt "Queen Mary," while Courtney called her niece "Princess Mary." Meanwhile, an Irondequoit mother was on an unplanned road trip Tuesday to see her son, who is a junior at the university. "I really can't function unless I have a live sighting," Deborah Nicholas said of her son, Josh. "Nightmare, yes," she said of the events of this past Monday when a university student shot 33 at Virginia Tech, a large engineering university in Blacksburg, Va. When the incident happened, Deb Nicholas and her husband, Stephen Nicholas, were on a business trip and couldn't get a news channel on their car radio. They were getting regular reports, via cellular phone, from a nephew who lives in Detroit, but the connections kept breaking up. "It just got worse and worse," Deb Nicholas said. It was a while before they heard from Josh, a 2004 graduate of Irondequoit High School who is an engineering student at Virginia Tech. He told them he had been to one class and was on his way to hand in a paper for another of his classes when kids all around him started running, his mother said. "He said he picked up the pace and scooted into a nearby building," Deb Nicholas said. He has had classes in Norris Hall, the building where most of Monday's shootings took place. Deb Nicholas said her son was finally able to get on a bus that took him back to his apartment in a complex about a mile from the campus. Nicholas has a girlfriend, Genna, who is from elsewhere in Virginia. His mom said Genna has two sorority sisters who were wounded. She said she didn't know if Josh knew any of the victims. "If he (Josh) wants to come home, I will bring him home," she said by cell phone from the road. At least one other Irondequoit resident, Alice Hellyar, a 2006 graduate of Irondequoit High School, is also a current student at Virginia Tech. She was also reported safe but shaken after the shootings. With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town in a hurry, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks. On Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together. Volunteers passed out thousands of candles in paper cups, donated from around the country. Then, as the flames flickered, speakers urged them to find solace in one another. "We will move on from this. But it will take the strength of each other to do that," said Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs. "We want the world to know we are Virginia Tech, we will recover, we will survive with your prayers." -- Original Source: Rochester, NY - MPNnow http://www.mpnnow.com/news/view_story.php?articleId=8010 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
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Letter of Condolence from Metropolitan State University
April, 2007 Dear Virginia Tech community, Feeling that we truly are brothers and sisters to all of you, please know that our prayers are constantly with you as is our great sympathy. The very difficult time you are going through is hard for anyone to even imagine. Yet you are coping with a positive attitude and perseverance through it all that is an amazing example of strength to our nation and the world. Metropolitan State University here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota wants you to know that we are conducting various sessions through our Counseling and Career Services office to give our students, faculty and staff opportunity to share their individual responses and reactions to what has happened on your campus. So as you are similarly meeting together, remember that we, though many miles away, are really meeting with you. With our heartfelt condolences, The students, staff and faculty of Metropolitan State University
Its seems very unfair to be caught in something as sad as what happened April 16th. Its a sad world though it seems and most people are to caught up in their own lives to take notice. Think of all the accomplishments that will not be made to society because of these people being struck down in the prime of their lives. All the lost times and stories about these people as to who they were and who and what they may have become are lost now, but they would have filled millions of books and all that is gone, never to be told.
Monday, April 16, 2007 Thirty-one... now 32 killed at Virginia Tech. Initial "breaking news" headlines emailed and forwarded to my BlackBerry from the New York Times, then the Washington Post and finally the Sacramento Bee reported the number dead at 20 or 21. I received these reports while sitting in a classroom at Sacramento State University - peeking at the screen of my personal digital assistant, surreptitiously answering its silent vibrations. Now, more than two hours later, I finally have occasion to open my laptop to read the full story and it's worse than I imagined. It could have gone either way. Initial reports in instances such as this are often inaccurate. When news like this breaks, details are often sketchy; new and updated information is constantly becoming available. I was hoping that the initial reports were wrong - that the death count was too high. As we now know, it went the other way. There are many questions yet to be answered, but the resounding senselessness of it all couldn't possibly be more pronounced. Although I haven't yet reported on a tragedy of this magnitude, I have covered other breaking news and experienced the singleness of purpose that getting the information to print as quickly as possible represents. While in the midst of the event, whether it's a fire, an accident or a shooting, getting the information out is the reporter's only job. The gravity of the event, at least for me, doesn't come into play until after I've had a chance to decompress - after the deadlines have been met. While reporting, I simply don't have time to make any judgments about what it all means, only to report on what it is. In this instance, I am a news consumer like most everyone else hearing about this calamity today. I am shocked, disgusted, dismayed... and distracted. If I were assigned to this story, all of those emotions would have to be put on hold - it's all about getting the story out. Like nurses, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and many other professions where a level dispassionate decorum is essential, reporters must be able to disassociate themselves from their story or risk becoming part of it. There is no time to think. The irony of where I was when I received this terrible news is not lost on me. It could happen anywhere. It did happen anywhere - this time at Virginia Tech. No one is immune to this kind of idiotic violence and there is no defense. Sure the debate regarding gun control and a hundred other acts of second-guessing will shortly ensue, but at the end of the day, we can't shield ourselves from every nut-case in the great big world. Unfortunately, this sort of insanity will likely be repeated again somewhere, someday. And there will be reporters there to cover it. The moral? Perhaps there is none. Perhaps it's as simple as appreciating each day like it could be your last. For at least 31 at Virginia Tech, it was. Posted by Mr. Althouse at 1:04 PM -- Original Source: http://25yearplan.blogspot.com/2007/04/dispassionate-reporting.html Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
Thursday, April 19, 2007 Since releasing the excerpts from the package sent by Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui, NBC News has received more than just a little criticism. Indeed, this story is so big that every little nuance... anything remotely connected to the story is being put under a microscope and reported on ad nauseam. Ironically enough, the decision to air the material delivered to NBC News has become itself a news story. If not for the "gift" left by Cho, the media would be filling all of that airtime and every available inch with anything and everything it could discover about this "seriously disturbed individual." Cho saved the media a huge amount of legwork and opened insights about what drove him. Did he get what he wanted? Some are saying that by airing this "manifesto," Cho has ultimately won. But think about how ridiculous that sounds. Cho is dead - and he's not getting any better. Last I checked, to get any enjoyment or satisfaction from an act, one must be alive to experience it. Furthermore, even if Cho could somehow relish his media spotlight from the grave, he would soon realize that no one agrees that he was any kind of victim. He would be crestfallen in the discovery that he is being regarded - at best - as "a seriously disturbed young man." Mostly he's being viewed as some kind of homicidal whacko. For those with a religious leaning, I'm guessing that Cho's last act earned him a one-way ticket straight to Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Yet he is somehow enjoying the last laugh? I don't think so. Does this coverage intensify the pain of the community, the survivors and the victims' families? Undoubtedly, but surely they would understand that news of this magnitude must be reported. Even without Cho's help, there would be extensive coverage of Cho - a disproportionate amount. But even without considering the civic responsibility of the news business, let us remember that it is a business. If no one tuned into this stuff, no one would report it. People want to know, despite how much they say they don't. The numbers don't lie. Did NBC and others overdo it? Was there more coverage of Cho's package than "necessary?" That's a matter of opinion and judgment. But to say that NBC had a responsibility to quash this information is nonsense. They have a responsibility to report it. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. Posted by Mr. Althouse at 5:30 PM -- Original Source: http://25yearplan.blogspot.com/2007/04/news-worthiness.html Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5.
Shootings stun campus By: Michael Hippchen (11:50 a.m., April 16) While this morning's shootings on Virginia Tech's campus may have come to an end, with one shooter apparently have been captured, things are far from returning to normal on campus. Classes have been cancelled for the remainder of the day and students were told to remain in their dorms with the doors locked. I was walking to my class at 10:10 and I heard six shots fired from the Norris area, which was about 200 yards away. While standing in the middle of the Drillfield, I heard students screaming then running out of the academic buildings across the Drillfield, as well as cops running toward Norris Hall. During the evacuation, the campus was in full-blown riot mode. I did not feel safe at any time that I was out on the Drillfield, as well as when I was walking back to my dorm. My friend, Jordan Littauer, said he didn't know what was going on. "I was sitting in my Econ class, and a girl next to me got an Instant Message saying that cops questioned her roommate about a shooting that happened on her hall," said sophomore Jordan Littauer. "I didn't know shooting was going off at all. I heard students running and screaming all over campus." -- Original Source: Big Lick U - April 16, 2007
Chris Winston <Chris.Winston@biglicku.com>
Fun Facebook in Juxtaposition with Virginia Tech Tragedy
Friday, April 27, 2007 Early Monday morning Toronto, April 16; very nice day, it's spring at last - you can feel it in the air - maybe the oxygen levels are up a little - there's a craziness in the air, a frenetic kind of feeling... I punched the computer; threw on the radio; and began to create coffee. I prime my story-writing brain with National Public Radio; but soon the voices will be in the back of my head, and I'll be blogging down a pathway in search of a twig. The twig appeared on NPR, news at 10:00; a shooting at Virginia Tech, a lock-down, nothing more... I have been interested in the phenomena of the serial and mass murderers since the 1970's - when a peer of mine took a hunting rifle to school in a nearby town. In the early eighties Elliott Leytons excellent work, 'Hunting Humans' came out; and I gave it a read. I have followed the science of profiling with interest ever since. The most strange and distorted individuals, sometimes offer the most interesting reflections of a culture. The X-files, the 1990's TV series, starred David Duchovny as Fox Mulder, FBI profiler. The shows writers used up-to-date theory and research to punch up the script. One of my favorites. I knew right away this was my twig - I also knew this was going to be a lousy day. As a writer though, it would be a rewarding one. I knew a fast breaking story like this one could change the way news is consumed. In the San Francisco earthquake of 1989, CNN went live for at least 12 hours (I feel asleep), until the next morning. It was the first time a network had done this kind of news coverage. CNN's next big gig was the 1991 war with Iraq. Brought to you live; with the CNN correspondent sending video as American Bombs rained down around him; and anti-aircraft tracer fire lit the sky at mid-night.These two events took CNN from small player to a major in the news business. Now perhaps the Internet was about to experience a similar metamorphosis. My plan was to watch a national story unfold in real time on the Internet, and write about the experience. So I click on my FireFox icon, and Boolean search: Virginia + Tech + Blogs. I've found the 'Blog 'O' Sphere' is a good place to find citizen journalists close to the scene as a story is breaking - like Baghdad Blogger in 2003 and the Blogs out of Beirut, under Israeli siege in the summer of 2006. Interesting, No Bloggers, No MySpace... List, List, List. Common thread, come on. What's common other than VTech? Facebook! Everyone at Virginia Tech is on Facebook! So I joined. Apparently, so did a 'million' other people. I'm exploring its Web 2.0 possibilities now. Yin & Yang, Dam Yin & Yang. mh Posted by Michael Holloway at 4/27/2007 06:55:00 PM Original Source: http://filter--blog.blogspot.com/2007/04/fun-facebook-rises-out-of-tragedy-at.html Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.
April 18, 2007 [Update: I stand by my piece, which is mostly a bunch of questions, rather than statements linking race and culture in the explanative way it is being taken. I merely pointed out that as an American working deeply in the education field for years now, and having identified just such problems (and seen them connected in the Korean-language media for years), that perhaps questions about culture, as related to specific conditions that surround child-rearing, education, being educated overseas, the taboo of discussing mental health in Korean society, etc. might not have played some role here, on top of the fact that many Asian and Asian American males indeed might have specific ways of feeling alienated in "white society." Obviously, to even broach mere questions is deemed "racist" by many readers. Fine. I don't delete comments (unless they are abusive) and people have a right to come in and say what they want - that's why I blog, after all. Yet, before we start flinging around the "R-word" I hope people actually think about what I'm saying, and remember that what I said was that cultural context may be helpful as far as looking at context, but that "Korea" and the rest of the world should look at him as an individual. I spend half my post saying that, and the two need not contradict. And yes, when it comes to the fact that most serial killers have been/are still white men, it does astound me that America seems to have trouble talking about this obvious fact, and mums was the word when Columbine happened. Yet, broaching the topic is going to get one accused of saying their horrendous acts were committed "because they were white," which would again, be not what I said. But pundits of all kinds of backgrounds have license to talk about the concerns of "black youth" as it relates to drugs or violence for years. I don't call doing so "racist" although some strains of it certainly can be. For those who call such explanations as this "back-tracking," well, I guess you can call it what you like. I feel that despite the obvious difficulty anyone can have theorizing culture as a backdrop for what are undeniably individual actions, people are only reading one side of what I am actually saying, even after I have carefully delimited the extent to which "culture" can be expected to lead to culpability. I speak as an educator who watches (and inevitably participates in) the nearly inhumane grind of the education system here, the extreme testing regime these kids are expected to endure, the harsh penalties meted to those who can't, the sudden skyrocketing of youth suicide due directly to mental health problems linked to academic achievement, and myriad other pressures that quite often lead to education in the US as a goal for Korean kids. And even in the Korean American community, the culture of such processes, as well as the patterns of culture do not necessarily end with a green card or an American address. So, in that context, this does frighten me, and I think this incident, while extreme, does warrant reflection on some serious structural shifts in Korean education, the family, and other factors between which Korean kids get crunched in the middle. If you want to call such efforts or lines of thinking "racist", I can't stop you. Yet, I think it's significant, from this side of the water, to think about the fact that yes, he is not a white kid from Colorado, especially against the backdrop of what's been happening in Korean education in recent years, as well the socialization of males in Korea and Korean culture. And since mine is an identity partially shaped AS an Asian American man, as well as an African-American one, I have a more direct interest in asking these questions. And if you think I am saying I lay claim to all the answers, I want to make very clear again that I don't profess to have them, and I don't consider culture as responsible for his actions here. But to assume from the very beginning that "it doesn't matter," when I think it may be worth looking at, especially given the copycat nature of high-profile suicides in Korea over just the last couple of years, I would hate for there to be a similar effect over there. Call it "racist" if you will, but mental health professionals have been saying for years that there are cultural factors when it comes to mental health concerns, especially in communities in which such talk is considered taboo. I guess to raise such issues in this context, no matter how carefully prefaced or qualified, is taboo as well. So, are all Muslims terrorists? Clearly not. Are the vast majority of terrorists in recent years Muslim? Clearly, yes. I don't confuse the logic, yet it's easy to do. Yet, the mainstream media talks about the mindsets and motivations of many of the young men who get recruited up into horrible acts. To talk about "culture" as some generalized, essentialized force would indeed be "racist;" but to talk about the factors of poverty, religion, and the motivations for entering such groups isn't; they are reasonable questions. Do they dismiss the actions of individuals? No. People are all responsible for their actions. Just as we talk about the "culture of poverty" or in more recent years, have more elevated conversations about African-American culture and what often leads black male youth to join gangs, or commit crimes in ways that white males generally don't - I also don't consider that "racist." But is a black gangster responsible for his acts? Damn straight s/he is. I find it unusual that it can be legitimate for me, as a student back at Brown in the 1990's, as an active Asian American and "multiracial" on campus, to listen to job candidates for the Psych Services position talk about the "special mental health needs of Asian American youth" and for Asian American campus reps to sit there and nod approvingly while they talked about educational and familial pressures, relate those to Asian American notions of masculinity and femininity, and a lot of factors that I mention in this article as clearly relevant, but merely broach the subject now is completely out of bounds. Unlike the mainstream American media, or whichever talking heads are on TV right now in the States, I've been thinking about something like this happening for years now, in a Korean context; I've actually wondered when and if something like this might happen, and how this may play out. I come at this from someone who lives and works in South Korea who works with kids in high schools, college, and alternative schools daily. And as I look at this both as an Asian American and an American living in Asia, I don't think cultural pressures and patterns can be so easily discounted out of hand, as mere "racism", and suddenly unworthy as points at least worth thinking about. In the end, Cho wasn't just another white kid who committed yet another school shooting. But he also isn't the representative of Korea, nor his diasporic nationality, nor his supposed "race." He was a warped individual. I am simply saying that perhaps there are factors in his "warping" that may have had cultural aspects worth thinking about, especially for those of us concerned about the mental and spiritual health of both Asian and Asian American youth. And that's where I'll leave it. If you're looking for "answers," keep looking, and don't think you'll find them here, or blame be either for professing to have them, or not having them. I don't, and don't claim to. I lay out some things to think about below, but mostly ask a lot of questions that I think are worth asking. And I am somewhat surprised that even broaching the topic, no matter how tentatively or awkwardly, is somehow "racist."] This is sort of a followup piece to "The Walking Wounded" post that clearly is spurred on by the recent events at Virginia Tech, with the mass murder-suicide of Cho Seung-Hui, the worst in American history. As I try to formulate a response, I do so while trying to stay true to my own intellectual convictions, while trying to make sense out of something that is far more complex than any single person can make out. How will I interpret this? How can I? I can't profess to know the mind of the killer, nor work from information that I don't have. And the media speculation will go on and on, while the Korean media will work in "national shame" mode that is the necessary flip side of the extended "national pride" that is taken in anyone of Korean descent who does anything of note overseas. I'm of two minds about this, but I don't feel my impulses are in conflict. On the one hand, I feel like this incident makes it worth looking at some of the social factors that very well could have helped determine one man's actions; on the other, we have to remember that Cho was an individual, and that the faulty logic that "Korea" is the bearer of collective guilt over this incident is just as flawed as Korea taking full responsibility for a member of its "own" who had been socially cast aside, as was the case with Hines Ward. My posts on the issue: "Korean Folks Don't Like Black People" "Hines Ward - Lost in Translation" "Hines Ward - Nail On the Head" "On 'Korean Blood," Social Policy, and the Dangers of Race-Based Nationalism" "Where Do Koreans' Ideas About Race Come From?" "Hines Ward - What If?" "The Gates of the Minjok" í˜¼í˜ˆì¸ 내가 'ì›Œë“œì‹ ë“œë¡¬'ì— ì§œì¦ë‚˜ëŠ” ì´ìœ (in Korean) 한국 ì˜ì–´ì‚¬ì „ì€ ì¸ì¢…íŽ¸ê²¬ ì „ì‹œìž¥? (in Korean) More interesting to me than the details of all this and trying to figure use the blunt tool of structural arguments and social psychology to tease out the subtle and complex motivations of an obviously troubled individual, are the implications this will realistically have for Korea tomorrow morning, when this hits the Korean public when it gets up to read the paper or catch the news over coffee and the morning commute. This is a big moment - and I am thinking mainly along these two lines. There will be a lot of things worth thinking about, social problems worth looking at - but at the end of the day, Cho was an individual. And "Korea" can no more be held "responsible" for this horrible crimes than it could have been for Hines Ward winning the Super Bowl. On the issue of someone like Hwang Woo Suk, the folly of setting him up as a hero and the irony of his inevitable fall was much more of a marker of the society in which he lived, because his status as a public figure depended on the collective mind and will of the public. He was not a true individual, but rather a figure created according to the needs of a government, media, and public who created him. The shooter in Virginia was a Korean (the extent of his ties here having yet to be determined, regardless of when he apparently gained residency there), but he was also - and importantly - an individual. That is something that will be hard, but necessary, to remember over the days and weeks to come. Cho Seung-hui will live in the national identity of Koreans forever. He is the anti-thesis of all the national "heroes" whom Korea imprudently lauds as extensions of the national character (again, Hwang Woo Suk), as somehow expressions of the positive character traits imbedded into the genetic material of Koreans itself. Now, after this horrible affair, perhaps the faulty logic of those connections will be apparent. I wonder if the move will be away from that logic itself, or an ongoing circus show of national shame. I do hope that the logic of not performing the latter will be apparent. Strategically, the best thing to do would be for the South Korean government to express its remorse and regrets, make meaningful yet symbolic gestures expressing those sentiments, and move on. If an American did this while studying in another country, I would expect the same from my government. "That crazy dude has nothing to do with me." But that's not the way this is going to go down, is it? At least at first. There is going to be serious national shame, expressed through the shock of this "representative of the culture" - even if the kid had been living in the States most of his life. There will be Korean media pointing at the parents, expressions of shock that "a Korean could do such a thing" (despite the fact that violence in the schools and against women are actually rampant in Korean society), and the glee that many people here in South Korea have at pointing out "American" character traits whenever horrible things happen in the US will be inevitably tempered. Because the flip side of the logic now applies, like a mofo. Let me just say that I don't know the details right now, besides the basics of the shooter having been identified. Nor does anyone else at the present time, really. I'm writing, getting a million Messenger messages a minute, and don't have time to closely scan the papers as I write this, not that there's a lot of information, anyway. In a way, I don't want to, as I want to write what I write clean, before the details make the issues temporarily more obfuscated, as they surely will. But in the end, will we ever know why Cho did this? Like the Columbine shooters, we'll speculate forever. Even when if and when we realized a concrete motive, how does one truly know when or how an emotionally fathomable rage becomes a horrible, inexplicable madness? So I'll go with what I got, which is a lot of opinions about South Korean society, education, and social problems involving youth, education, and women in this society. I will say right now that I am extrapolating far too much from this incident from the git-go, but I think my lines of argument will tend to make more sense than the Chosun Ilbo or Hangreoreh will, or most "explanations" of this horrible incident. In a nation that wants to crack down on the rash of gang rapes and ongoing sexual violence committed against girls and women by launching a campaign against foreign porn sites as the main solution and logical conclusion, what, oh what, sense will the media make of Cho Seung-hui? Let me just start by saying that I see a lot of social factors converging that might offer a social context - not an explanation - to this situation. It's also an excuse to talk about some social issues in Korea (since this is, after all, what this blog is about) and do some more productive hand-wringing than I think the mainstream Korean media will. I wouldn't even be surprised if this is used as more ammo to show just how much America can "corrupt" good Korean youth. Just like Western porn is responsible for Korean boys (and girls!) conspiring to rape and sexually extort the victims that have made the news in a couple of pretty scandalous cases over the last few months. And since my posts can tend to go on quite a bit, let me just list these topics, in no particular order: This isn't new (HT to reader). Several years ago, I was with a group of university administrators being given a tour by the US State Department, hosted by Fulbright Korea, and being given a tour by a respected mentor of mine when several of the administrators stopped to ask a question that seemed to be burning at them for some time. "Why is it that Korean male students seem to have the most trouble adjusting to life in the US?" Kind of surprised, but yet not, I and my mentor pressed further, and they explained that the students who had the most disciplinary problems of all their international students were Korean males. These representatives of large state universities all then cited incident after incident of Korean males threatening Korean students seen walking with a foreign man (a graduate student walking with her black professor - she received dozens of insults and death threats on her answering machine), physical conflicts with other graduate students over simple matters, and a some domestic violence in cases of Korean couples living on campus. In that conversation, what came out is that many Korean men felt displaced and disempowered as males who lived in a society that catered to them, while in the US, those forms of automatic power and status - being male, rich, or having come from Seoul National University - mean nothing. And at the same time, Korean women experience a social liberalization compared to where they would often be in Korea; many Korean female friends and colleagues of mine who studied in the US cited how they felt constricted and uncomfortable (부담) when a Korean male would end up in a seminar with them, because often, the man would expect them to acknowledge or "respect" (ì¸ì •) them. When they didn't receive it, and often were dressed down by people younger than them or female, or by the professor in front of the class, they often felt particularly frustrated. And that has been a big issue and has led to social conflict and trouble before. And that is just about all I'll say on that. Then there's the interesting fact that the record holder for the worst shooting in world history, Woo Bom-gon (우범근), is also Korean, this time a Korean national who lived in Korea. That's not in the least bit interesting? From about the only other site on the Internet I could find on this subject (there is exactly one I could find through Korean search engines, and that's a pretty weird site): South Korean spree killer. Has argument with girlfriend. Being a police officer, Woo Bum-Kon robs the police armory and goes on a drunken 8 hour shooting spree through three villages, leaving 57 dead and 35 wounded before he suicides with two grenades in Uiryong. The Korean interior minister resigns. (28 Apr 1982.) Sound familiar? So the top two spots for shooting sprees in history are now held by two Korean men. Hey - I just find this interesting. Is this information not somewhat relevant to the issue at hand? Don't know why the Korean media isn't picking up on this. Or maybe it will? This is another interesting fact to throw in with the others. Even The New York Times had a piece on it back in 1982. Well before this incident, and with the high number of suicides and actually pretty gruesome serial murders that take place in this country without guns - and I've heard Koreans joking about this as well - people wonder what Korea would be like if guns were legal and freely available here. Given the recent spate of violence and suicide in the schools here, I also give a shudder. Suicide is rampant in South Korean society. It's the #1 cause of death in people in their 20's and 30's in Korea. And since I consider these incidents of mass murder as actually horribly violent forms of suicide - "take a few with you" - I think it's something worth thinking about. I've blogged about this extensively, especially as it's related to the education system. How do you add up the affects of parental, societal, and other kinds of pressure on Korean youth, the extent of which few American kids I know even come close to feeling? I've already said enough about this that doesn't need to be rehashed here; it's better to just read them directly. "The Walking Wounded" "On Suicide in Korea" "On the Korean Obsession With Educational Success" "Podcast #27 - The Korean Education System" "EPIK as Case Study: Why Korean-Style Management Sucks" "Attack of the Clones" "The Phantom Menace" Violence against women is endemic in Korean society. What would be called stalking or considered inappropriate is often standard practice here in terms of dating, sex, and marriage. I often cite the case of when I saw a man slap his apparent girlfriend as hard as he could, sending her head back with visible shock. In front of a police station in Chungmuro, where, as a photographer, I had made my haunt. I immediately walked over, shooting away with my motor drive, saying that "you can't do that" and that I witnessed it. He looked annoyed and ignored me, at which point I walked to the police station about 20 meters away and informed the older officer on duty of what I had seen, in fluent Korean. He seemed annoyed, but obliged to get up out of his chair, and he went over to the door, cracked it, observed the couple still fighting, and said, "It's OK. They know each other." After I asked him if "this is all cops do in Korea" and "shouldn't he go check?" he just told me to go home. He never even asked if she was in trouble. That's a lot better than the incident, circa 2004(?), when a group of boys from some small town outside of the capital were convicted of serially raping 2 high school students (they had been in middle school at the time, if my memory serves) after one boy had had consensual sex with one of the girls but had videotaped it and used it as a weapon to make her sleep with other boys - up to 30 or 40, I recall - and also impress her friend into similar sexual service. When this was discovered, the girls were berated by police as having run a prostitution ring, and were called sluts and whores, while the parents of many of the boys as well as members of the community gave death threats to the girls' mothers for "ruining their sons' lives." And such stories keep popping up again and again here, while the tendency is to not punish the men at all, if possible. I personally attended a small protest around a large police station in relation to this issue, which many Seoul residents and the more enlightened did, to their credit, find reprehensible. But the level of violence against women here, as many Fulbrighters have heard as they lived with Korean host families all across the country, in apartment complexes where you regularly hear women being viciously beaten and screaming at night - no one calls the cops, except for me, it seems - and the many times I've seen women just straight slapped around in public...the level of violence against women that is readily apparent if you live here is undeniable. I can't speak for all foreigners here, but this is something I hear again and again and again. And yes, there is sexual and domestic violence everywhere in the world, but this is a place where I can't even count on two hands the number of times I've seen a women slapped down in public. And no one does anything. How much is a woman's body really worth here? Other factors? In the end, we just can't know. So it's not even clear how much time Cho spent in the US, although it appears he has spent a considerable amount. The information is changing by the hour. How does one sum up one's connection to culture(s)? But I do think it is worth at least mentioning the factors that often affect Korean men living as foreign students in the US, the pressures that come from living in one of the least happiest developed societies in the world, where I argue that the mental violence of the repressively harsh developmental dictatorship has finally started to find expression, even as the pressure cooker that is the failed Korean education system sends more and more Korean students overseas at an earlier age, to experience more stress and even higher parental expectations. What can we make of this? Well, it just strikes me that the motive for a male Korean student to commit this heinous act apparently includes being feelings of revenge against his girlfriend and was precipitated by a fight with her. Beyond that, one can't really speculate. One can only talk about factors that might illuminate. But speculate and make specious extrapolations the Korean media will, and I assure you, dear readers, that they won't stop at mere speculation around social factors, but there will be a slew of culturally essentialist assumptions that lead to really suspect "conclusions" as to what the "real problem" was. It will get more complex if he turns out to have lived most of his life in the US. Then, the onus of cultural responsibility can and will be shifted to "America." If his ties to Korea are stronger, then perhaps his parents will be blamed for his actions. They will be anyway. Although it is not a nice thing to foresee, I wouldn't be surprised if other suicides out of shame come from this, especially if "national blame" gets shifted to the individual, and by extension, the parents. In Sum But sometimes, we just can't "know." The pathology of the individual isn't something nations should be responsible for, because this isn't a logical or fair thing to do. If I go out right now and kill all of my officemates and then blow up a building, much will be made of my political leanings, little "signs" from the scribblings on my blog here, and most likely the anger I had after Katrina and talking about the song "Bin Laden Didn't Blow Up the Projects." But maybe it was me. Me who was crazy, me who wanted to take out my anger in a horrible way. Is my nation responsible? Is Bush? Are my parents? Was it because I played Sniper Elite on my Xbox, or Halo 2? When the process of going over Cho's life with a fine-toothed media freakout ends, I'm sure we'll see a lot of such explanations. But in the end, I don't think we can ever know. How does one know the face of madness like this? If we could, wouldn't it be easy to spot and prevent? However, this incident leaves a lot to think about. Not the least of which is the fact that the linking of "national pride" is just about as useless as the linking of "national shame", but the cultural logic of this is far from out of favor. Perhaps if one positive thing comes out of this, it will be a national discussion of a lot of these issues, and if we're lucky, people will be even asking the question, "Does 'Korea' even really need to feel responsible for this?" One might even see an angry rejection of this "national shame" - which in some ways, I think would be healthy; psychologically, it may be useful and hence, inevitable. In the end, this will be the beginning point for a lot of different discourses around culture, race, and nation. People can and should now talk about all the things that very well may have gone into influencing one Korean man's way of expressing his anger, however inappropriate that may have been. There are cultural patterns to things that are caused by clear and present structural influences, customary and culturally-informed modes of interaction, and a great number of things. But that doesn't mean "Korea" is responsible. Thinking about both factors will involve walking a subtle line that will be very, very easy to cross. I just hope the conversation can be more elevated than some of the things I can imagine being said about this incident, this one troubled man, and the culture of which he was, to some extent, a part. A few more thoughts... And on the American front, things are still swirling. How will race, gender, and sex play into this, as well as the stereotypes of Asian Americans in general and Korean Americans specifically? One thing that occurred to me was that I'm sure Arab Americans are breathing a sigh of relief that the shooter was not of Arab descent or Muslim. That's the last thing the Arab community needs in the States. I'm sure most people were expected the shooter to be a white male, as almost all mass murderers in recent years have been. What is interesting is the fact that the mainstream American media has never made much of the fact that serial killers are almost exclusively middle-class, white men. The FBI and criminal psychologists have this as a base assumption; interesting that in the public mind, this is not even a question. Imagine if nearly all serial killers were Korean; or Arab; or black; or female. Then, it would mean something, right? The gun control lobby will have a field day with this, while the NRA will likely emphasize (thanks, Jacco, for changing my mind about this) the kid's immigrant status and the fact that it wasn't the gun who killed those people, but an immigrant on a visa. Yes, people kill people, and it's not just the guns; but is sure is easier with a Glock 9mm with a low trigger weight that pops off bullets as fast as your index finger can flex. And back in Korea, I really hope that after the nation has gone through the expected paroxysms of guilt and shame, that some South Koreans will tire of it and say, "OK, enough. Why do I have to feel bad about some crazy kid who cracked? It's not my problem." And I think I'd feel the same way; I'd have to agree. From there, if that happens, the real interesting questions and debates can begin. More than anything, I hope that this might be what it takes to partially break the foundations of national identity into smaller and more interesting parts, ones that can be digested by a logic other than the dichotomy of "pride and shame" and into something more complex. An even more unlikely hope will be for the Korean media and by extension, a large part of the populace, to move past the crude and problematic stereotyping and categorical thinking that defines a lot of the discourse around foreign others, and even Koreans themselves. Perhaps now, the logic that because the murderer who dumped a girl's body in Ansan Station turned out to be Chinese means that "Chinese are dangerous" will now become suspect. Or that "Arabs are dangerous and terrorists" if the shooter in this case had been Arab, or that "America is dangerous" because of this incident, when it's much more likely that you'll be killed in a car accident than shot by a Crip in a driveby or even a crazed killer in a school. Because by extension, that would mean that "Koreans are dangerous killers" who should be avoided, or "are all about to snap." I doubt Koreans would accept that, as well they shouldn't. I just hope that this can translate into the realization that the logic is equally flawed the other way around. Posted by Michael Hurt on April 18, 2007 -- Archived with permission of author. Original Source: Scribblings of the Metropolitician http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/04/the_politics_of.html
April 19, 2007 UPDATE: Thanks for the various thoughtful comments, thoughtful commenters - I'm sure you know who you are. First off, I do acknowledge that I was a little snarky and "aha!" in the initial reaction to things, and I agree that it just puts people in a bad mood. But, I could have easily erased what I said, and not because I think it was wrong to have the thought, but because it distracted so much from the majority of the stuff I was really trying to say. Yet, I would somehow feel it dishonest to do so, and the reason I write is to organize my thoughts and logic for people to see; I just wish people in general, and not just over the past few days, could read this blog as one man's thoughts in motion, as opposed my final thoughts on matters. I have strong opinions, but those thoughts wend and weave according to other good opinions. That said, I also know I write a lot. Loooong posts. Opinionated posts. Wordy posts. And that's off-putting as well. I know that, but it would take me forever to get this stuff out if I had to condense it down, distill it, make it simpler. And since the vast majority of blogs out there write in short form, I don't feel like I'm adding to a trend in need of reversal - on the contrary, I wish there were more thoughtful people who tried to think carefully, put in the time to express their opinions fully, and really engage with difficult subjects. So I think that perhaps the blogosphere is better off with a few wordy fools who try to think aloud and in the sense of intellectual full-contact sports. As for race, I think the media is talking about it pretty minimally, as I assumed they would. And looking at this from primarily an American perspective. I'm inevitably looking at this from a Korean perspective, because it is here in Korea that I sit, live, and work. It's here that I have worked with a lot of kids who look just like Cho in background, culture, and personality. I thought that I'd be one of the few people talking not about there necessarily having to be some "cultural angle" on this, but that there should be room and though given to the possibility. If anything, the problem isn't that the American media is focusing on his race, because it really isn't, and even if it did, I don't think it's bad to talk about possible cultural specifics, if done appropriately. However, the real problem is that the American media should have been talking about: - why is it that only males are serial killers and mass murderers? - why are they mostly white? - when they aren't, what's the reason? Instead of shutting down a conversation about the profiles of these kind of people, we should be opening it up. Were there some factors about extreme Christianity that led to this? Does this have nothing to do with the fact that some of the most outspoken and extreme Christian groups among American youth are of Korean descent? Is this question "wrong?" I don't think so, if we are also asking, "Why are serial killers almost exclusively white?" There is a serious racial undertone to ALL such murders, in that the perpetrators are almost always white, as well as the overwhelming presence of gender, in that they are always male? This is as obvious as the hand in front of my face, yet when I was asking these same questions in Columbine, no one wanted to go there. And nobody did. Instead, we look at Marilyn Manson, video games, and other things that were obviously not determining factors, since I'd engaged in all above activities, but don't go around killing people. I loved me some NWA, and they were actually TALKING ABOUT going and killing white people. Yet, I didn't "go get my AK." I guess it WAS a good day. I'm saying that this whole brouhaha stems from the fact that Americans still have amazing difficulty talking about culture and race, in what is supposed to be the most diverse and multicultural society in the world, where anyone can be a citizen. We're getting better at it, but we're still not good at it. So now, we're told to believe, before anyone even knows anything, that Cho's particular pathology could have had nothing to do with any cultural malaise, or that some of the roots of his alienation may not have had to do with being Asian. I'm not saying there necessarily are, but to meet such a question with "this question is irrelevant. culture has nothing to do with this. conversation over" is equally un-productive. And as for people saying that my ideas can be "co-opted" for the "other side," I just say that this is thinly-vieled intellectual cowardice talking, because I'm not a hillbilly in a pickup truck talking about shooting the next Asian I see because he took daddy's factory job away. If you think that's what I'm saying, or you confuse what I'm saying with that, you're more paranoid than you think you are. People should be talking more about aspects of masculinity here, because all these killers are MEN. What's up with that? People should be talking more about whiteness because the vast majority of these people are WHITE. And when they so shockingly and brutally aren't, we might ask the question "what traits did he share with the Columbine boys?" (which the media is already asking), but we also might look at "what traits might have been different that also got him to the same place of being able to commit mass murder like this?" And if we're going to be comparing to Columbine, while never even really having an intelligent about the fact that the politics of whiteness as an identity, masculinity, and feeling of extreme alienation seem to lead to something, if we can agree to talk about all these things with the Columbine boys - IF - then in Cho's case, we'd have to also talk about the one thing he did NOT share with them and the MAJORITY of the rank of the killers he has so infamously joined, that being his Asianness, Koreanness, or whatever - in any case, his non-whiteness. That makes the case of the DC snipers ALL the more interesting, all the MORE remarkable. If you were a criminal profiler for the FBI, or a clinial psychologist, or an administrator in charge of schools, I hope these people would find such questions interesting. If someone held an academic conference about it, I'd hope they'd attend, rather than close one's ears and boycott it. But that seems like what most people want to do. I don't fear some imagined backlash against Asian men; sure, there may be a few idiots out there who do something, but overall, it's probably for any particular Asian male right now to die in a car accident, or of lung cancer. So buckle up and stop smoking - I don't think anyone has to hide in their houses. But the disappointing reaction is, "Stop talking about race! He was just some crazy fucker!" No, he wasn't. No, all the killers weren't. There are clear patterns here. Start with the fact of maleness and extreme alienation, along with feelings of victimhood and desire for martyrdom. Then work your way down to identifying any overarching cultural patterns in white or Asian (Korean) socialization patterns, similarities in self-identification, all that stuff. I'm not a psychologist. But if I were, I'd be licking my lips over this stuff. Has there been no one who's written a doctoral thesis about "The Role of White Identity, Disaffectation, and Constructions of Masculinity in Serial Murderers"? Maybe that's a wack topic, and it's not my field. But seriously - has no one done research on this? Come on? Is this really such a taboo topic, even to a research psychologist? Anyway, mums the word. All the serial killers were just crazy fuckers. Let's just leave it at that and act all surprised AGAIN when this happens AGAIN, which it will. And for all those imagined white guys who are cutting out eyeholes in sheets to go get that Asian male grad student who took that last fluffy donut from the tray in the cafeteria (those BASTARDS! they're really taking everything!), don't worry: The next mass murderer, statistically and historically speaking, will probably be a white guy, anyway. So what's everyone worried about? At least the imagined heat will be off Asians, right? Whew! -------------- ORIGINAL POST -------------- Over the last 24 hours, it's been suggested that even broaching the issue of possible cultural issues when looking at the case of Cho warrants being labeled "racist." Salon.com has linked to a previous post from this site that relays the story that several university administrators in Korea with whom I spoke when Fulbright Korea hosted a tour here expressed concern about the fact that they saw a pattern of Korean students studying in the US having trouble adjusting, and that those students were almost exclusively male. This was several years ago. Or read this: Although Asian Americans were at relatively lower risk of homicide in the 1970s and 1980s, they have experienced increasingly higher risk since the 1990s. From 1970 to 1993, the homicide rate for Asian Americans in California increased 170%.13 Asian immigrants are also at significantly higher risk of homicide than Asians that were born in the United States. The growing trend of homicide among Asian American communities coupled with the increase of Asian American youth violence thus poses an urgent issue of concern for Asian Americans. Whence these racist, cultural arguments? Another, from the same source: Despite the model minority myth that Asian Americans as a whole are economically and academically successful, delinquency among Asian American youth has actually been on the rise in recent years. In the past 20 years, the number of API youth involved in the juvenile justice system has increased dramatically, while national arrest trends for Black and White youth have decreased. Arrest rates for Southeast Asian youth (Vietnamese, Cambodia , Laotian), are the highest within the overall API population. Studies have shown that peer delinquency is the strongest predictor of adolescent delinquency. Other suggested risk factors for adolescent delinquency among Asian Americans include personal experiences of victimization, acculturative conflict, family conflict, and individualist versus collectivist orientation. More racists? Or how about a report on "Violence Affecting Asian-American and Pacific Islander Communities", compiled by Masters candidates at the Michigan School of Public Health? But wait? For me to pose questions that perhaps young Cho Seung-hui could have had "personal experiences of victimization, acculturative conflict, family conflict, and individualist versus collectivist orientation" that maybe, maybe could have played a role in his pathology... How did I become "racist? for asking the same questions? Here's what I wrote in the original post, which was fired off in the heat of the moment, upon the initial revelation that the shooter was of Korean descent: A group of American university administrators whom Fulbright hosted nearly 10 years ago, when being a tour of Korean universities, asked the staff, "Why is it that out of all our international students, Korean males have so much trouble?" To my surprise, all of the university officials cited incident after incident of Korean male graduate students who seemed to have trouble adjusting, often got into fights with other students in the living spaces, and were often the source of trouble in dealing with romantic relationships gone bad or women in general, especially when they involved Korean females dating non-Koreans. In the longer post, I continued asking questions that were pretty basic and acceptable before two days ago, pointing out that many Asian and Asian American males often face cultural pressures particular to the Asian cultures that they come from, as well as socialization as an Asian male in the greater American context as well. How dare I say such a thing? Funny how the raison d'être for community organizations such as the Koreatown Youth & Community Center (KYCC) can talk about: ...programs and services...specifically directed towards recently-immigrated, economically-disadvantaged youth and their families who experience coping and adjustment difficulties due to language and cultural barriers. Yet when someone points out that perhaps some of Cho's pathology had to do with being an Asian male, subject to possible culturally-determined pressures as well as that of being subject to socialization/discrimination as an Asian male - all of which where conversations going on within the Asian American community until just two days ago - this is now out of bounds? So asking the question before this incident was OK. Asking it after Cho's bloody rampage is now grounds for arguing that one supports an ideology of racial superiority. That's especially funny since my mother is Korean and I have younger Korean cousins in college now who've been through the educational meat grinder here, and I have been involved in just such community organizations as the ones mentioned above when I lived in the Bay Area. And the other sad thing about the sudden "off-limits" status of this issue is the disappointing fact that Americans of all "colors" still have such difficulty talking about the overlapping boundaries of race, nation, and culture. Pointing out before this incident that Asian/Asian American males had specific identificational and cultural concerns, especially when one is talking about 1.5 generation Korean Americans (which is how Cho is generally being referred to now) was OK and actively encouraged in multicultural settings, especially since this was expected of anyone who wanted to convey one's real cultural sensitivity as an professor, teacher, counselor, social worker, or psychologist working with a variety of people from diverse backgrounds. I have worked with and am familiar with a few community-based organizations when I was back in Oakland, and had many Korean American friends who work in orgs related to specifically "meeting the needs" of Asian American youth, dealing with the issue of domestic violence in the Korean American community, and was familiar with several other non-profit orgs that dealt specifically with problems of reducing participation in gang activity among Southeast Asian youth, issues specific to that community, organizations based in Chinatown, as well as other places around the East Bay. I have friends who've worked deeply within many organizations that held the assumption that "culture matters" and that Asian/Asian American youth had specific needs that should be recognized in the larger community. I know people who stayed up long nights applying for city, state, and federal grants to operate such projects, programs, and organizations that took the relevance of disaporic culture and its effect in Asian kids in the US as a central assumption of their reason to exist. Now, after this incident, culture not only doesn't matter, even broaching the topic is grounds for being labeled a "racist," even when one is working well within a set of affective connections to a community for which such issues have been stated concerns for years - nay, decades - before Cho Seung-hui walked into a Virginia Tech classroom and started his rampage of death. Yes, of course he was an individual, and he is fully responsible for his actions. But Korean culture now stops at the airport? Or with a green card? That's certainly news to me. I guess I didn't get the memo. And I guess I should also be expecting my KKK membership card in the mail any day now. Thanks, Salon, for declaring such talk as mere "instant prejudice." Funny thing is that I, as well as the university administrators mentioned in my initial reaction, Asian American community organizers, and a whole lot of other people were thinking in these terms for years before this. Now, some would have us go in the opposite direction: As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people. The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage. I feel that point of view, but much of the popular reaction has been to link mentioning culture or nationality with "racism" itself. And the many Asian and Asian American commenters who've written in, saying that my apparent status as "white" or a "neocon" or a "loser who can't get women at home" or far worse names. Yep. There I am. That's why I live in Korea, why I learned Korean, why I write these incessantly long posts, and why I conduct my research. But when I pull out my Korean-mom-racial-membership card, does that mean I'm a self-hating Korean American? Do I only hate half of myself? Or maybe my Korean "half" hates my black "half" and we are in eternal conflict. I think I have to go beat myself up now. It's interesting that the mode of even calling me "racist" relies on racist slurs and categorical assumptions. My point is that I shouldn't have to pull out the "my mom's Korean" as a magical shield in order to say what wasn't unreasonable to say until before this incident. I should have to play identity politics as a qualification to talk about identity at all. That's one of the thing that makes this whole thing get more and more ridiculous. Does anyone forget that the film Better Luck Tomorrow, which touched on Asian American identity, socialization, alienation, violence, and other facets of Asian American culture - especially from the perspective of Asian American masculinity? So after the fictional violence witnessed in the narrative, we can talk about such issues - which is what I assumed the filmmakers wanted when it went mainstream and didn't merely screen in art house theaters? But after a real incident that could be seen to touch on similar issues, now that real people are dead and dying, broaching the subject gets you lumped in with the Klan. I better remember to tell my mom that I hate Koreans now. That should be a fun conversation. And just as I said, here are some of the conversations people are having now in Korea, from a look at the Korean press. From The Korea Times (which has masked its URL, so no link is possible: "I couldn't believe that someone like me was really involved in this brutal murder," a netizen (ID hahaha) said. Other people showed the same response as they said they have begun to feel more responsibility for the case when they found out that a Korean was involved. Others said that the case looked similar to some cases happening in the Korean military where young soldiers try to desert from their barracks out of love or relationship issues. I'm not saying that they're right or wrong. But these are questions people are asking. Are Koreans "racist" for asking these questions, which a lot of us are thinking about as well? There are also questions raised over studying abroad at a very young age _ quite the fashion in Korea at the moment. As domestic media in the U.S. referred to Cho as a "loner," people are now questioning whether sending their kids abroad for study would be good. There were constant reports of children feeling lonely and causing problems with drinking, doing drugs or having sex problems, but the massacre has triggered the debate on whether such studying is really needed. Cho flew to America when he was a little kid, and is said to have not made himself accustomed to the different culture. ``I think his being alone made him a loner, and made him do something horrible. And would you still say that won't happen to your child?'' a blogger grandchyren asked. From The Korea Herald, as I grimly predicted, and as is all too often the case when extreme shame from one's relatives or persons within one's realm of concerns brings shame to your or your organization, both his parents attempted to take their own lives, the father apparently "successfully": Los Angeles-based Radio Korea reported Wednesday morning that Cho's parents attempted suicide, according to neighbors. Cho's father reportedly slashed his wrist after having learned of his son's alleged killings at around 1 p.m. Tuesday, Seoul time. Cho's mother attempted to commit suicide by taking toxic drug, Radio Korea said. She was quickly transported to a nearby hospital, but is listed in critical condition according to the report. No, culture isn't a factor at all here, and it should most certainly not be talked about, right? No one was surprised a couple years ago when a scandal ensued in a high school over a student who had been physically abused, which, upon reaching nationwide proportions, the principal took a leap off into the Han River. No one in Korea was really shocked by this, although the incident is unfortunate. I'm not talking about ancient, fetishized elements of a Hollywood movie about samurai over a swelling soundtrack - I'm talking about real people. And I guess me having expressed the concern that his parents would immediately attempt suicide in a similar way was just me being "insensitive," rather than observing that such a thing is not only not unusual in a situation like this in a Korean context, it's not at all surprising, however unfortunate. And in my head, when the leading cause of death for Korean teens and twenties in South Korea is suicide, most often caused by culturally specific forms of stress, isolation, and social factors that are not factors in different cultures, and I see a Korean kid - and again, I am of the old-school Asian American assumption that culture doesn't stop with a green card, but I guess I'm old-fashioned and "racist" in the post-Cho Seung-hui era - who struck me as possibly influenced by similar concerns...why is it suddenly inappropriate to raise the notion of culture? Just because it makes us uncomfortable now that it's real, raw, and in the nation's face, as opposed to the more hidden back rooms of our ethnic communities? This is not saying that there were no factors related to Cho being American. Surely, obviously, naturally - there were. He wasn't an exchange student who got off a place last September. He lived and socialized and breathed and experienced life in America. And yet, even without getting into the fact that Korean culture doesn't stop at the airport terminal when a kid is 8, and that he's generally considered by even Korean-Americans as a "1.5er," let's not forget that he was Asian American; in other words, he was not white, and most likely did not see himself (and I'm going out on a limb here, as many of the people who adamantly insist that Cho was and could have been "American") as "just another kid." A similar attitude of non-reality surrounds the fact that no one asks the question of what aspects, if any, of whiteness or white identity itself informs the fact that in most such incidents, the perpetrators are white, middle class males? A few people poked at the question after Columbine, but most people chose to toss that hot potato. I'm not saying being white cause you to kill people. I am saying that it should be OK for us to ask certain questions about what peculiar concerns there just might be in terms of socializing, identifying, and being labeled as "white" and male in American society, especially in the midst of America's "culture wars," major shifts in norms and role expectations with regard to not just race, but class, gender, sexual orientation, and perceived amounts of privilege? These are some questions that people in Whiteness Studies ask, which is a new and necessary branch of inquiry partially related to Ethnic Studies. It recognizes that "people of color" do not just exist a blank backdrop of nothingness, but that "whites" are "raced" just as much as "Blacks" or "Asian Americans" or "Latinos" or any other recognized (and socially constructed) racial group in the United States. Yet still, some people think Whiteness Studies must necessarily be a group of people trying to assert "white rights" or be secret Klan members. Yet, when a dated-but-smart film such as John Singleton's Higher Learning deals with the journey of a white kid who feels alienated, ostracized, and actively victimized as a white man, who then goes to a high perch with a high-powered rifle to start a killing spree, it's lauded and applauded. Until some white kid(s) actually commits such an act in question, at which point asking certain questions is out-of bounds again. Generally, as a doctoral student and young scholar in Ethnic Studies, I've noticed the tendency to confuse talking about race with being racist. This is frustrating to no end. And in the case of Cho, it really wasn't about race, but more about nationality and culture, and asking the question of the extent to which Cho's obvious inner pain and turmoil just may have been culturally specific and valenced. But again, if the shooter had been an "Arab terrorist" I think the cultural argument would help us humanize him - who was he? How did he get caught up in this? What were some personal frustrations as a poor, Palestinian (for example) boy with few future prospects that might have made him an easy recruit? Is this line of questioning "racist?" Then I guess, so is it all, including the Harvard School of Public Health, where a conference convened around a very similar issue in 2004: Faculty, students, and fellows interested in disparities in health care due to ethnic and racial differences convened at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Friday (May 7) for a symposium seeking to translate research into practice. Topics discussed at the all-day event, the Second Annual Symposium on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Research in the U.S., included Latino and Asian mental health, the increasing presence of minority researchers in the field, societal determinants of health, quality of care, and politics and policy as related to ethnic and racial health disparities. The "racism" continues: Among the wide variety of topics discussed was new research on the mental health status of Latinos and Asians in America. Margarita Alegria, director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at the Cambridge Health Alliance and a visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard, presented preliminary research from the National Latino and Asian American Study, begun in 2002. The study, conducted in five languages, is a broad survey of Latinos and Asian Americans across the country and aims to fill in gaps in the information available on the mental health of those two ethnic groups. The study so far shows that Puerto Ricans have a higher incidence of mental health disorders than other Latino groups, which also include Mexicans, Cubans, and a category for other Latinos. It also shows a strong trend of increasing mental health problems for Mexican-born immigrants the longer they are in the United States. To a lesser extent, other groups showed a similar correlation of increasing mental health problems with time in the United States, until they had lived 70 percent of their lives in the United States at which point the trend levels off. For Asians, Vietnamese show a lower incidence of mental health disorders than other groups, which include Chinese, Filipinos, and other Asians. Alegria said researchers couldn't yet explain that low incidence of mental health problems for Vietnamese. Alegria said the survey shows considerable regional variation, with mental health disorders increasing for individuals who live in parts of the country where their ethnic group is not concentrated. For example, she said, Mexicans, who are concentrated in the Southwest, had higher mental health problems when living in the Midwest. Cubans, who are concentrated in the South, had greater problems when living in the Northeast. "Where you live really makes a big difference in your risk for psychological disorders," Alegria said. One possible explanation for the higher rates of mental disorders among Puerto Ricans, Alegria said, is selective immigration. Alegria said more Puerto Ricans than other groups reported that they had immigrated because of health reasons. In addition, she said, there may be a demoralizing factor at work. Puerto Ricans, unlike members of the other ethnic subgroups, are U.S. citizens. They also report higher levels of English fluency. Alegria said Puerto Ricans may expect to be more socially mobile after arriving in the United States. Alegria said the survey provides an important starting point for further research. Among important questions to be answered are the higher rates of disorders among Puerto Ricans, the lower rates among Vietnamese, the roots of geographic differences in different parts of the country, and the connection between length of time in the United States and rising incidence of mental health disorders. There are a million questions I'd ask the kid if me and Cho Seung-hui were sitting in a room and he had agreed to talk to me. The first one would have been "Are you feeling frustrated for any particular reason?" Another might be, "Are you feeling any academic pressures, any stress from you parents?" Who knows? These are perhaps overly direct and useless questions, since I'm not a trained mental health care professional - but if I were, I sure would be attentive to issues of his cultural background, especially if my file on him indicated the possibility of that perhaps there might be more going on here than just your standard, John Doe pysch services referral. It's a place to start. But he's dead, and that'll never happen. But to imply it's racist to ask these questions, to even think about the concerns of Korean American youth like Cho, who may well find themselves precariously placed along pressure points between family, friends, and school as defined in cultural, educational, linguistic, and pscyhological terms - this just boggles my mind now. Posted by Michael Hurt on April 19, 2007 -- Archived with permission of author. Original Source: Scribblings of the Metropolitician http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/04/on_the_forbidde_1.html
Sister of Virginia gunman belongs to Class of 2004
By Michael Juel-Larsen Princetonian Senior Writer Though Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech had already cast a shadow over campus, the news yesterday morning that the gunman's older sister is a recent Princeton alumna brought the tragedy even closer to home. Sun-Kyung Cho '04 was an economics major who interned at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok during the summer before her senior year and wrote briefly for The Daily Princetonian. She now works as a "State Department contractor," The Washington Post reported yesterday, and was listed on Princeton's alumni directory as living in Centreville, Va., with her parents. The shooter was identified early yesterday morning as 23-year-old Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung-Hui. Later in the morning, the Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp" blog reported that Cho had a sister who graduated from the University. Sun-Kyung Cho's and Cho Seung-Hui's home addresses in Centreville, Va., are identical. Reached on her cell phone yesterday afternoon, Sun-Kyung declined to be interviewed for this article. At Princeton, Cho wrote her senior thesis on "ethnic enclave[s] and wage earning" among Korean immigrants in California. Her thesis adviser, economics professor Orley Ashenfelter, could not be reached for comment yesterday. In the past two days, intense national media scrutiny has been focused on the Cho family as the public struggles to understand the shootings. University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said the Office of Communications had received inquiries from at least seven media organizations yesterday about whether the shooter's sister had gone to Princeton, including ABC, CNN, the Newark Star-Ledger and The Washington Post. Cliatt said she could not disclose any information on Sun-Kyung Cho besides the fact that she had been a student, what she studied and when she graduated. Cliatt added that she also received a call from an alumna who was unrelated to the shooter and whose last name was also Cho. "She was concerned that she was receiving a lot of calls" from reporters regarding the shootings, Cliatt said. Marc Fisher '80, a columnist with The Washington Post who was at the Chos' Centreville townhouse yesterday along with dozens of other journalists, described the situation as a "puzzle with virtually blank pieces." Close media scrutiny of the family's life was motivated, he said, by a "very human need to know and understand." "Partly out of courtesy and partly out of the urge that people have to just find meaning, there's a rush to delve into the shooter's life," he said, "and usually we come up fairly empty in that pursuit, and the competitive juices get flowing, so you end up with a lot of scenes that are almost comical, such as having 50 reporters standing outside an empty townhouse." The Chos had been escorted from their home before Fisher got to Centreville and have not spoken to the press. Fisher said the media's close attention to the Cho family would likely continue for at least another week. "I think we're just at the very beginning of that process of trying to figure out who he was and the family story and how they got here and how he got to such an extreme point," he said. -- Original Source: Daily Princetonian - April 18, 2007
Those working on the new ISAT library at JMU spray painted "Hokie Hope" in day-glow orange on the wall of the building for all driving on I81 to see.
Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy
Full Report (PDF) - 463 KB June 13, 2007 "We reflect on what has been lost and comfort those enduring a profound grief. And somehow we know that a brighter morning will come. We know this because together Americans have overcome many evils and found strength through many storms." -President George W. Bush -- June 13, 2007 The President The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, you charged us to travel to communities across our Nation to meet with a wide range of leaders on the broader issues raised by this tragedy, and to report back to you what we learned, together with our recommendations for how the Federal government can help avoid such tragedies in the future. The enclosed report summarizes our findings and provides our recommendations developed through discussions with educators, mental health experts, law enforcement and other key state and local officials from more than a dozen states. We found great commonality in the themes that emerged from our meetings. Following the Virginia Tech tragedy and similar incidents of violence that have occurred in recent years, states and local communities are carefully considering whether they have properly addressed and balanced the fundamental interests of privacy and individual freedom, safety and security, and assisting those with mental health needs in getting appropriate care. Although state and local leaders recognized and underscored that these issues primarily must be resolved at the state and local level, these events make all of us ask whether there is more we can and should be doing. As we note in our report, our recommendations are not a panacea. Rather, along with identifying steps that we can take, the report serves to focus our attention on the issues that must be part of the ongoing national dialogue as we continue to protect the freedoms we enjoy in our society, while appropriately minimizing risks to public safety. We look forward to continuing our collaboration on the Federal level, as well as with states and localities, in our ongoing efforts to address these fundamental issues and take concrete steps to promote the well being and safety of all Americans. Sincerely, Michael O. Leavitt Secretary Department of Health and Human Services Margaret Spellings Secretary Department of Education Alberto R. Gonzales Attorney General Department of Justice -- Table of Contents Introduction Key Findings Canvassing the Nation Common Themes and Observations Findings and Recommendations Critical Information Sharing Faces Substantial Obstacles Accurate and Complete Information on Indivduals Prohibited from Possessing Firearms is Essential to Keep Guns Out of the Wrong Hands Improved Awareness and Communication are Key to Prevention It is Critical to Get People with Mental Illness Services They Need Where We Know What to Do, We Have to be Better at Doing It Conclusion Endnotes -- Original Source: http://www.hhs.gov/vtreport.html
Michael O. Leavitt, Margaret Spellings, and Alberto R. Gonzales
The intangible bond between two broken hearts
The post title isn't an exact quote (because it would've been damn hard taking notes while trying to hold a lit candle (and, more importantly, given the windy conditions this evening, keeping it lit) from the remarks of NIU President John G. Peters at tonight's candlelight vigil at Northern Illinois University to honor the memory of the Hokies who lost their lives a year ago today. But they're a close approximation: I know he used both phrases in his speech, though I can't swear that they were that closely connected. Nevertheless, it's a good description for the relationship that will forevermore exist between our two campuses, our two communities. We're both members of a club that nobody wants to join--and would to God that NIU and Virginia Tech were the last two ever given the opportunity to join it. We speak each other's language: a language that neither of us was looking to learn, and one that both of us would rather we hadn't had the opportunity to learn at all. But we have learned it, and having learnt it, we cannot--and should not--forget it. The image is the design of the T-shirts that were handed out to the first 900 people who came to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commons. I'm happy to report that there weren't any shirts left that I could see, meaning we had at least that many people at the event. Among them, God love them both, were two Virginia Tech students. They gave up the opportunity to be with their compatriots in Blacksburg at their own vigil today so they could come and support us--even as we tried to show our support for them and their fellow Hokies. Their presence is just the latest in a long line of expressions of support that Virginia Tech and its campus community have offered to us in the wake of our own tragedy two months ago--support for which we are eternally and profoundly grateful, and which we can never truly repay. Somehow, though, I don't think my Hokie brethren and sistren will mind. Tonight's vigil was a concrete and physical reminder of a spiritual reality that my faith tradition has taught for centuries: that we are all one body, one family--and our destiny is to help one another along the road we each must travel from cradle to grave. Yes, Virginia, you are your brother's keeper--as I am yours. Or, as Jesus told his disciples in Matthew's Gospel: á½Ï„Î±Î½ δὲ ἔλθῃ á½ υἱὸς τοῦ á¼€Î½Î¸Ïá½½Ï€Î¿Ï… á¼Î½ τῇ δόξῃ Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦ καὶ πάντες οἱ ἄγγελοι μετ' Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦, τότε καθίσει á¼Ï€á½¶ Î¸Ïá½¹Î½Î¿Ï… δόξης Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦Î‡ καὶ συναχθήσονται á¼”Î¼Ï€ÏÎ¿ÏƒÎ¸ÎµÎ½ Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, καὶ á¼€Ï†Î¿Ïá½·ÏƒÎµÎ¹ Î±á½Ï„Î¿á½ºÏ‚ ἀπ' ἀλλήλων, á½¥ÏƒÏ€ÎµÏ á½ ποιμὴν á¼€Ï†Î¿Ïá½·Î¶ÎµÎ¹ τὰ Ï€Ïá½¹Î²Î±Ï„Î± ἀπὸ τῶν á¼Ïá½·Ï†Ï‰Î½, καὶ στήσει τὰ μὲν Ï€Ïá½¹Î²Î±Ï„Î± á¼Îº δεξιῶν Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦, τὰ δὲ á¼Ïá½·Ï†Î¹Î± á¼Î¾ Îµá½Ï‰Î½á½»Î¼Ï‰Î½. τότε á¼ÏÎµá¿– á½ βασιλεὺς τοῖς á¼Îº δεξιῶν Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿¦Î‡ δεῦτε οἱ Îµá½Î»Î¿Î³Î·Î¼á½³Î½Î¿Î¹ τοῦ Ï€Î±Ï„Ïá½¹Ï‚ μου, ÎºÎ»Î·ÏÎ¿Î½Î¿Î¼á½µÏƒÎ±Ï„Îµ τὴν ἡτοιμασμένην ὑμῖν βασιλείαν ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. á¼Ï€Îµá½·Î½Î±ÏƒÎ± Î³á½°Ï καὶ á¼Î´á½½ÎºÎ±Ï„á½³ μοι φαγεῖν, á¼Î´á½·ÏˆÎ·ÏƒÎ± καὶ á¼Ï€Î¿Ï„á½·ÏƒÎ±Ï„á½³ με, ξένος ἤμην καὶ συνηγάγετέ με, γυμνὸς καὶ Ï€ÎµÏÎ¹ÎµÎ²á½±Î»ÎµÏ„á½³ με, á¼ σθένησα καὶ á¼Ï€ÎµÏƒÎºá½³ÏˆÎ±ÏƒÎ¸á½³ με, á¼Î½ φυλακῇ ἤμην καὶ ἤλθατε Ï€Ïá½¹Ï‚ με. τότε á¼€Ï€Î¿ÎºÏÎ¹Î¸á½µÏƒÎ¿Î½Ï„Î±Î¹ Î±á½Ï„á¿· οἱ δίκαιοι λέγοντες· Îºá½»ÏÎ¹Îµ, πότε σε εἴδομεν πεινῶντα καὶ á¼Î¸Ïá½³ÏˆÎ±Î¼ÎµÎ½, ἢ διψῶντα καὶ á¼Ï€Î¿Ï„á½·ÏƒÎ±Î¼ÎµÎ½; πότε δέ σε εἴδομεν ξένον καὶ συνηγάγομεν, ἢ γυμνὸν καὶ Ï€ÎµÏÎ¹ÎµÎ²á½±Î»Î¿Î¼ÎµÎ½; πότε δέ σε εἴδομεν ἀσθενοῦντα ἢ á¼Î½ φυλακῇ καὶ ἤλθομεν Ï€Ïá½¹Ï‚ σε; καὶ á¼€Ï€Î¿ÎºÏÎ¹Î¸Îµá½¶Ï‚ á½ βασιλεὺς á¼ÏÎµá¿– Î±á½Ï„Î¿á¿–Ï‚Î‡ ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, á¼Ï†' ὅσον á¼Ï€Î¿Î¹á½µÏƒÎ±Ï„Îµ ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν á¼Î»Î±Ï‡á½·ÏƒÏ„Ï‰Î½, á¼Î¼Î¿á½¶ á¼Ï€Î¿Î¹á½µÏƒÎ±Ï„Îµ. Whenever the Son of Man may come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon the throne of his glory: and all the nations will be gathered together in his presence, and he shall divide them one from another just as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep upon his right hand, and the goats upon his left. Then will the Ruler say to those upon his right: "Come here, you who are blessed of my Father; inherit the realm that was prepared for you before the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; thirsty, and you gave me to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked, and you clothed me. I was ill and you looked after me, in prison, and you came to me." Then the just will reply to him, saying: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?" And the Ruler will say to them in answer, "Amen I tell you, as often as you did it for one of these the least of my brothers or my sisters, you did it for me." --Matthew 25:31-40, my translation from the original Greek The campus community of Virginia Tech has lived out that Gospel pericope. Tonight's vigil was one small downpayment on NIU's attempt to do so. It will not be the last, I'm sure. Nor should it be. 22:13 in NIU, Personal | Permalink Story by Michael Spires. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic -- Original Source: http://musing85.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/the-intangible.html
11.15am Media reports portray Cho Seung-hui as a troubled boy with a murderous imagination Michelle Pauli Wednesday April 18, 2007 Guardian Unlimited Just one face stares out of the front pages of the papers today. With the naming of the perpetrator of the Virginia Technical College massacre, all attention is focused on Cho Seung-hui, the South Korean loner who shot dead 32 of his fellow students and professors. The Telegraph and the Mirror both use the killer's own words as their headline: "You made me do this." The line comes from the note left behind by Cho, which also rails against "rich kids", "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans". The picture that is emerging of Cho is of a troubled loner with a history of mental health problems. Roommates at the dormitory where he lived called him "weird", while fellow students in his creative writing class describe being frightened by his "morbid and grotesque" plays. The Washington Post has an interview with the head of the English department, Lucinda Roy, who had taught Cho in one-to-one sessions after a colleague had been disturbed by his work. According to the Post, Roy said she warned school officials. "'I was determined that people were going to take notice. I felt I'd said to so many people, 'Please, will you look at this young man?' " The question of whether Cho could have been stopped - if not before the first two killings then in the period before the further shootings - continues to be examined. The Guardian says that "angry" students want to know why the campus was not locked down and classes cancelled and why it took more than two hours for them to be sent a warning email. Details from those two and a half hours "remain sketchy" says the paper but it is believed that the police thought that the first two shootings were a domestic murder committed by someone who had then left the campus, leaving them surprised when the second shootings occurred. "The university has blood on their hands," says one student, Billy Baston, in the Guardian. But what about the gun vendors? As attention, in the UK press at least, turns once again to America's gun laws, it was revealed yesterday that the pistols used by Cho had been bought legally on March 13. "It was a very unremarkable sale," says the owner of the shop. And, the assumption is, such sales will continue to be unremarkable in America. The National Rifle Association is too potent a foe for any party to take on, says the Guardian, which flags up the $14m donated by the lobby group to politicians over the last 14 years. "Once again the rest of the world will look on in amazement as America proves itself unable to defend its ordinary citizens from armed maniacs," says the paper. Elsewhere, commentators generally agree that little is likely to change in the area of gun law. And why should it, asks Richard Wolffe from Newsweek, in the Independent. You can't take the guns out of American life and you can never really stop another Virginia Tech, he says. Magnus Linklater in the Times thinks that "probably" tighter gun control would have prevented the Virginia Tech shootings but that banning guns is a salve rather than a solution. "What is needed s a wholesale shift in the national culture - and that will take rather longer than an arms ban," he comments. The Telegraph, meanwhile, has a rather odd comment piece from David Frum, a former speechwriter for George Bush. Headlined "No policy can outwit the Grim Reaper", Frum argues that we must blame the criminal not the gun culture. "Death lies waiting around the corner for us all," he remarks and "no public policy can rescue us from that grim human fact". Along with profiles of the perpetrator and the analysis of how he could have been prevented, the third area of focus in the pages and pages of coverage of the tragedy are, of course, the victims. And, among the tributes, the papers pay particular attention to Liviu Librescu, a 79-year-old professor of engineering who had survived Nazi death camps but died saving the lives of several of his students by blocking his classroom's doorway as Cho approached. Professor Librescu has emerged a hero, says the Telegraph, which describes how he barricaded the door of his classroom and told his students to jump from the second floor window. Many leapt to safety. He was shot dead. "It is worth reflecting on the significance of Professor Librescu's life of quiet heroism, which encompassed the Holocaust, a career of internationally admired teaching and research, and a final act of sacrifice that saved at least nine other lives," says the Times in its leader. The Guardian describes how friends of the victims are gathering online to remember the students through videos, blogs and message boards. An instant memorial to Emily Hilscher, the first victim, has been created on the social networking site Facebook. The page asks "everybody that joins to post one or more things that made Emily cooler than you". The paper reports that within a day of the shootings, more than 120,000 people have joined a discussion group to pay tribute to the victims. On Guardian Unlimited Full coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings Gun violence in the US Gun violence in Britain Full US coverage Related articles Virginia massacre gunman named Unofficial list of shooting victims emerges Massacre on campus Q&A: US gun laws World news guide North American Media Media CNN New York Times Washington Post Government Virginia state government portal US government portal White House Senate House of Representatives Copyright Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007. -- Original Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2059933,00.html
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