Words fail.
Mr. P and I were talking about it last night and he asked if I was surprised to learn that the shooter was Asian. I thought it was an odd question, but as I got to thinking about it, I discovered that yes, I was surprised he was of Asian descent.
I think that speaks to some cultural assumptions on my part. And probably on many people’s parts. Never has the Model Minority myth gone down so abysmally and horribly. I admit that I am a little disturbed to see news article that regularly cite the shooter as “a student from South Korea”, which makes it seem like he was a recent immigrant or exchange student. Finding out that he was an English major makes me think he was probably fairly well-steeped in American culture, so just how relevant is his racial/ethnic status? He and I are the same age, and we only had a few years separation between our respective immigrations, and we were both English majors; what’s immigration got to do with it? Not a whole lot, I think.
I think this shooting is symptomatic of something wrong with American society. I think it has something to do with the respect that we, as a culture, accord human life. I don’t think that violent video games make people kill per se, but I think it’s likely that the idea of killing-as-entertainment or shooting-as-entertainment or death-as-entertainment has some effect on our real-life attitudes.
As for the gun nuts who point to this as proof of our need to allow everyone to carry a gun to protect themselves–stfu. Why are these school shootings happening in America and not everywhere else in the world? Why? I know there are ideological reasons people murder each other (in Iraq, for instance), but this shooting was non-ideological.He had no political or religious agenda. It was mechanical, precise, and soulless. What is it about our culture that contributes to this kind of behavior?
I know that the kid had some psychological/brain chemistry problems. But people have always had these issues. Why are these mass killings happening now? In our schools?
