The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech shook the nation last Monday and continues to do so due to the many facets of our lives it affected. The obvious way is the 33 lives lost through senseless violence and the healing the family, friends and this country have to do. Throw in politics, gun control and mental health advocates, racism and deciding who to blame, and it is safe to say the maelstrom surrounding the shootings at Virginia Tech will remain a turbulent frenzy.
People are looking to blame someone, anyone. Koreans. The mentally ill. The autistic. Playing the blame game is a way for people to try to explain what happened, to lash out at those they feel are responsible in an effort to direct their emotions toward a common hate. I know this because I felt the same way.
I joined one of the Facebook groups for the Virginia Tech victims, and one particular wall post, left by a student at this university, struck me: “It’s no more his fault then all the people who ever hurt him in his life.” I was revolted by this statement. We’ve all had our feelings hurt, whether it was when we were preschoolers on the playground or the one getting dumped in a relationship. Most of us have been betrayed by friends, misunderstood by parents and picked on by teachers. This is an excuse to shoot up a school? Mrs. Casey’s third-grade accusations of Nikkee Porcaro cheating on a math quiz excuse behavior like this?
The person’s post went on to say, “Nothing ever happens without a reaction, which is why I try not to hurt people if possible.” Thank you, Captain Obvious. I think most people attempt to minimize hurting others’ feelings, but it is an inevitable part of life. Undesirable circumstances happen. People will not and cannot agree on everything. Feelings will be trampled on, but I do not see everyone who’s had a friend scream hurtful things at them or been spurned by a love interest picking up a gun.
One of the victims, Mike Pohle, Jr., was from my hometown, and while I didn’t know him personally, I feel a little extra pang of grief, which is why I’m so passionate about this issue. I find it inexcusable to blame the people who hurt Seung Hui Cho in his life, just as I find it inexcusable to blame Koreans or the autistic.
I said so on the Facebook wall, and this started a stream of discussion either agreeing with me or trying to explain the original statement. Then, some students from Virginia Tech began posting their feelings on the subject – that we shouldn’t be playing the blame game at all and should instead be mourning the loss of the 32 victims.
I found this interesting at first; I would expect students from Virginia Tech to be at the forefront of trying to place blame for what happened at their school, and who could really criticize them for that? But the more I read the posts, the more it made sense to me. Placing blame on anything for this tragedy really accomplishes nothing. It isn’t bringing back Mike Pohle, Jr. or any of his 31 classmates and teacher.
That being said, it is important to delve into Cho’s history and use the factors in this case in a positive manner; namely, to try and prevent something like this again by being able to better identify at-risk students. Virginia Tech’s president and chief of police in Blacksburg have some under fire for their handling of the situation, and it appears that the school had plenty of advance warning of Cho’s history of mental problems.
Should this situation have been handled differently? You could argue it should have been. Did Cho alone decide to commit this horrific act? Yes. It’s easy to assign culpability to Virginia Tech administrators, the judge that declared Cho harmless enough to remain on the Virginia Tech campus or the people who hurt Cho. But the fact remains it happened, and, instead of harassing people of Cho’s race, ranting about gun control laws and privacy issues or pontificating about the reasons Cho committed this gruesome act, we should instead be looking to the future while honoring the victims of this past Monday.
We need to balance people’s privacy rights with a stronger, more effective detecting system to identify troubled people. We need to come together as a college community and do all we can to prevent this from happening again, because if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
People grieve in all different ways. I know one of my first feelings was to seek out someone to take responsibility. But following the Virginia Tech students’ example of celebrating the lives of the 32 victims is much more productive than blame. We need to look toward methods of prevention instead of assigning fault.
Nikkee Porcaro is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at cole120@umd.edu.
