Ok regarding "my take" on the incident that occurred at VT.
I am not saying he wasn't an adult. (Although there are plenty of "full grown" folks that aren't adult at all. Age has nothing to do with it. Not all kids roll over by 3-4 months of age and not all 23 year olds are adults. Heck there are some 40 year olds that aren't very adult or responsible or know the difference between right and wrong. )
I am not saying he had a "right" to kill as he did.
I am saying that I think lots of people dropped the ball on this kid.
How am I unAmerican that I am not raising up against this boy? Is it because he had a green card?
I am not an expert. You have your opinion and I have mine. You can hate him all you want. You can let it live in your soul. I do honestly feel a little bit sorry for him. He was in some deep trouble. He had some issues. He needed help and for whatever reason he didnt get it. Yes it was his responsiblity to get the help he needed but I dont think he was in the frame of mind to do that. That's just me. I can get on my high horse and point my finger and say "You don't know how to act damn you!" but what good does that do to maybe prevent things like this and other violent acts in the future?
I never said he did it because he didn't have a father figure... I said I see boys with lots of anger in their lives. I see boys act out in very angry ways with drawings and actions with legos toy guns, swords and video games. I see them cross that line between just being a boy and being something more. I SAID "maybe it's not about the father, maybe it's about a million other things" I see boys hurting with dads telling them to suck it up and be a man when they are so not ready to be men yet. I SAID I see mothers who say they aren't worried about the son "they raise themselves". We can blame things like poor parenting, rock music, religion, breastfeeding, hormones in the milk. We will never really know what set this boy off. But I think we need to really look at our young boys and our crowded prisons and the violent acts we see and really question what is happening and is it all related? Throwing our hands up and saying it was all their fault isn't a solution to me.
I am not saying ALL boys are like this. We know this. But in my tiny circle of boys I see. I see it so multiple that and it's happening all over the place.
We as a community and as a country need to step up and do something or we will keep having these kinds of days and I think we can all agree we don't want that. To say it's not our fault is just as callous to me as saying it isn't.
3 comments:
Tammy: You know that (and this is repetitive) you and I do not agree on everything. A lot of times, I don't say it on here in the form of a comment but say it to you on the side in an email if I don't agree with you. I know others that read here might not believe that and they might think, Oh this Jenn, she always agrees with Tammy but you know, I don't always as you don't always agree with me. Having said that, I have this to say:
This is your blog. You should feel free to do or say whatever you want, it's a free country, the beauty of our country is exactly that. Also in the same breath people can comment on the things that you (and I on my blog) say. These are tough times. These are sad days and very very tough days. To see all that has transpired with this guy makes you feel like you can't even grasp it all. He was so so very troubled. Clearly in listening to him rant in his stuff he sent NBC. To watch him and listen to him, it shakes me to my core. He was a horriblly sick and violent person. More scarily, he was a quiet quiet soul. His own room mates had no idea he was so troubled.
I have no idea if he played any of those video games, the violent ones, I have not seen or read that he did but I'm just saying, those games, the Grand Theft Auto, Doom, Mortal Combat etc they and you cannot say they are, they are not good for anyone. They are not helping our society. What's the point of them? For fun? Are you f'ing kidding me? Seriously? I'm not blaming anyone reading here I'm just saying, seriously, you cannot think that parents who allow their kids to play these games are thinking or care about what their kids are doing. And again, I have no idea if this guy did any of that game stuff. My comment on that is general.
I just was telling my son last week, explaining about adults who prey on young kids, explaining that there are just bad people in this world who need help and sometimes they never get the help they need. I told him they are sick and horrible and they do bad things. That there are bad people in this world so we have to be prepared to handle ourselves if they come into our space in any way. This guy Cho was a bad guy. He was sick and needed help. He senselessly killed 32 people. He will not be forgiven for that. I cannot see God forgiving him for his horrible deeds. Do I feel bad for saying that? No. BUT I do acknowledge that things could have been different if he had been given proper help OR if he had gone to GET proper help for himself. HIPPA prevented that from happening; it's not like he was going to (obviously) get help for himself, to admit that he was that sick, and because he was an adult when it was determined that he was an "imminent danger to himself and others" after stalking in 2005, that's probably why the school or officials could not openly tell others he was as sick as he was, or force him to get help. The privacy laws did not help in this case. They hurt.
What we are not hearing is about his homelife, his parents, etc. I'm sure we will at some point but right now, that is a huge missing peice of the puzzle.
The things that he said, "your mercedes was not enough, you left me to bleed for your amusement..." etc etc at first those comments seem deranged and if you walked away and left it at that, you could easily say, yep, he was derranged and that was that. But you know what? Yes, he was deranged but those comments seem to odd and he linked them all together, is it possible that those things happened to him? All the things he was spewing at the camera? Was he abused? Was he violated as a child? Was he bullied as a child and teenager? Was he mocked by his suite mates at VT even? I don't know, I have no idea. In no way, in not one fraction of an inch does that 'excuse' what he did. Nothing excuses that and he will go to Hell for that. I truly believe he will. HOWEVER, moving forward, do we keep our eyes closed? Do we pretend this was a fluke episode? Do we not address the need for gun reform? Do we keep letting our kids play these stupid violent video games? What do we do? Isn't that the bottom line?
From a parent who has lost a son to death I can tell you it sucks. EXTREMELY different situation and I get that totally get it but let me tell you, it sucks. It's time to make a change. In our country, in the way we live, in the values and morals we belive in. Can we do it one person at at time? Can we be kinder one person at a time? Can we be that great? Lets hope so. I know I'm rambling but I'm just saying, come on people, lets take a stand and make a difference in the lives of our children. We are the parents and we are in control. We can get them the help they need and not look the other way. Looking the other way is weak. I think we have been weak for too long; both as a country and as a community.
The only thing I can say to that is you just named a bunch of stuff we allow our kids to do. My oldest son was playing Mortal Combat at a very young age, my youngest plays Call of Duty now. I think people get bent when everyone gets judged because this man killed 32 people. There is no one to blame but this man. Right now is that stage where everyone wishes they could go back and have stopped it. We can't. I have listened to what we know of him and I could almost feel sorry for him...almost. But then I realize what a selfish act he commited. That is the ultimate selfish act. He took anothers life to get sympathy, revenge, and fame. There's many disturbed people in the world right now that are watching this. They are seeing people feeling sorry for him...he is succeeding in his mission to get the final word...at the expense of 32 lives. I cannot feel sorry for him when I realize that. I do not blame his parents for letting him play Mortal Combat if he did. We all had hard childhoods. We could write pages and pages of the horrible things that happened to us, but it's the choices we make that determine who we are, not what people did to us. But I love ya Tam, you sure know how to get the pot stirred. Which is good, it gets people talking.
hi tammy...tracy (jenn's cousin) and i have been reading your blog and jenn's after this terrible event in american history. you know i felt terrible and afraid after 9/11 but after this i feel violated and i never want to let my children leave the house without me. the difference now is i have 2 little boys that depend on me for everything. i dont defend what this man did...actually i wish he would have not been a coward and shot himself after he was done. i wish that he was alive to face every parent, loved one, husband, wife ect and let them say whatever they wanted.
the thing i wanted to say is that after something like this happens we want to make some kind of sense of it. explain why someone would walk into a college campus and start shooting. why does someone fly a plane into a building and make it fall down. i dont know why. i blame him first of all, i blame his parents, i blame the authorities who did not make him get help and what about the ahole that sold him the guns. why do we let crazy people buy them? i think we need to explore that question and then maybe we can stop some much unneeded killings.
i guess i have gone on long enough. i pray for the people that we killed, i pray for their families, i even pray for this guy that did it. i am a christian person and i think we have to forgive....i am not saying we have to do it now but someday. i pray for his family because they are gonna have to take some heat when the time is right. i pray for the country...we have some serious problems! tracy
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