Crazy People

I have been thinking a lot about the latest shooting rampage that took place this week. Everyone seems determined to find someone to blame. The family, the school administrators, the police, resident aliens who were born somewhere else. It is an ugly game, spurred on by 24 hour news networks forced to fill time. People seem to take some comfort in the idea that this boy was "not American". Actually, he moved here when he was young, he was educated here, and his parents are hard working immigrants who own a small business. That makes him American in my book. Just because he was not born here does not mean he is not one of us.

Newsflash... There are a lot of crazy people out there. I never dreamt of how many there were until I started working for the police. The majority of them are harmless, a small number of them require regular medication, some of which get really wacky when they forget to take their meds. Another small number need treatment badly, but do not get it due to either economic, family, or cultural circumstances. These people are virtually invisible in our everyday society. They are the people in line with us at the store or a coffee shop, the ones who sit next to us on the bus, the ones who live next to us and seem like quiet normal people. It is only when they act out that we find out what is really going on with them.

I was reading Margaret Cho's blog and as usual, she has some good insights.

Whenever anything really bad happens around Korean people, that is when I would like to hide, go to Hawaii and eat spam sushi until it blows over. I don’t want to comment on it because I don't want to escalate the situation and I don't want to implicate myself in it. I don't want to 'come out' as Asian because therein lies a tremendous responsibility that I never volunteered for, that I don't have any real control over, and that is as mysterious to me as it is to someone who isn't Asian.

So here is the whole terrible mess of the shootings at Virginia Tech. I look at the shooter's expressionless face on the news and he looks so familiar, like he could be in my family. Just another one of us. But how can he be us when what he has done is so terrible? Here is where I can really envy white people because when white people do something that is inexplicably awful, so brutally and horribly wrong, nobody says – “do you think it is because he is white?” There are no headlines calling him the “White shooter." There is no mention of race because there is no thought in anyone's mind that his race had anything to do with his crime.

So much attention is focused on the Asian-ness of the shooter, how the Korean community is reacting to it, South Korea's careful condolences and cautiously expressed fear that it will somehow impact the South Korean population at large.

What is lost here is the grief. What is lost is the great, looming sadness that we should all feel over this. We lose our humanity to racism, time and time again.

I extend my deepest sympathies to all those who lost their loved ones, their children, their friends and family, in this unimaginable tragedy. I send them all the love I have in me, and I encourage everyone to do the same.

The point she makes is spot on. The American press painted a very similar picture when they painted the killer of Gianni Versace, Andrew Cunanan, as a homicidal homosexual in the late nineties. Since when does a killer's sexual orientation have anything to do with his or her motivation to kill another? One feels like when you watch a news broadcast these days, you might as well be watching Hard Copy or reading The Star. The line between tabloid press and mainstream press is increasingly difficult to discern. The most amazing thing would be if the news organizations stopped trying to pin blame on someone and just reported the news as it happens. Don't worry, I am not holding my breath for that to happen.

As with Margaret, my thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of Virginia Tech this week as well as the family of Seung-Hui Cho . My hope is that they are able to find some peace and comfort with the passage of time.

Have a great weekend everyone. Cuidate.