A little over six years ago, two teen-aged boys killed themselves after
gunning down twelve students and one teacher at their high school. The news
Media tritely labeled and advertised it as “The Columbine Massacre.”
Have you forgotten? I won’t let you forget… the hatred of these two.
The anniversary of an event is an appropriate time to pause and consider.
Many have wondered why they did it, refusing to hear the answer.
One of the boys, Eric Harris, clearly and thoughtfully explained their
motive to us in his suicide note:
"By now, it’s over. If you are reading this, my mission is complete.... Your
children who have ridiculed me, who have chosen not to accept me, who have
treated me like I am not worth their time are dead.
THEY ARE FU*KING DEAD....
"Surely you will try to blame it on the clothes I wear, the music I listen
to, or the
way I choose to present myself, but no. Do not hide behind my choices. You
need
to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES.
"Parents and teachers, you fu*ked up. You have taught these kids to not
accept
what is different. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. I have taken their lives and my
own -- but it was your doing. Teachers, parents, LET THIS MASSACRE BE ON
YOUR SHOULDERS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE.
Am I insane? Maybe. Is it my fault? No. I did not choose this life, but I
have
indeed chosen to exit it. You may think the horror ends with the bullet in
my
head -- but you wouldn’t be so lucky."
Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the adolescent perpetrators of the
Columbine High School Massacre of 1999 in Littleton Colorado, are commonly (and asininely) condemned and repudiated for their assault. They are considered
in the mainstream to be psychopathic murderers at worst, and disturbed
individuals, at best.
It’s easy to just call them monsters and leave at that, thinking nothing
more of it.
And this is completely missing the point. Yes, they did have a point. Maybe
they
went about expressing that point in the wrong way, but you can’t rightly
deny
that they had a point, and a valid one. To focus on the killing instead of
the reason is to focus on the medium rather than the message. However, this
tragedy-- the killings, I
mean, not the unsympathetic public denial-- is also a good example of the
medium serving as message.
But without the suicide note to provide context, the point is obscure.
Because the public insists on ignoring the message of Dylan and Eric, these
deaths are made meaningless and pointless, forcing every person that died in
this
massacre to have died for nothing. Apparently no lesson was learned unfortunately.
Dismissing these two troubled individuals as deranged lunatics is merely a
convenient soothing of conscience, and an abdication of responsibility for
society’s role in these events. Eric and Dylan did not act alone; they had
accomplices. Society, in the form of an oppressive school environment
instigated by insufficient guidance and intervention by parents and
teachers is
complicit. A negligence relayed through children.
But these inadvertent collaborators comfort themselves with a delusion that
they
had nothing to do with the massacre, assigning blame to anyone and anything
but their own involvement (or lack thereof).
Desperate situations call for desperate measures, and these reluctant
martyrs did
what they thought they had to in order to bring attention to the problem,
offering
a sacrifice (and a sacrament?) in blood to make a statement.
Listen to what these two kids are trying to tell you. PAY ATTENTION, DAMN
IT.
PLEASE! So that we may prevent this kind of retribution from happening
again.
Pain is a signal that something is wrong or harmful. They were in pain.
Their pain is, or has become representative of our pain.
Quite possibly their incursion was done in self-defense against an
implacable and
despicable foe: torment. Torment inflicted by collective and continuous
harassment from insensitive students.
Might it be that their intent was not merely to harm but also to inform?
Perhaps Eric and Dylan were trying to get your attention?
Could it even be that Eric and Dylan are actually --dare I say it?-- heroes?
*gasp*
Well, ok… maybe anti-heroes.
Something is dreadfully wrong in our society when something like this
occurs, both in its cause and its effect. Two frustrated boys realized and
tried to communicate this.
The dead of Columbine are a canvas painted with their own blood, so that you
could see. Some must die so that others may live. Everyone who died this day
should be glorified, not victimized. They died so that you know why they
died.
And now these two teens have escaped persecution, their suffering (valiantly
or cowardly?) ended by their hands. Perhaps they are the lucky ones here.
Naaah.
That’s just crazy talk.
Right?
