It used to be that when you wanted to lose it and shoot a bunch of the idiots hanging around you, you would say you were about to "go postal." It seems to me that after the recent uprising in school shootings we almost have to call it "going to school." Is this freaking anyone else out, or is it just me?
Just reading about them is scary. Here's a quick glimpse of only the past two months:
8-24-2006—In Essex, Vt., Christopher Williams, 27, shot two teachers while looking for his ex-girlfriend. He had killed the ex's mother before going to school.
9-13-2006—Kimveer Gill, 25, opened fire in Montreal on a crowd of students at Dawson College. More than a dozen students were wounded before he finally took his own life.
9-26-2006—A man held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., before shooting one student and then himself.
9-29-2006—A 15-year-old student killed his principal at Weston School in Cazenovia, Wis.
10-03-2006—Carl Charles Roberts IV shot 10 girls at West Nickel Mines Amish school in Pennsylvania and then himself. Five of the school girls died.
Social scientists studying the phenomenon of school shootings agree on one thing: There really isn't a "profile" of a school shooter, but most have been the target of bullying at some point. They often plan their revenge on those bullies for long periods of time.
I call bullsh*t on this "lack of a profile." Time after time, we have seen the same boy pull the same gun and do the same thing to his fellow students. Want to know what they all have in common? They are white, middle-class males who have stated, often at school or work and to other students or co-workers, that they were going to come in one day and take some people out. Now, if that isn't a profile, I don't know what is. Lord knows if these shooters were brown, yellow or black, we'd be searching every ethnic child for weapons before they came to school.
Oh wait, we already do that.
Kids in inner-city schools get searched every day for weapons, drugs or anything else administrators think they shouldn't have in the building. But most often, in white middle-class suburbia, where the bulk of school shootings occur, kids are never thought of as "dangerous." Even when they come to school and tell other people they are dangerous.
I believe white males perpetrate more school shootings because no one has taught them how to handle adversity. African American children and other minorities are taught from a young age that they will experience a lack of understanding by the majority population. They are taught how to handle this. They are taught that people will often see them as someone inferior who is fair game for being hurt, taunted or teased for this reason alone.
Unfortunately, our white children are taught that they deserve any and everything in the word, with no questions asked. When someone gets in their face and challenges this sentiment, their first thought is to kill the perpetrator. Want to know why? Because no one ever told them life was going to be hard.
I think this subject is even closer to some Mississippians' heart after experiencing first-hand the shooting at Pearl High School by Luke Woodham. He is currently serving life at Parchman for an act he committed because, as he said, "Life has wronged me." What could possibly be "wrong" in Pearl? It's a white suburb. There can't be anything wrong in Pearl because we have chosen it as one of the "safe places."
Well, I'm here to tell you that we are wrong. It does happen here. And until people realize that violence knows no color, it will continue to happen here. Part of this problem is deep-seated denial about what constitutes a true threat. The other part, at least to me, seems to run much deeper—a complete lack of respect for human life and an inability to effectively handle adversity.
We aren't doing our white children any favors by painting life with rainbows and bunnies. We aren't teaching them to effectively address things that are hurtful, confusing or just plain stupid. We don't teach them how to believe in themselves and understand that life isn't always going to be easy. This is a lesson that our ethnic and minority children get most days of their life. Our white kids? Well, they are handed cars, clothes and the idea that if things don't go just the way they want, the world will fall apart. We've seen them time and time again blow their worlds to pieces when they felt things weren't working out as they planned.
Until we start teaching our children how to handle difficulties in life, they will continue to kill. Until we teach them that life entitles them to nothing but breath in their lungs, they will continue to take their aggression to the social setting where they spend the bulk of their time—school.
Until that time, I'm here to tell you kids that life is hard and long. You can't possibly take out all the stupid people you are going to run into through the course of it. There aren't that many bullets.
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