I woke up this morning to news about a “rambling” killer. Surrounded by ignored biology packets, studying for a forgotten midterm, I stared blankly at the television screen.
And for some reason, all I could think was, “He was an English major. I’m an English major.”
And that little commonality between us made him suddenly real to me. And it made the incident real. Before, it was just a haze.
It is so easy to separate yourself. It is so easy to say, “That is them, but this is us. We are not them.” But faith has told me otherwise. God, Allah, has told me otherwise. He has told me that we are all human. And humans, no matter their appearance, are the same.
And they are not the only ones with problems. They are not the only ones who are angry, depressed, violent. Because we have all been there, though many of us have not been driven to the point. That breaking point.
And there are things now that we have to solve. Things we cannot ignore anymore. There are problems the whole country faces, not just the few who are deemed anti-social.
Comments (3)
your right....we can't ignore anything any longer
we can't ignore skin color, geneology, beliefs, morals,etc......I felt this coming when I was a kid......it's not anti social..........its the world getting smaller...........and we are all connected wether we like it or not!...only now we have 21st century technology to seal our fate completely.............unless we use some reason with our so called faith
Posted April 22, 2007 12:03 PM
Posted on April 22, 2007 12:03
This is a really interesting thought.
"'That is them, but this is us. We are not them' is an argument that we all use" - That statement is very true; and on that note, I think the way the media is somehow glorifying/indulgently portraying his image is making him seem even MORE distant.
Posted April 22, 2007 2:51 AM
Posted on April 22, 2007 02:51
The "english major" detail disturbed me as well. Because the massacre happened in an engineering classroom, I figured he must have been a disgruntled engineering major. To learn that he was an english major, and for his clearly disturbed writings to be released to the public just makes the past couple of days even more horrendous.
"That is them, but this is us. We are not them" is an argument that we all use, and so for it to hit home, no matter how small, shows not only how similar we all are as humans, but also how important it is for people to try to come together. It's difficult trying to connect someone so in-human with parts of myself or parts of yourself which make you human and yet that has become another result of this tragedy.
Great points once again Hafsa.
Posted April 19, 2007 11:18 AM
Posted on April 19, 2007 11:18