Roundtable: Virginia Tech

An email thread from the past couple of days:

diderot:
My following of the coverage so far has been almost exclusively the Today Show, and as is their history, they always go for the potentially most emotional interviews possible. Nothing communicates the sorrow of the moment like people being sorrowful on TV (which doesn't hurt their ratings, either, but that's another story). Anyway, I've seen about 6-10 classmates interviewed either live or on tape the past couple of days--and none of them--not one--showed any tears or real emotion. And this isn't a criticism--they were all clearly somber and concerned and caring and sad...but they didn't show emotions the way I would expect young people in that situation to.
Is this just a coincidence? Did the 'together' ones just happen to show up on camera? Maybe. But it also seems like maybe we've created a new generation of young people that are so used to shock and violence and tragedy that this stuff (kind of) rolls off their backs?

hortense:
I agree with your assessment on the lack of emotion, and it IS because they have been de-sensitized. Great observation and something I've been saying for years. Even in car accidents their response is, well, that's really bad but life goes on. Ask my wife, a high school counsellor, she has seen over the years a complete change when a death occurs to a fellow student. We had that kid die in an accident earlier in the year, the same kids when asked do they need some time to talk, reflect, console? Nope, life goes on. I'm gonna scream. I thought I was the only one who noticed that, glad I wasn't. We have created a bunch of "this happens everyday" children. Oprah had three people on yesterday and they were all great. See if you can't watch that show. The one kid from Columbine, who lost his sister in that tragedy was more insightful than anybody else. He goes around the country trying to talk to HS kids about the very stuff that puts some of them in those "places" from where there is no escape. He and his father have a massive program that reaches 50 - 60 thousand kids a week. Now that's doing something. The one administrator she had on was very good also pointing out all the legal hoops you have to go through before any pro active measures can be taken. What part does the media play? Scary to have to leave it in their hands.

oketo:
I just talked to (daughter in college) and she said a couple of things that may or may not reinforce. First she said that nothing has been obvious to make her campus safer. You would think that there would at least be a show of added security for a few days. She also said that in her Lit class the teacher said that the class needed to talk about VT. She said that she and another boy are the kids that talk the most in the class. She said no one spoke. The teacher asked her what she thought since she must have something to say---chip of the old block--she said that she did not know what to say. She did not know where to begin. So, are they numb from shock and fear or are they numb from overexposure to violence? I don't know.

I watched MSNBC for about 3 hours last night...reporters that I like. But I was discouraged that they spent so much time on the killer and his mailed pictures and text. Did that exposure make him into a media star? Was it necessary to keep showing the as--ole with his two guns? I don't know where you draw the line. What I kept saying is that I wanted to see them talk about the kids and teachers that were killed. They had been lumped into the "name" 32 killed. It is my belief that if we want to sensitize the culture we need to tell their stories. Dwell on their lives and what we are losing with their deaths. Many of the kids were wonderful kids who had already done wonderful things and their future was ahead of them. I think we need to put a face and a story to the number 32. That makes Americans sensitive! Instead we put a face on the killer and his ramblings. So there will now be thousands of kids who will have the killer's picture taped up in their school lockers but I bet no one will ever remember any of the dead students. The teacher who blocked the door so his students could jump out the window and was then killed, his name should be the household word not Cho.

hortense:
Now, where does it go from here? Cannot agree with Oketo more about the coverage and focus on the killer. I don’t care anymore, tell me about the families and how they cope with this grief, tell me about the teacher, tell me about how these kids came to be in college. There is a story, in fact there are 32 stories. The media is so full of shit because they believe we focus on the person responsible. The only people who are interested in the killer are the same people who watch Jerry Springer and professional wrestling. In other words, uneducated individuals who have no interest in anyone but their own. Profiling, you bet, cause that’s what’s true.

oketo:
The talking heads were so predictably into that attack mode minutes after the killings were announced. Who are the "they" that everybody assumes is keeping watch over all of America? It usually falls on teachers, counselors, social workers--any counsellor can verify how hard it is to get parents to accept that their kid has issues, then try to find open beds in psych wards or hospital programs for young people and then try to get insurance companies to accept diagnosis and pay for hospitalization and then have a 3-5 day limit for hospitalization. It is almost impossible to get insurance companies to pay. Parents that do accept responsibility and have their kid hospitalized many times go broke trying to pay for all the things the insurance company will not. Cho was hospitalized while at VT, but I also heard that he was released after a day or two. Insurance??

diderot:
Could this guy have killed 32 people, even with a machete? No way. He was that lethal because he had guns. The media and politicians are so cowered by the NRA and the gun culture that they won't even bring up this subject anymore. In England, a smaller country but a pretty similar society, they ban handguns. I don't remember the government there suddenly turning England into a forced police state, as the gun nuts claim would happen here. Rifles and shotguns remain there for hunting, but no handguns are legal. The last full year on record, they recorded 163 deaths nationally from firearms (including suicides). A total of 12 policemen were wounded by firearms (including their own), none fatal. The same year, there were 993 gun deaths--JUST IN THE STATE OF ILLINOIS! Overall, 30,000 Americans a year die from guns. That's like 10 different 9/11 attacks put together. Twelve times all the people we've lost to date in Iraq. Every year. And no one even talks about it anymore.

oketo:
Guns. Yeah. Where is the debate? I read in the Trib yesterday that Americans have 90 guns for every 100 people in the country. The most in the Western world. A typical number is 15, 18 etc. Some are higher, but the teens is a typical number. A gun story. After the polls closed on Tuesday a Repub-lick-an Poll watcher arrives. He is entitled to our unofficial results once we are done. Well it takes about an hour to finalize the precinct results so he is hanging out. Now remember there are two Dems and two Pub heads at each precinct. So this guy, and he looked pub, starts ranting on how the "stupid Democrats are trying to make an issue about automatic weapons due to VT". (Which had happened hours before. He was, as with most pubs, not concerned about the people affected but about the politics.) Well he then realizes there are two Dems in his forced audience and he backtracks that it is, "not all Dems". So I was not about to let this go and if I did not speak I would have had to hurt him. So I asked him if HE thought it was OK for "this guy" to be able to obtain two guns and then kill 32 people? Was that a good thing? These kids are just a trade off? He walked to a different corner of the gym. This is a side point but I get so tired of the arrogance of the right. They feel very free to vent at any moment, in any audience as if no one could possibly disagree with them unless that person is sooo stupid.