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ON THE COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL MASSACRE
Armando Valle
a preamble:
(may.22.98)
Over a month ago a couple young kids ambushed their school, shot over a
dozen people, killed some. Yesterday it happened again. And why? Just kids. Anger
unchecked ran thru their veins and a sick solution emerged: Kill them all. And the nation
watches in horror at the misfire in the suburban fabric society. Here where nothing was
supposed to go wrong. Well, It just did. The blind suburban mass awoke to the fact there's
no such thing as total safety. Sadly, almost always takes bullets for them to open their
eyes.
In this society something always brews under the faces of the young and
ignorant on the matters of the soul. The psychologist on CNN scrambles for explanations.
(Just kids) They always tell you that's just shit, that everything's fine. Tonight, a town
holds its usual candlelight vigils and asks the question: Why?...and even if answered they
wouldn't acknowledge the answer: The perversion of Suburban society.
The kids aren't alright. The media whores and popular opinion loves to
blame these tragedies on gun control, yet the young lose their souls early these days:
drugs, abuse, sex, parental neglect. What little spirit they had has been bled from them.
Combine that with guns and you got your School-Violence-Phenomena-Cocktail. Just kids,
coming
to a school near you...soon.
This place we call Now:
Ladies and Gentleman, it has happened again. Like some sick rerun, yet
another school shooting has occurred, like the one referred to in the preamble above
written after the Jonesboro shooting, but now the horror was unleashed at a larger scale
with pipe bombs, semi-automatics and even an undetonated propane bomb, by a couple of lost
souls enacting some misbegotten plan. The nation's jaw lies slack as they attempt to
comprehend what went wrong. Even the president's concerned about the event. The media has
swoop in to pinpoint the cause of the schism, but the best they can do is point at video
games and movies, the usual tired scapegoats for these tragedies. Now the matter of
Inquisition within this death-skit:
What I want to know and haven't heard off is who are the parents behind
these f****d-up family products. Spinning the bottle in the blame games is useless now.Yet
more than a statement about how sorry they are, there's been no attempt to ask some those
questions. Such as, how can you not be aware of your kids producing pipe bombs in the
dozens? Or, how the hell did they get hold of such guns? Something smells very rotten in
the cul-de-sac where Eric Harris lived and someone has got to uncover it.
What can be done now is too-little-too-late for the people of
Littleton, Colorado. For the many schools across the country: Some very tough questions.
Better trained and more attemptive school counselors are needed at all schools and
colleges. Perhaps strong school courses dealing with mental health and stress could help.
Yet the most difficult trouble area is the one in which each individual's social
responsibilty comes into question: the family cell.
Where were Eric's parents as he prepared the pipe bombs? As he gathered
the guns and ammo? As he spewed hate propaganda on the internet? Probably absent and
self-absorbed. And as the parents quickly slip away into seclusion, clueless as to what
they could've had done to prevent this (how else would you spend the rest of your life
after your kid has commited such an atrocity?), the media gloats over games like DOOM, and
movies like NATURAL BORN KILLERS. Nevermind the fact that from now on, wearing a
trench coat becomes an outrageous, demonizing gesture in schools around the country thanks
to all that "Trench Coat Mafia" bulls**t. Won't be surprised if most schools
adopt a "No Trench Coat" policy on their dress codes. Nevermind the fact video
games companies (John Carmack and co. are now recurrent scapegoats) and filmmakers will
stand against another idotic attack by family-values action groups. NATURAL BORN
KILLERS is one of my favorite flicks and I haven't killed nor blown up anything yet--I
must be freakish exception.
What little I can say let me share it with anyone reading this,
specially the young people: Don't succumb to feelings, fantasies and motivations of hate,
revenge and violence. All these atrocities start in the mind, thoughts that go unchecked
until they transform into action. I encourage anybody who feels riddled with such thoughts
to seek help, to develop their spirituality (nope, I don't mean running to your local
church. My definition of the word is more open than that), to let the feelings out in a
non-violent manner. Art is a good vessel to cleanse oneself of such thoughts. The lack of
communication and spirituality in the homes of these two boys are directly at fault for
the deaths of 15 people. But playing the blame game won't help anyone now. The long,
torturous road to healing has started for the community of Littleton. As a nation we can
learn the lessons so that this lamentable death-skit doesn't repeat again and again: Let's
communicate and reach those full of hate and help them find their way out of it. As
individuals, let's each of us learn this: Fight the demons of hate and vengeance in your
soul or else they vill consume you whole.
The road ahead, what we asses as the Future:
When you walk ahead, don't hurt yourself nor others. It's important not
to hurt yourself since that is where the hurt of others begins. Walk straight and as
yourself, not carrying any shame nor guilt. Nor carrying the expectations and judgements
of others, which will stare nonetheless. Respect and Tolerate. Rinse and Repeat. These
messy words written here don't mean much unless they are practiced. the great pain that is
in you will in time dispel and whatever pain remains is a natural; it's a scar in your
heart making the heart tougher, it's adopted into you so that you don't forget the lesson
nor yourself.
Pick yourself up and keep on walking.
Armando
Valle (Apr/24/99)
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