Zero tolerance bounces around Randy Cassingham's blog on a regular basis. One of Randy's readers cited the Columbine massacre as a defense for zero tolerance policies. Well, they were in place for two years before the shooting, and didn't prevent it.
Dan Savage has his own thoughts about what led up to the shooting. Fear the Geek
I had no problem fathoming Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's motives. While I didn't suffer the extreme abuse some of my friends did, I was fucked with enough to spend four years fantasizing about blowing up my high school and everyone in it. I can only imagine the scenarios that must have rolled through Marty's head on a daily basis. Watching SWAT teams inch their way toward Columbine High, I wasn't shocked that something like this could happen in a high school. I was shocked that something like this hadn't happened at any of mine.
Klebold and Harris aren't heroes; they were hateful, twisted racists who, in addition to going after jocks, hunted down and murdered one of Columbine's six black students. But they didn't go guns blazing into a vacuum. Harris left a suicide note, discovered by police and reprinted in one of Denver's daily papers, The Rocky Mountain News. I haven't seen the note printed anywhere else, which strikes me as odd.
The note reads: "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 FUCKING 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 fucked 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."
The power cliques that rule American high schools are every bit as murderous as Harris and Klebold, only their damage is done in slow motion, over a period of many years, and fails to draw the attention of parents or teachers--let alone news anchors, SWAT teams, and presidents. How many kids ostracized, humiliated, and assaulted in American high schools, like the survivors of Columbine High, are left scarred for life? How many commit suicide every year?
No comments:
Post a Comment