Obligatory

Okay, so I think I’m supposed to write something on the VT massacre. And I have had a couple things rattling in my head. I don’t really discuss them because, well, I haven’t kept up with events as well as others have [I have a *life*!] but nevertheless I should commit them to “paper” in case they pan out years from now so I can say “I told you so!”

Sexual Abuse: I think there is an issue in his life about sexual abuse that’s going to come to light as a possible motive. Now, I haven’t even seen/read the ‘multi-media-manifesto’ package contents, but from excerpts that have been quoted, I mentions 2 famous molesters in his diatribe: John Mark Karr and Debra Lafave. His story involves a molesting stepfather. Another story [apparently, I haven’t read it] involves several students encountering a thieving molesting teacher on a trip. This seems too coincidental to overlook. Was he the victim? The perpetrator? I have no insight – I’m just a civilian.

The thing that bugs me though is that he talks about this differentiation between the haves and the have-nots. According to accounts his family was pretty poor back home in Korea. His family moved here for a chance at a better life [as the story often goes]. But they seemed to have made it: parents owned a successful business, both children went to university, and his sister was on her way to a very promising career [and still will be, supposing her brother hasn’t ruined that for her.] But in his manifesto he seems to see a divide between himself and the other students on a net-worth scale. He sees them as having all these riches, and himself as not [and better for it.] But these were his peers. He was there in classes with his victims, attending the same school as them, likely driving the same car as them, we now know he had nice camera equipment and plenty of opportunity… Two [or was it three?] of the victims went to his high school – I assume that means that they came from the same neighborhoods as well. Fact is that he was doing the same as these people he seemed to think were financially superior to him. With a sister that went to an Ivy league school he may even have been doing better. But one thing is for certain and that is that he was doing one hell of a lot better than most people. I knew I’d never go to university because my family didn’t have the resources. I wonder how I will be able to provide that education for my daughter when she gets that age. People starve homeless in the street, people struggle in dead end jobs knowing that they’ll never get ahead. And striving to maintain that one-paycheck-from-homelessness that is their life. Truly this wasn’t his cross to bear. I don’t know. It just strikes me ironic that he spent so much time convincing himself that he was seen as inferior that he couldn’t see that he never really was. And didn’t see how good he actually had it.

I’m sure none of this makes sense. I’m kinda rambling and it’s all a bit of circular logic but I wanted to at least try to put it out there. Maybe I’ll revise it later. Or not. Whatever.