One of the more thoughtful responses to the horrible shootings at Virginia Tech comes from Mark Ames at Alternet. The piece, based on the arguments he makes in his book Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond (available from Soft Skull Press) can be summed up like this:
Media: Cho Seung-Hui did it because he was crazy and “evil.”
History: Schoolyard massacres are rebellions against oppressive and bullying environments by students who can’t take it anymore.
He critiques the mainstream media’s handling of the shooting with gems like this one: “… revealing, if anything, a culture that is so insanely delusional and incapable of self-reflection that it almost makes these rampage massacres seem relatively natural.” He also thoughtfully provides a history of school massacres and brings up some of the bigger cultural, social and political questions these tragedies raise.
Ames shows that when you take the actions of these youth seriously, a lot more is revealed than the shallow accusation that they’re “crazy” and “evil” (hmm, where have we heard that one before?).
Digg
Facebook
del.icio.us
seven comments
Cho freaking sexually harassed and stalked women like a bunch of other misogynist creeps in our society. How is that action a "rebellion" against people who harassed him? Can you please explain that? Aren't you indirectly glorifying Cho's actions and ideas just as much as the mainstream media is?
Posted by Lara
April 20, 2007, 8:43 PM
The point of my post was not to excuse his actions, but to point out Ames' argument, which is that there are broader social, cultural and political reasons why things like school shootings happen.
This is true, I would argue, for sexual harassment and stalking; it's not something that's innate to certain people because of their biological impulses. Rather, violence and violence against women is bound up in complex power structures.
Every time one of these shootings happens, we have an opportunity to expose these structures and talk about the underlying reasons campus shootings take place (of which there are many). I think Ames is rightly critiquing much of the mainstream media accounts of the shooting for being too simplistic. By calling someone "crazy" you automatically shut down any discussion of the context in which that person acted.
Posted by Nicole
April 20, 2007, 8:51 PM
It frustrates me that we are willing to dismiss so many shootings and acts of violence as crazy and evil people doing crazy and evil things, just so we aren't forced to admit that society is partly to blame. I don't think that's glorifying Cho's actions in any way; there's clearly more to these tragedies than what the media is portraying.
I guess I'm just repeating what's already been said...
Posted by Madde
April 21, 2007, 3:32 AM
Thanks for sharing that article Nicole! The coverage of these things is always so unbearably depressing (in fact I have totally avoided it this time around) because what happens is sooooo horrible, and seems bound to happen again, judging by the way we choose to understand what happens.
What particularly upsets me about this shooting is how clearly it is connected to violence against women (I mean, it started because Cho went to kill his girlfriend) and how no one is talking about the connection between a culture that creates rampant domestic abuse AND horrifying school shootings. And also no one is asking about racism and if there is a connection between the racist treatment Cho might've received and what he later did.
In fact some of the coverage is just racist - one of the few things I have heard is a radio program on Korean exchange students and "what they are like." He wasn't even an exchange student, for crying out loud. And also, no one ever profiles mid-West American middle-class white males and "what they are like" even though the majority of the shootings have been carried out by them. Sigh.
Posted by Thea
April 22, 2007, 9:19 AM
"What particularly upsets me about this shooting is how clearly it is connected to violence against women (I mean, it started because Cho went to kill his girlfriend)..."
Today some "specialist" on school-violence was on a national US news program and she talked about how her company was able to figure out exactly why "school shootings" happen and what the warning signs are. To top it all off, she talked about how "in our analysis of all the school shooters, there just wasn't any common theme, a common identity or anything.." Beyond, oh, that they've all been men or boys..
Which is, as Thea said, along the same lines of how pretty much anything "school related" isn't seen as rape when it is rape, gender specific stalking when it is stalking or dv when it is dv.
The Tough Guise video by Jackson Katz really gets into this..
Posted by Luke
April 23, 2007, 2:18 AM
Some school shooters have been girls. The article said so. We are powerful for better or for worse. Don't underestimate the destructive power of women.
Posted by Myra
April 23, 2007, 3:51 PM
"Some have been girls, a fact strangely overlooked by most. Like their rage counterparts in the adult world, school shooters could be literally any kid except perhaps those who belonged to the popular crowd, the school's version of the executive/shareholding class. That is to say, about 90 percent of each suburban school's student body is a possible suspect."
The article does say that, but it doesn't mention specific examples which to me feels like making a pretty bold indictment without really backing it up. He says it's been "strangely overlooked by most" but that would then suggest that according to the writer, it's important to remember that girls and women inflict deadly violence in schools because people aren't recognizing that and by suggestion, only pinning it on boys and men...which I don't think is the case. If anything, I think whenever gender-specific school related or adolescent violence does come up, it unfairly focuses and blames girls and women as the sudden perpetrators of violence via all the See Jane Hit and Sugar and Spice and No Longer Nice: How We Can Stop Girls' Violence type of books.
Posted by Luke
April 23, 2007, 6:24 PM
Leave a comment
This blog post is older than 90 days old. All comments submitted regarding this post will be automatically held for review by the editors before posting. Your comment will not appear on the site until it has been approved.
Our comment policy
Shameless prides itself on the diversity of opinions expressed by our writers, and we encourage and appreciate different points of view. Our intention at Shameless is to foster community and to maintain a safe and positive blogging environment; we do not consider it our duty to give a voice to anybody with an opinion.
Discussion on this site is moderated. We will delete comments that:
(We get to decide what's discriminatory, hateful, attacking, or inflammatory).
In some cases, we will cap off comments on a discussion when we feel they are spiralling out of control and fostering an unwelcoming space for bloggers and readers. Comments will be closed by the Web Editor, unless the post is by the Web Editor, in which case the Editor in Chief will close them.
If your comments repeatedly make the same point, they may be deleted. This also applies to comments made by multiple members of the same organization.
Your comments should be about the topic of the post, not its writer—although we certainly encourage praise for our writers, if you want to say something nice.