Apr 17 2007
Inevitable commentary
Imagine my shock this morning as I woke up and learned that the shooter of the Virginia Tech events was a Korean-male, Cho Seung-hui, who has so far been described as a “loner” and that “he recently set a fire in a dorm room and stalked some women. ” His writings were also known to be violent and dangerous…there is a website with his plays:
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/
Regarding his plays….. I think the public’s take on it would probably be “oh no, it was so violent, why wasn’t anything done” Of course, people seem to forget that this was written in college, where the boundaries of artistic credit are hazy. Yes, perhaps the teacher might have turned it in to the counselors, but as far as I could see from reading it, it was just a play. I have read much worse and this doesn’t seem to be a real indicator. One needs to just look at it as it was : a play assignment, and not a very good one at that.
As much of a tragedy this is, I’m afraid that the focus will be on his ethnicity. How humiliated his parents must be at this point and the shame they will feel… I can only feel for them…
And as for why, we’ll never know why. It was implied that he had a mental disease. I see it more as what the future will look like with more violent acts as all those asian kids in American schools who were harassed on a daily basis, trying to master two sides of an identity… finally can’t contain it anymore and release.
