Unspeakable??

Once again tragedy has occurred in an American school and once again the American public scratches its collective head and wonders why this happened.

Yesterday in Bailey, Colorado a lone gunman entered Platte Canyon H.S... He apparently lingered in the hall for a time before entering a classroom. He took six adolescent girls hostage after sorting them out from the class that included boys. He forced the remaining members of the class to leave. The perpetrator obviously wanted female hostages to victimize even more than the overall class.

He later released four of the girls and kept the other two as human shields/hostages. At an evening deadline he gave police to “back off” the class was stormed by a SWAT team. The man shot at police, shot one girl in the head and then shot himself. The young 16 year old girl died very shortly afterwards in route to a hospital.

Later in the night there were reports the hostages may have been sexually assaulted by the sociopath gunman. At this time the motives of the perpetrator aren’t known. His identity hasn’t been revealed.

The Rocky Mountain News, as it typically does, had a headline in 40 plus fonts decrying the incident as UNSPEAKABLE. The Denver Post owned by the same corporate interests had a large font headline of HOSTAGE HORROR.

Of course, the television media has been reporting non-stop on the incident since noon yesterday when it was first reported. If Columbine sold as well as it did surely the same type of incident in a small commuter mountain town in the same state would be a surefire grabber as well. Every station in the Denver market has sent at least one of its anchor people to the scene. Most have sent multiple reporters to gather all the information possible.

Last evening and this morning the television audience were shown frantic parents waiting for their kids to be bused to a staging area. Then there were the invasive shots of parents and children reuniting. And by the Early Morning show’s airing on CBS this morning a family with a son in the class had been recruited to do an interview with Harry Smith, former Colorado newsman.

The scenes were played over repetitively as is the custom in American journalism. Friends of the young lady killed were interviewed, friends of the family were interviewed and anybody with any link to the victims was interviewed.

And is it just me or is it rather obscene the way the news people and cameras intrude on grief and tragedy like this?

It just seems victims of such things aren’t allowed the opportunity to grieve and attempt to understand the violence and death that’s occurred. Instead they’re lined up to get themselves on the air. The temptation for young people to grab at such an opportunity is understandable but I wonder if the parents have ever considered telling the news people to leave them alone at such a time?

I truly don’t want to be callous about this tragic death of a young person who had so much potential and possibilities. I have great sadness in my heart about the violence that has stolen her from her family and community. We have to ask if we lost an artist of great talent. Or a doctor who could have found the cure for a form of cancer. Or a loving mother.

I also have to take time to speak out about the propensity of Americans to take one such incident and make it seem as if the only tragedy in the world that matters is an American tragedy. We do it over and over from the deaths of American troops to the victims of 9-11 to the Columbine shootings.

I don’t dismiss these tragic losses but when I see headlines like the ones the Denver press put on their front pages I feel a sense of anger. I feel anger about the total lack of perspective shown about world-wide human tragedy. I want to scream there are tragedies of children dying in unspeakable ways every day in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and Palestine. Where are their headlines?

I see parents rushing to such scenes in panic and besides sadness I feel desensitized to these scenes.

I want to ask why we parents wait until such tragic events to show such concern when every day our children are exposed to insidious forms of violence via media or real life experiences.

I want to know why we allow programs for our kids who become addicted or have emotional difficulty to languish for lack of tax monies.

I want to know why we allow children to go without prenatal care, post natal care and healthcare in general.

I want to know why we allow the schools of our cities and towns to become so institutionalized our kids lose creativity and the ability to think their own thoughts.

I want to know why we’ve forsaken the urban schools, the children of Katrina and the impoverished neighborhoods.

I want to scream that we, the adults, have done little or nothing to address the culture of violence we’ve allowed to grow in our nation.

We have young babies playing with toy guns.

We have grade school kids allowed to kill and mutilate video game foes in graphic detailed ways shown on screens they glue their eyes to after school and on the weekend.

And then I return to the daily loss of babies, young children and young men and women as a result of the most violent act of all, our wars. We need daily headlines in the largest fonts possible to decry the BARBARIC, UNSPEAKABLE HORROR of adults killing one another and any innocent family or child that happens to be in the way of the techno weapons we waste our minds and tax dollars creating.

I can’t help but think how parents in Iraq and Afghanistan would view the headlines in this morning’s Denver newspapers. I suspect they would be saddened by the tragic loss. I also suspect they might wonder why the losses of their children to 500 lb. bombs, errant rifle fire, cruise missiles or bunker busters elicit so little outrage and sadness.

I can’t help but wonder if we here in the United States even know about the thousands of dying children each day because of preventable reasons like poor drinking water, hunger and lack of healthcare.

I don’t dismiss the loss of a beautiful sixteen year old high school girl. I just wish her death would cause us to see the bigger picture of all the beautiful children killed for senseless reasons. I wish we could understand we’re not alone in the grief of losing children in this world.

Unfortunately our failure to promote an end to violence, war and neglect plays a large role in seeing more of the large and uncaring headlines from superficial and insensitive newspaper corporations.

It all just makes me want to holler.

Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
http://visopeace.blogspot.com/