And there are others whose love for money, or privilege, or power, or plain old violence are greater. At least, when stupidity gets voiced, we know what we’re up against.īecause there are a great many whose love for their own guns and 10,000 rounds of personally stockpiled ammo mean more than the lives of a few hundred Americans, each year. To some extent, it was-though there are many there who opined “Let it go!” Which is a tribute, in one way, to a country where free speech is among the human rights guaranteed by our Constitution. Nearly ten years earlier than that, when I eneterd the graduate program at Kent State University (early 1990s,) I naturally assumed this would be the prevailing wind there, concerning the shootings of thirteen students there ( four deaths) in 1970, during a Vietnam War protest. Perhaps, I thought, there’s a plaque inside-for we dare not forget-and so I was alone with my thoughts. Instead, I found a lonely building locked up tight for summer, surrounded by dried, pale grass of the drought season, and not a single living soul. I happened to be in the Littleton area, and I meant to visit whatever memorial had been erected to the thirteen shooting victims from 1999.
These were among my reflections when, twenty years ago, I stood outside Columbine High School on a hot August day. But over the years, I’ve come to see that this was what the occasion called for, amidst what X later clarified as “a climate of hate.” Because when you sow violence abroad and at home, as America does, it should be no shock when you, in turn, reap it.
Commenting to the press on the assassination of President John Kennedy in late 1962, Malcolm X cold-bloodedly called the event a case of “the chickens coming home to roost.” Many would have preferred something a little more mournful and respectful.
0 kommentar(er)
