Yes, this is sad and tragic and every parent is now, once again, having to ask themselves "can this happen to my child." This is simply the wrong question. The correct question is complex, requiring deeper thinking and self contemplation. "Why, after Columbine, did we not try to teach our children to respect those who are different from us, and, rather than torment them with cruel words and division, embrace those differences and celebrate diversity?" I know this sounds like hogwash to many of you, but that is the fundamental question.
In addition, we are all being bombarded with the same school kid journalism in the papers, internet and TV: "He wore black." "He wore a trench coat." "He drew a very strange sketch." I know tons of kids who wear black, draw skulls and enjoy dark poetry, but this hardly makes them a threat to society. All of the Enron, Worldcom and Tyco folks wore suits, but you don't see people damning the rest of those who don similar clothing. How dumb would this look in your local paper: "Every time I saw him, he was wearing a suit and tie. We used to hang out, but then he started drinking Mochas and reading the Wall Street Journal-I mean, come on. What do all those strange symbols in that paper mean?"
So, all you so-called journalist, I'm throwing down the gauntlet. Every time a murderer, rapist or serial killer is caught, please report what type of clothing they wear, what style of art they are fond of creating, the music they enjoy and whose blogs or websites they visited. "He enjoyed the paintings of Thomas Kinkade and listened to Whitney Houston." Or "He started discussing Wagner operas and I should have seen it coming." "All those pictures of bunnies; such a cry for help." "Did you see his blog? He complained of being wrongly accused of acts he did not commit." Hell, that's half of the teenagers of the planet right there.
Well, there you have it. So, start investigating and show the world just how suspect we all are.
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