Today is the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. I wrote a poem on the day that Cho Seung-Hui Went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. While the poem is not meant to minimize the evil of Cho Seung-Hui’s attack on students and teachers, it does express a certain amount of pity for Cho and the inarticulate and mad world he lived in.
While we must honor the victims of Cho’s madness today, we must also continue to work toward the elimination of mental illness. Unfortunately, Cho’s actions have caused a negative reaction toward mentally ill college students. Some students are already working hard to hide their mental illness, refusing to go for counseling or going off campus for counseling to avoid the stigma and to avoid the committees that have been set up to keep track of mentally ill students.
By forcing the mentally ill “underground,” we are not helping them; and I am not sure we are really making our campuses any safer.
1 Comment
April 27, 2008 at 3:57 am
unfortunately, the fact that the campus was a “gun-free” zone contributed to the extent of the damage done by this person… I hate to say it, but it was like shooting fish in a barrel. >.>;; It could’ve been prevented.
But, I agree with you that by pushing people who do have mental issues “underground”, so to speak, we are also contributing to whatever next event that takes place. We have to concentrate more on giving people the counseling that they need (and not just giving them this drug or that one… mind altering drugs + gun-free zone = … well.. you know what it equals
). People have to want to be helped for it to be effective… you can put someone on all the mind-altering drugs that you want to and if their heart isn’t in changing the way they are, it’s not going to help them.