I wasn't going to post on this

[muckefuck]

I've read a lot of sad things in the wake of Blacksburg, among them that_dang_otter's bitter point that, on average, more Americans than died there are killed every day in the USA, but since they're not all killed in one place, they don't garner the same kind of attention. We can glimpse just how inured we've become to their deaths by the fact that the officials at VA Tech weren't willing to cancel classes for 20,000 on account of only two on-campus murders. It makes me wonder what their cut-off was: Four students? Ten? Would it be the same for faculty and/or staff? What's the quota where I work? And has it changed in light of Monday's events?

But I think the saddest thing I've read so far is this:

Kim Min-kyung, a South Korean student at Virginia Tech reached by telephone from Seoul, said there were about 500 Koreans at the school, including Korean-Americans. She said she had never met Cho. She said South Korean students feared retaliation and were gathering in groups.

I so dearly wish I could say they were just being paranoid, but I'm too well acquainted with human nature--and past reactions to massacres with minority perpetrators--to say that.

Comments

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The brother of a friend was on the team that secured the building, and described having to walk past bleeding kids crying for help while they made sure there was no more shooting going on, and having to ignore the cell phones of the dead and injured. I gotta say, while I agree that the potential for senseless retribution is scary, and hate crimes despicable, I think the saddest thing about the murder of dozens of people is, well, the murder part.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

For the record, I've been specifically avoiding reading such graphic and grisly accounts. I've read enough descriptions of bloody massacres in the histories of umpteen wars, conflicts, and senseless butcheries to last me several lifetimes.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

This piece on Morning Edition yesterday did not cover any of the grisly details, but it stopped me in my tracks and left mbe bawling in my car for a couple of minutes: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9615639

So I guess that is the saddest thing I've heard about the events this week, or at least the most compelling.