Apr 19, 2007

Go Hokies

I've been numb since Monday morning, but the reality of it all didn't really hit me until Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday, April 16, 2007, a sad, dangerous madman with his own agenda killed 32 students, instructors, and professors at Virginia Polytechnical Institute within hours before turning the gun on himself.

For those that don't know, I live in Virginia. I live in the southeastern end of the commonwealth while Blacksburg is many miles away in the northwestern end of the commonwealth, so needless to say, over here, the Virginia Tech tragedy has hit hard around these parts. I didn't attend Virginia Tech (I went to ODU), but I know people that did. I didn't personally know anybody who was killed, but I do feel the same kind of remorse their love ones feel today.

Of course, as a result of the events of 4/16, some folks feel many kind of emotions. Parents hug their children a little more these days, though some of them fear them going away for college as a result. Fear is an emotion that can be stop only if you let it go, and we shouldn't have fear now. The world is dangerous, but if you let the fear consume you, then you've already lost.

And then you have the usual opportunists. Self-righteous asshats that have their own racist, xenophobic reasons to blame the race of the killer and the fact that he was from another country for the reasons behind the tragedy. Not to mention the usual crop of bastards who love to blame video games, television, movies, and music for "inspiring and condoning" the behavior of the killer. To those people, I have two words:

Fuck you.

Yes, it's blunt, and please forgive me for using that kind of language. Everybody knows I'm not a profane guy, but that's how I feel now. I'm sick of these same idiots blaming things aside from the true reasons for tragic events.

I've been depressed for a couple of days now, and I felt like I needed to write out these thoughts as a cathartic exercise, so please forgive me for that.

Living in Virginia all my life, I never knew what a Hokie was. This week, the whole world felt the Hokie pride as one.

We are Virginia Tech.

Go Hokies.