We are the fuse and ammunition
Nov. 10th, 2006 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athenaltenaDamn, I think of the weirdest stuff while doing menial tasks such as spraying the tunnel floor with a hose at work. 0.o
Anyway, I began thinking about this because of something that happened Thursday at school. The short version is that someone heard some other people talking about bringing guns to school, and said kids were taken into police custody and extra security precautions taken that day. An article about it is here since I'm a bit shot in the creativity department right now in terms of summaries, but that's the basic story. I guess nothing really came of it but it was still nerve wracking.
Well, the way I deal with stuff is to write about it, and this is what came of it. I kept thinking that before the Columbine Massacre I doubt this would have been handled the same way, and now I think it changed my generation for the better. Or at least I hope it did.
The Columbine Generation
I was in 4th grade when the name “Columbine” earned an eternal place in the memory of our country as a place where the unimaginable became a reality. Years later the mere mention of the name is tinged with strong emotions, among them shock, sadness, fear and an underlying question of how this could have happened. The idea that kids would come into school with guns and begin killing their classmates reverberated with the American public not only because of the underlying problems of modern society laid bare by it – but by the sheer simplicity of it.
Last Thursday Amherst experienced a small part of that fear, even though the actual event never came to fruition. However, even the possibility of that violence occurring here hit a sensitive spot in our psyche that was first revealed 7 years ago. Columbine became a symbol of the desperation and loneliness of adolescents in America, one that has been explored by Michael Moore and an uncountable number of social scientists. But the most disturbing aspect of Columbine was the fact that it was not an isolated incident. Over the years other events, whether they came to a point of execution or were stopped in the process, have reminded us again and again of a type of violent behavior that is not confined to areas of poverty and social unrest – where they are often expected – but can strike even in a place of relatively high income and a 90% white population. Columbine shook the very foundations of where America believed school violence originated and forced us to look at the people in our own towns all the more closely. Columbine shattered the idea that something like that couldn’t happen here, and forced us to open our eyes to the fact that it is that very sense of security that can perpetuate the events that lead to the bloodshed that shook us so deeply.
But from my then 4th grader’s perspective the lesson behind Columbine seemed much simpler: People had known that something could have happened and done nothing, and people had died. 7 years later I realize that there had been a change among my classmates, even if not readily apparent. For the first time that I can remember it became okay to tell. In a playground society where a tattletale is ostracized and considered the lowest of the low it suddenly became okay – even necessary – to report threats of violence. Whether we realized it or not, Columbine made us more responsible, and taught us that if we overhear someone threatening violence in the school it is not just our social standing on the line, but people’s lives. It is that responsibility that has changed us so as to not assume anything to be a joke; we’ve seen the horrific results of not taking something seriously too many times.
On Thursday we saw the result of this new responsibility: Someone overheard a threat of bringing weapons to school, and the police were brought in to investigate. Whether or not it would have actually occurred is irrelevant, it was the actions of the students who notified the authorities that are of real importance. Whether they realize it or not, those students were real heroes who showed true courage and responsibility. They showed the new awareness that the past has brought us and that we can take something good from even the worst acts of violence we may be witness to. Whether we like it or not we have become the Columbine Generation, and we are the deciding factor of preventing these horrifying occurrences from continuing.. If we can get one thing from Columbine, I hope it is this.
And this song probably had something to do with writing this, since I was listening to it this morning and almost wonder if it was written about Columbine. Either way it got me thinking, and it just seemed too appropriate.
Ammunition - Switchfoot
Anyway, I began thinking about this because of something that happened Thursday at school. The short version is that someone heard some other people talking about bringing guns to school, and said kids were taken into police custody and extra security precautions taken that day. An article about it is here since I'm a bit shot in the creativity department right now in terms of summaries, but that's the basic story. I guess nothing really came of it but it was still nerve wracking.
Well, the way I deal with stuff is to write about it, and this is what came of it. I kept thinking that before the Columbine Massacre I doubt this would have been handled the same way, and now I think it changed my generation for the better. Or at least I hope it did.
The Columbine Generation
I was in 4th grade when the name “Columbine” earned an eternal place in the memory of our country as a place where the unimaginable became a reality. Years later the mere mention of the name is tinged with strong emotions, among them shock, sadness, fear and an underlying question of how this could have happened. The idea that kids would come into school with guns and begin killing their classmates reverberated with the American public not only because of the underlying problems of modern society laid bare by it – but by the sheer simplicity of it.
Last Thursday Amherst experienced a small part of that fear, even though the actual event never came to fruition. However, even the possibility of that violence occurring here hit a sensitive spot in our psyche that was first revealed 7 years ago. Columbine became a symbol of the desperation and loneliness of adolescents in America, one that has been explored by Michael Moore and an uncountable number of social scientists. But the most disturbing aspect of Columbine was the fact that it was not an isolated incident. Over the years other events, whether they came to a point of execution or were stopped in the process, have reminded us again and again of a type of violent behavior that is not confined to areas of poverty and social unrest – where they are often expected – but can strike even in a place of relatively high income and a 90% white population. Columbine shook the very foundations of where America believed school violence originated and forced us to look at the people in our own towns all the more closely. Columbine shattered the idea that something like that couldn’t happen here, and forced us to open our eyes to the fact that it is that very sense of security that can perpetuate the events that lead to the bloodshed that shook us so deeply.
But from my then 4th grader’s perspective the lesson behind Columbine seemed much simpler: People had known that something could have happened and done nothing, and people had died. 7 years later I realize that there had been a change among my classmates, even if not readily apparent. For the first time that I can remember it became okay to tell. In a playground society where a tattletale is ostracized and considered the lowest of the low it suddenly became okay – even necessary – to report threats of violence. Whether we realized it or not, Columbine made us more responsible, and taught us that if we overhear someone threatening violence in the school it is not just our social standing on the line, but people’s lives. It is that responsibility that has changed us so as to not assume anything to be a joke; we’ve seen the horrific results of not taking something seriously too many times.
On Thursday we saw the result of this new responsibility: Someone overheard a threat of bringing weapons to school, and the police were brought in to investigate. Whether or not it would have actually occurred is irrelevant, it was the actions of the students who notified the authorities that are of real importance. Whether they realize it or not, those students were real heroes who showed true courage and responsibility. They showed the new awareness that the past has brought us and that we can take something good from even the worst acts of violence we may be witness to. Whether we like it or not we have become the Columbine Generation, and we are the deciding factor of preventing these horrifying occurrences from continuing.. If we can get one thing from Columbine, I hope it is this.
And this song probably had something to do with writing this, since I was listening to it this morning and almost wonder if it was written about Columbine. Either way it got me thinking, and it just seemed too appropriate.
Ammunition - Switchfoot
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-11 10:17 pm (UTC)