Editorial: Deciding who should take the blame
CT Editorial Board
April 19, 2007
Virginia Tech is facing excruciating grief and tragedy. In the aftermath of Monday's events the pain is still very much raw and real. Cho Seung-Hui, selfishly took the lives of thirty-two innocent victims, and injured a number of others, before taking his own. His actions have inflicted unimaginable pain and grief on so many, and the outcome of Monday's events is no one's fault but his own.
In the wake of such a tragedy, we are impressed by how our community has banded together in such solidarity to show the world that we are Virginia Tech, and we will overcome this. So many of us are left with unanswered questions about the events that took place on that fateful day. When the pain gets intense, when we struggle with the reality of what has happened to our innocent college campus, so many people try to place blame. When a tragedy penetrates the core of our campus, someone needs to take responsibility. President Steger's reaction time, the prevalence of violence in the mass media; so many are quick to blame. But these excuses are just that; excuses for the behavior of a mentally deranged 23-year-old, who took out his anger and hatred in a classroom of innocent victims. The administration of Virginia Tech cares first and foremost for the safety of its students. Any decisions made on that fateful Monday were made for what they believed to be our well-being. We don't look to President Steger with feelings of disappointment and abandonment, but rather, we look to a man, struggling to come to terms with loss of so many innocent lives, just as the rest of us are. We cannot look to him to take the blame for a rampant killer.
In wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, the Summit on Media Violence took place in Indianapolis on Tuesday, where key stakeholders discussed the trends of emerging violence in the media on adolescents and teenagers. According to Newswire, Bart Peterson, mayor of Indianapolis said, "certainly a number of factors contribute to these disturbing trends, but a prominent concern that is increasingly capturing the attention of both researchers and policymakers is the heightened exposure of children to graphic violence in video games, television, movies, and music." While these trends are more than likely verifiable, they still to not account for the actions of a madman, whose sole purpose was to kill and inflict pain. While violence in the media is undeniably prevalent it is something we all face and must deal with. Hostility in movies, music and television does not make someone kill. Cho Seung-Hui made his own decisions, he outlined his purpose and knew his goal. To blame this heartbreaking tragedy on anyone but Cho Seung-Hui is an insult. He is responsible; he is at fault, he is to blame. No one else is to blame for the loss of thirty-two beautiful lives.