“This didn’t have to happen”, Cho Seung-Hui said, after brutally murdering thirty-two people at Virginia Tech University.

And this terrible tragedy of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers didn’t have to happen, if we’d only listened.

But we never listen.

We never listen to those that are different from us- the outcasts, the lonely, the homeless, the ones that are unspoken for. We don’t try to understand. We shun them and put them out of our minds because of our fear that we will become like them.

And these people become more and more lonely and alienated in their isolation.

Words like “creep”, “deranged misfit” and “psycho” devalue this killer’s humanity so we don’t have to face how similar he is to us. Cries of “how could he have been stopped” are uttered by media quick to sensationalize and gain market share, when the words “how could he have been listened to” are never considered.

Because we don’t want to listen.

We don’t want to hear about loneliness and alienation when we’re all so busy with our lives, making money and making friends. And the unpopular, the ones that don’t fit in, the lonely ones are ignored or made fun of because we don’t care to understand anything about them.

As a boy, Cho Seung-Hui “was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness” (Associated Press). When he started college, according to the Guardian, “his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain about her son’s unusual character and implored them to help.”

And he clearly needed help, devaluing himself so much that he called himself “Question Mark”.

There are more “Question Marks” out there. There are millions of them. And if we don’t listen to them, they will follow the same path again and again, because people are not connecting. We are becoming more and more disconnected from each other, creating more and more “Question Marks” every day.

Most “Question Marks” don’t become murderers. Some just kill themselves. Most harm no one and live just as we do, needing antidepressants to appear what we call “normal”. They may be someone you know, someone you love.

This “Question Mark” was once a little boy, who cried, and smiled and loved, He wanted to fit in just like you and I. But that desire to fit in transformed itself into anger towards a society that shunned and ignored him.

How many more times will we shun and ignore the one that doesn’t fit in, the one in the corner, the one that’s different? When all we have to do is listen, before it’s too late.

But we won’t.

Thirty-two human beings who did not know Cho Seung-Hui were murdered.
They were sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, with dreams of futures that will never come and children that will never be born. The thirty-two leave behind people that love them. People that are now scarred for life by this horrible day of death.

To most of us that have not been directly involved, this tragedy will become a memory and fade like all the others that came before.

And the “Question Marks” will appear with more frequency, again and again, because we don’t listen.

We never do.

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http://www.x-thc.com

You also are narrow-minded. To think that you or anybody else could come up with such a easy out plan is absurd. Speak badly about my country as much as you please, but it wasn’t much over a century ago that yours was bloodthirsty for it’s own people; creating it’s own massacre. As far as America goes, it was not by any means founded “on throes of violent upheaval”. The purpose for firearms is far beyond what a city-slicker like you can see. I will elaborate in a coming message.

It seems like so many people are concerned with spouting off opinions about causes and not many are interested in taking steps to quickly eliminate access to what we all know are responsible for killings of lots of people easily with little effort – guns. Particularly handguns.

You don’t need a gun. I mean, really, tell me why you need one? You need to defend your family and property, you say? How often do successful protections of law-abiding people’s homes and families with guns happen compared to senseless killings with guns purchased legally? You can say that high crime areas are dangerous and law-abiding citizens living in those areas are definitely in need of guns that can be purchased legally, but even in these areas I doubt the ratio mentioned above has ever favored law-abiding citizens.

America was born in the throes of a violent upheaval. The American gun culture has been around since the birth of the nation. It’s been around so long that many Americans believe that being American means having a gun. Isn’t it time to advance our thinking, put down the guns, trade in our gas-guzzling, super-polluting SUVs and trucks, and start thinking about people other than just ourselves?