It's four in the morning and I can't sleep. It's a week after the Columbine shootings, and for the first time since the incident, I'm crying.
It has nothing to do with the fact that this tragedy occurred in the city where I live. Even a week ago as I watched the events unfold on live TV, I felt no more affected by this school shooting than I had by any of the others around the country in recent years. Tragic, yes. Horrific, sure. Appalling, of course. But nothing about them touched me personally. Including this one. Until now.
A week ago my husband and I traded stories of our own high school years, the torment and the pain of being outcasts. I tentatively admitted my own fear for all those other misfit kids, wondering how much unwarranted suspicion would now be turned on them. I didn't dare say my opinion too loudly. I was afraid people would misunderstand. I thought I was alone in feeling this way.
I'm crying now because I see how mistaken I was. I've learned that I'm not at all alone, but that the loneliness and alienation of countless others like me are far greater than I could have imagined, and that the suspicion and persecution promise only to make it more so by cutting them off from one another.
My husband printed out the "geek profiling" column for me, and after reading it I knew I had to join this forum just to add my reply. I had been afraid no one would share my opinion. I now learn that in just one day, this article has received hundreds of responses, horror stories from young people whose rights and dignity are being stripped away because of the games they play and the clothes they wear. My heart is breaking. These children are *me.*
My thoughts go out to Becky and Lisa and Paul and Gavin and Larry and all the other old friends I've long since lost touch with. I wonder if they're thinking of our high school days too. Sometimes knowing we could depend on one another was the only thing that made life bearable for us. We never got into trouble, never even partied. The wildest thing we were likely to do was stay out late drinking coffee at an all-night restaurant. But whenever someone received a crank phone call or a threatening note (the worst offenses I recall ever happening then), suspicion was turned on us, never mind the evidence to the contrary. We heard the rumors, the laughing and jeering in the halls. We were called freaks, weirdos and witches. We sometimes jokingly referred to ourselves as the "lunatic fringe." No one ever called us killers.
I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. I feel so angry and so helpless. I want to scream and shake all these so-called authorities until they come to their senses and realize how badly they are hurting all these young people who hurt so much already. I want to reach out to these kids and let them know that some of us adults remember and understand what it's like to be feared, hated and falsely accused just for being different. I want to be able to tell them that there's a light at the end of the twisted tunnel that is high school - that there is more to life out there, and that there is hope. But in the face of this hysteria, I don't know if I believe that myself.
Slashdot Mirror
It's four in the morning and I can't sleep. It's a week after the Columbine shootings, and for the first time since the incident, I'm crying.
It has nothing to do with the fact that this tragedy occurred in the city where I live. Even a week ago as I watched the events unfold on live TV, I felt no more affected by this school shooting than I had by any of the others around the country in recent years. Tragic, yes. Horrific, sure. Appalling, of course. But nothing about them touched me personally. Including this one. Until now.
A week ago my husband and I traded stories of our own high school years, the torment and the pain of being outcasts. I tentatively admitted my own fear for all those other misfit kids, wondering how much unwarranted suspicion would now be turned on them. I didn't dare say my opinion too loudly. I was afraid people would misunderstand. I thought I was alone in feeling this way.
I'm crying now because I see how mistaken I was. I've learned that I'm not at all alone, but that the loneliness and alienation of countless others like me are far greater than I could have imagined, and that the suspicion and persecution promise only to make it more so by cutting them off from one another.
My husband printed out the "geek profiling" column for me, and after reading it I knew I had to join this forum just to add my reply. I had been afraid no one would share my opinion. I now learn that in just one day, this article has received hundreds of responses, horror stories from young people whose rights and dignity are being stripped away because of the games they play and the clothes they wear. My heart is breaking. These children are *me.*
My thoughts go out to Becky and Lisa and Paul and Gavin and Larry and all the other old friends I've long since lost touch with. I wonder if they're thinking of our high school days too. Sometimes knowing we could depend on one another was the only thing that made life bearable for us. We never got into trouble, never even partied. The wildest thing we were likely to do was stay out late drinking coffee at an all-night restaurant. But whenever someone received a crank phone call or a threatening note (the worst offenses I recall ever happening then), suspicion was turned on us, never mind the evidence to the contrary. We heard the rumors, the laughing and jeering in the halls. We were called freaks, weirdos and witches. We sometimes jokingly referred to ourselves as the "lunatic fringe." No one ever called us killers.
I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. I feel so angry and so helpless. I want to scream and shake all these so-called authorities until they come to their senses and realize how badly they are hurting all these young people who hurt so much already. I want to reach out to these kids and let them know that some of us adults remember and understand what it's like to be feared, hated and falsely accused just for being different. I want to be able to tell them that there's a light at the end of the twisted tunnel that is high school - that there is more to life out there, and that there is hope. But in the face of this hysteria, I don't know if I believe that myself.
Katrin Luessenheide Salyers
Lakewood, Colorado