Speech on School Violence
Today UT Student Government kindly sponsored a memorial for Virginia Tech and victims of school violence. Several people have asked me to put my speech up on the Blagotubes--so, here it is.



I would like to read a poem. Robert F. Kennedy recited it to announce another April tragedy—the assassination of Martin Luther King.

He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of the gods.
—Aeschylus, Agamemnon


We gather today in remembrance of all those affected by violence in schools.

How to handle such a painful occasion? Should I provide words of comfort or reassurance, to try—and fail—to take away the pain? Propose legislative changes to prevent future tragedy? Should I share wisdom gleaned from great loss? I thought I’d try to do a little of each.

I thought about possibly reading the names of all of the victims in the last year. But then I realized that the list was too long. “Too long?” someone asked me recently. “Thirty-two isn’t that many.”

Thirty-two isn’t that many.

How have we become so de-sensitized, that we begin to think thirty-two is a small number? On April 16th, when a roommate told me that there were twenty-two dead, I immediately started doing calculations in my head. Number of people at Virginia Tech, number of people I know—That’s...maybe one person I knew, now the victim of a bullet.

I never anticipated that “maybe one person” was actually more people than I can count on one hand. I never anticipated that one of those would be a girl I’d started dating only six months earlier—Max, the girl I loved, a girl I will always love.

I remember that day with perfect clarity. We scrambled to locate friends in a world we suddenly didn’t recognize, communicating through instant messages and Facebook because the phone lines were clogged. When we could not find them, we still did not give up hope. We waited all day long for word of our friends, staring at the computer screen, hitting refresh, refresh, refresh. Even when the phone call finally came, we didn’t give up hope that maybe this was all a mistake.
Maybe we were dreaming, maybe they’d misidentified someone.

So I suppose that should make me unlucky, that I knew several of the victims.

Those of us who knew them don’t think of ourselves as unlucky for having known them, though. Would it have been easier if we hadn’t known any of them? Certainly—ignorance is bliss. But 'easy' and 'lucky' are two very different things.
I count myself very lucky to have known each of them—wonderful, amazing people who continue to inspire me. People that you all—sadly—will never have the opportunity to meet.

We were lucky to have known Stack, the only person named both Steve and Jack, the kind of guy who spent his spring break helping in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the kind of RA who ran toward the sound of gunshots instead of away.

We were fortunate to have known Brian, the first person I met upon moving in freshman year—one of the nicest, most good-hearted people I’ve ever known.

I would have been unlucky if Max had never told me about Jamie Bishop, what a wonderful person and teacher he was, how much everyone loved his class.

Maybe it would have been easier if I’d never had the privilege of teaching martial arts to Reema, a girl who managed straight As while also practicing dance three hours a night (in addition to karate), a girl who was smiling brightly every time I saw her.

Maybe today wouldn’t be so hard if I had never known Leslie, who—once she graduated, or maybe before—planned to change the world.

I would trade nothing for my memories of these people. We at Virginia Tech were lucky to have known them, and we are all unlucky because the world is a darker place without them.

What do we say for them, for their luck? How do we make it better that most of those killed at Virginia Tech never got to have kids, or experience growing old, that those who had already grown up won’t be able to see their kids graduate? They were worse than unlucky.

And there’s more. Thirty-two. This is the number the news gives us over and over again, whenever the Virginia Tech shooting is mentioned. It’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Over fifty people were shot in West AJ and Norris on April 16th last year. I say over fifty because no one can even get an accurate count—it’s that many, that we now have to resort to estimation. And still, that number doesn’t adequately represent the people who emerged still physically healthy—not only my friend Erin who survived by pretending to be dead, but all the people in Norris the shooter didn’t get to, all the people for whom those other two hundred bullets were planned.

There are still more people to count. They are the families and friends of the victims; they are the teachers, the lovers, the dance partners, the work-out buddies, the fellow worshippers, the sorority sisters, the classmates. They are the first responders—the heroes that day, the police, the EMTs (many of whom were students, friends of the victims).

We still have to count the people with post-traumatic stress disorder, who dodge behind the closest object whenever a car backfires or a door slams.

When a school shooting occurs, there are many victims. I’ve heard of three suicides at Virginia Tech in the last year—that’s more than normal, if you couldn’t guess.

Substance abuse—binge drinking, a fact of life at state universities—spins out of control. I would wager that incidences of other types of school violence also increase, that people who feel like they have no control attempt to bring back that feeling of control by hurting others.

Then we have to count those other schools. I counted around ten school shootings in the last twelve months, including four in one week in February. At colleges alone there were four—Delaware State University, the University of Memphis, Louisiana Technical College, Northern Illinois University. That’s only the colleges. And what about incidents of sexual assault in schools? What about bullying, knives, hazings?

If nothing else, it is clear that violence of all kinds happens far too often. At best we can say it’s better here than in other parts of the world—but it’s also worse here than in some other parts of the world. To say it could be worse is a way of avoiding the problem, and we cannot afford to avoid this problem. We are America; we are Virginia Tech; we are the University of Texas. We can always strive for more, for better—it’s the American dream.

We cannot afford to avoid this problem. It’s far too easy to think of school violence as a thing that happens to other people. A friend of a friend of a friend.

These things happen to the person standing next to you. They may be afraid to tell you, afraid to burden you with that; the people who know the most about violence are often the ones who speak the softest.

The one person who never seems to get counted as a victim is the person we hold responsible for the crime. On one hand we give him all the attention he ever hoped to receive when he planned his rampage, dedicating countless news articles to his upbringing, his parents, his education, his final incoherent suicide note. Playing his tape on NBC.

And then we ask, how could this happen?

Eventually, someone, giving up after two whole weeks of thinking about it says, “Some people who are messed up in the head just do bad things, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.” This was my response two weeks after the Virginia Tech shooting—but I’ve spent almost a year thinking about it since then, and I have some suggestions. So does Erin, who survived by pretending to be dead. So does Colin, who was shot three times and still carries a bullet. So does Lily, who has to go in for reconstructive surgery on her jaw next month, having been shot in the face.

I’ve heard other people who are searching for meaning to this tragedy try to blame bullies, religion, culture, and a number of other things rather than the shooter.

It is important to hold people responsible for their actions. But you can be the person responsible and also be a victim. Rather than spending our energy hating him, I would ask, “What happened to the shy child? How did he become an angry monster?” We could ask a similar question of the University of Texas’s own shooter.

There is a common ingredient in all kinds of school violence—school shootings as well as sexual assault, bullying, stalking: the common ingredient is mental health.

If we break a bone, we see a doctor. The doctor does something to help it heal, and occasionally recommends strategies for avoiding future injury. We rarely feel judged for saying, “Oh, I’ve got a cold, so I’ve set up a doctor’s appointment.” It’s even okay to say, “I took a bullet in Iraq,” or “I’m dying of cancer.”

On the other hand, it’s much harder to say, “I’m depressed, grieving, or angry. I’ve set up an appointment with a psychologist.” We all experience these things, whether we acknowledge them or not, and I believe it’s our failure to acknowledge these problems that transforms them from treatable tumors to six weeks to live.

If we’re open about mental health issues, we cease to stigmatize those issues. That makes it just a little easier to seek help—even if help comes from friends rather than a professional. It’s safe to say, “I cut myself, do you have a bandaid?”

Imagine if someone could also feel safe saying, “I have a problem with cutting myself, could you help me find help?”

I have a friend who was turned away from the counseling office. “We have a three week waiting list,” the receptionist told her.

“It’s urgent,” she said.

“I can get you in for an appointment in three weeks,” replied the receptionist, “or you can speak to a police officer this afternoon.”

Now, imagine if you were unfortunate enough to catch meningitis—as opposed to being depressed—and the receptionist handled your complaint by sending you to a police officer.

You would probably say, “This is unacceptable. I demand to see a doctor.”

Of course, it’s absurd. In such a situation, you might expect health officials to take steps to treat those who might be infected, for their own good and the good of those who might become infected.

Yet mental health does not work this way. A student is declared a danger to himself, and is released and referred to counseling—which may not even be available. This is what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia; and the student in question went on to shoot fifty-one people. The counseling center never saw him.

Access to mental health services is of the highest priority. Nobody should be turned away because he or she cannot afford the appointment—remember, insurance doesn’t usually cover psychological counseling. And yet people are turned away every day.

This is a problem almost everywhere, not just at Virginia Tech—it is a problem of funding. Mental health is an American value, but it has not been given high enough priority by our leaders.

We’re here today because we believe that less violence is also an American value.

Eighty-three percent of gun owners are in favor of closing the gun show loophole. This loophole currently spares gun show vendors the headache of having to make sure the person to whom they’re selling a gun is not a terrorist, suicidal, or a felon.

The state-appointed bipartisan panel which investigated the Virginia Tech shooting recommended that this very loophole be closed. Eighty-three percent of gun owners support that.

There are those who argue that this loophole was not used by the shooter at Tech, that he used a different loophole, and therefore that it’s irrelevant. They would have us wait until someone comes along and shoots thirty-two more people, this time with a gun purchased at a gun show, without a background check.

Background checks save lives. Lobbyists in Washington have won out over the American public for years—they’ve got us convinced that background checks are politically controversial. We’re so convinced, in fact, that we don’t call our politicians and ask them why they’re listening to the lobbyists over the objections of eighty-three percent of Americans. Compromise is important—but equally important is action.

This applies to us here on college campuses, too. Some of the same lobbyists who think background checks are a bad idea are also arguing that we should just let the good guys shoot it out with the bad guys. They have convinced the Texas legislature that maybe concealed carry is a good idea on college campuses.

I saw the shooter on campus before the shooting ever happened. I recognized his picture when it showed up on the news in the days after. But never once did I see him beforehand and wonder if he was a “bad guy.” I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me until he’d shot me, frankly, and by then—well, a concealed gun would be useless. I don’t see how it would have saved Maxine, either, who I’m told was facing away from the door in her German class, and apparently engrossed in conversation (in German) about her plans for summer. She didn’t even see the person who pulled the trigger.

I think most of us have been to a party, as college students, and seen someone act irrationally while intoxicated. No one argues that drunk driving is not a problem. Is it really fair to say, then, that college students would be safer with more guns around?

So how do we make ourselves safer from school violence? If a young woman cannot protect herself from sexual assault with a firearm, what can she do? I can’t answer this question, except to point out that most sexual assault is by an acquaintance, who might not be perceived as a Bad Guy. In fact, statistics show that the single greatest threat to a woman’s life is her own partner—her husband or boyfriend.

Now, having talked about mental health and guns, I want to tell you about hope.

I spent a long time asking myself how we differ from the people who commit heinous acts. What is it that makes them become bad? What is it that prevents us from becoming like them?

I believe the answer to this lies in two words: hope and fear. They’re two sides of the same coin. It’s normal to be scared from time to time, but when we give in to our fear and lose hope, everything changes. Going to class wearing body armor or with a gun—this is not how things should be, not in our America. That is how we become slaves to our fear.

As for hope, school shooters, suicide bombers, even people who sexually assault others—they are people who have lost hope. Their experience is a loss of control over their lives, so they do one last thing to try to change that.

Hope makes you and me different from the student at Northern Illinois University who killed five innocent people and wounded many others before taking his own life.

I have hope that even if we can’t prevent every such incident, we can drastically limit their occurrence. I have hope that no one else will not have to go through what I’ve been through, or what the survivors and families of the victims have had to endure. They all have hope, too.

I was asked to stand up here and tell my story, about being a Virginia Tech student, about what happened last April. I’ve asked for a great deal from you all, and you’ve been very patient. I have one more thing to ask.

I said earlier that thirty-two names are a lot to read. Thirty-two biographies are even more—too much, I think, to ask you all to listen to, and too painful for me. I would ask that each of you go to the Virginia Tech website and read some of the biographies there. Get to know some of those thirty-two people. Call someone in Washington—a senator or representative. Tell them how you feel, even if you disagree with some of the things I've said. Be a voice for someone whose voice has been stolen by violence.

Thank you.



This has been only minimally edited. Odd paragraph breaks are generally pauses, and some punctuation is not grammatically correct but works in spoken English. (Yes, I'm still obsessed with grammar, even after everything.)

Finally, I've used bold and italic text to indicate different kinds of emphasis (bold to indicate isolation by pausing, italic just for emphasis).


References
Public opinion statistics come from a study by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group trying to prevent the flow of illegal firearms into their cities. The sample size was 800, the study is from the beginning of this month, and has a margin of error of 3.5% (at the 95% confidence level). The study and press release are available at: http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/media-center/pr006-08.shtml

I'd also like to amend one small detail. The people in favor of concealed carry on campus are not necessarily opposed to background checks. It was not correct for me to link those two, as I have no data on it--and actually, I can think of at least one counterexample off the top of my head.


Media Coverage
keyetv-42
News 8 Austin
The Daily Texan

Fox-7 asked to interview me and disappeared. I was a little disappointed keyetv didn't mention concealed carry on campus in its article. Neither keyetv nor News 8 mentioned background checks in the articles or in the videos.

My adviser tells me she actually saw me on Fox, but I can't find the video on their website anywhere. Very strange.