Stunned yet Angry
As a victum of the Kneejerk Mafia (the clash of media hype which turned a small town school shooting into a national disaster equivalent to the explosion of an atomic weapon), I questioned how something in a place I've never heard about by two kids of my age of my interest in math, science, industrial music, the Internet, and movies, who had been taking medication similar to one of the suspects at the time, could possibly be seen as an agent of anarchy.
When I see this movie, the question that I asked on April 21, 1999, the day after the incident, echos in my mind. I asked my teacher and the class durring the class discussion of the terrible incident this simple question: "Who in their right mind would do something so horrible, so evil, so condisending that they would resort to this violence." My teacher replied "[girls name] said that you would do such a thing."
The trouble I had gone through because of my status in school, it was unbelievely stupid. I was ostricised. Singled out. My world felt as if it no longer was freeform and idealistic. People had become shaped by molds and cliques.
I lost everything but my academic status. I was "the unibomber" to the kids. Sometimes when I see things like this I just want to tell the world how stupid they are. They are so paranoid.
College came. No one I know came to this level. I assumed they all went to comunity college or got blue collar jobs. In alot of ways the ostricization kept me as a 16 year old teenager. I'm 22 now. Sometimes I wonder if I matured. Sometimes I wonder if I should mature.
I question what is to become of myself. I have changed, but the world has stayed the same.
I just don't know how to express myself about this film. I see it and I question myself "Was it worth going through all that shit the school put me through? Is someone proud that they destroyed whatever friendship that I had with other people? Are they proud that they destroyed whatever trust people had in me? What did they gain from all of this? Did they ever succeed in their witchhunt?"
The paranoia is still out there. The fear that children will become smarter than the adults. The fear that the students will rise against their classmates, proctors, friends, and family and act out their violence against others.
To you who live in fear, uncertainty, and doubt of the future all I have to say is this.
Boo.
There is nothing to fear except the fears we make for ourselves.