Something is just not right....

Ok. This is going to be a dangerous post. Its gonna be dangerous because I think I might offend someone - or a lot of someones - so just hang in there.

I think what happened at Virginia Tech last Monday is horrific. If you care for language as much as I do, you will note that it is not tragic. Well, it was tragic for the shooter... Something is tragic when you bring terrible-ness upon yourself. For example - a car accident is only tragic for the person who caused the accident (and it usually involves some irony, too) - not all the other people who died/were hurt.

Anyway - I digress.
I am honestly in a state of confusion about the reaction to Virginia Tech. I want to grieve with the people who have lost their friends, family, loved ones. I want to be sad and mourn. I want to hurt with other hurt people.
But I can't. I never can when crap like this happens. Why? Because I always feel like mourning in the United States is bastardized by people who are removed from the situation.
I feel like this nation is a nation of emotional rubberneckers - we all stand by and point and stare and look and want information and pretend we support but few of us get off our asses and fly ourselves to Blacksburg (did you even know that VT was in Blacksburg?! I didn't!) to actually help clean up the emotional aftermath.
Paul was reading the New York Times website this morning and they have an "interactive walk through the shooting" link where you can follow the path of the shootings.
PEOPLE, I'VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU...THIS IS NOT MOURNING.
THIS IS THE RAPE OF A MUGGING VICTIM.

I am deeply concerned when I see 20 people outside my office scrounging for information about what happened with an air of "I'm training to be a psychologist... I must discuss with all my friends why such a thing has occurred", I am torn when my boss asks me to put CNN on the campus network for the school to watch the same footage over and over again, I am offended when I hear people tsk-tsk-ing about VT, and not once thinking about the reality that 80 people were killed in Iraq yesterday - or the thousands of Americans who died Monday due to drug overdose, cancer, heart disease, fires, old age, more shootings, suicide.

I do not believe it is our place to "jump on the mourning bandwagon." I believe it is our place to actually mourn. To BE torn and shocked and angry. This looks more like silence than gossip. Right now, USA, we look like gossips.
How offensive we must seem to a devastated community when we come in with our TV cameras and our news reporters to "get the story" instead of help them through the story.
You know what this does? It turns young people into marketers of grief - it does not teach them how to cope with the reality of grief.

The same thing happened with 9/11, with Katrina, with Columbine. We stood back and made judgments about who, what, when, where and when we felt we had enough information, we collectively forgot about it. Of course, we didn't forget - we CAN'T forget... and we should not forget. But somehow to continue talking about it as a nationwide community seems passe - seems irrelevant - seems... well... dead.
Virginia Tech - forgive us. We have failed you by caring for you just long enough to get the goods and get out. Forgive us for mourning with fingers pointed and heads shaking.
Forgive us for not truly experiencing your grief, but watching it from afar.
Forgive us for not helping.
I am able to find peace with Virginia Tech through the English professors' poem. Virginia Tech will mourn. Sigh.
Now - can we mourn with them, rather than at them?

God... help us all.
Help.
Help VT.
Help.
Help VT's community.
Help.
Help.
Help!