Victims & Villains

I've been seeing a lot of memes about bullying popping up since the Parkland shooting. One even suggests that instead of protesting the lack of reform, students should walk back to school and befriend the kids they've been bullying. I'm really tired of explaining that the stereotype about school shooters being sad, misunderstood victims of bullying is almost entirely a fabrication of the outraged public attempting to make sense out of nonsense.

I was just 8 years old at the time of the Columbine shooting. I remember hearing that the perpetrators were spooky, trenchoat-sporting loners who brought guns to their high school seeking revenge on jocks and bullies. It wasn't until I was in high school myself that the famous book by Dave Cullen was published. I picked up a copy as soon as it hit the shelves and read it cover to cover, putting in most of my reading time in the hallways during school hours. I got the hardcover and kept the paper sleeve on the whole time, so onlookers would know exactly what I was reading about. I was a kid who liked to push buttons and boundaries, not much has changed in that regard.

I can't say I was expecting to have the rumors validated, as I had also heard people were blaming Marilyn Manson and violent video games for the shootings, which was so obviously ridiculous. As a Manson fan and macabre enthusiast, I wanted the real story, and Dave Cullen's comprehensive exposé of the Columbine killers did not disappoint. Eric Harris wasn't anyone's victim, and Dylan Klebold was mostly his own. His depression and deep sense of self-loathing led to his bond with Eric, who was looking for a submissive partner he could control and direct, like the weapons he used to savagely murder his classmates.

We have a tendency to point the finger at bullies and music and movies and games when a school shooting occurs. We'll blame anyone but the shooter for his actions. Why? Because America can't fathom a world where their precious White Princes grow up to be killers. When a white girl goes missing, it hits national news almost immediately, every time. The nation is transfixed by her pale skin, her blue eyes and blonde hair. Even if it gets out that she sold meth or sucked dick to pay her student loans, it's unlikely that America will abandon her or write her off as a lost cause, deserving of whatever mysterious, grisly fate she might have met at the hands of those who dwell behind dumpsters in dark alleys.

We give white kids the benefit of the doubt, which should be a basic human right, but isn't, not in America. A white boy can shoot up a school and people will look for reasons to make him a victim, while a black boy can't smoke weed without being condemned by the public and pronunced worthy of being shot down by a skittish police officer. A white girl can go missing and the whole country will know her name. Hundreds of children of color go missing everyday and none of us know their names or that they even exist. Why do we think these things are okay? When will all lives truly matter? When will everyone get the benefit of the doubt?