Eyes Wide Open and With Tears

Eyes Wide Open and With Tears
I have been struggling with something since the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, besides the obvious sadness and frustration that most of us experienced. Before I go any further, I want to clarify that I think this whole thing is beyond my comprehension of what this must be like for the students, faculty and families. My heart goes out to each one of them.

What I have been reflecting on is what makes national and presidential news and what does not. Clearly, this situation deserves the amount of attention that is being demonstrated. What seems interesting to me is that there seems to be a formula for who is kidnapped or killed and the amount of attention that occurs. The formula seems to be that you need to be White and at least middle class. Let’s take a quick look at the tragedies that have grabbed national or major regional attention in recent years.

Columbine. Truly a devastating situation. I remember at the time, how many media personnel spoke of the shock that this is happening in a suburban, White middle class community and how this impacted the response throughout the country. "It could happen to us in our community" they all said.

9/11. An even greater catastrophe. The attack hit right in the belly of our financial icon, the World Trade Center. Many were killed and injured, this includes all the rescue workers. I do not think I recall hearing one story about a custodian, housekeeper or any other low-income (predominantly people of color) workers that died. They were not the focus of the attention when the media shared the tragic stories of the attack, it was the businessmen/women (white, middle/upper class) and the shoppers (predominantly White, middle/upper class). Please do not hear insensitivity, I had a niece of mine who’s building across the street collapse while she was running out safely. Even if I did not have any personal connection, I would have felt the same pain and sadness that many of us experienced.

Waco, Texas. I realize this situation is unique but I wonder if we were talking about a house full of Black Southern Baptists, would the situation have been handled the same by law enforcement or media?

There are more Blacks and Latinos killed on a regular basis in NYC alone, than Virginia Tech and Columbine put together. If we include the other major urban areas like Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington D.C./Baltimore, Phoenix, Dallas, Detroit, etc.- the numbers become staggering. Why is this not a focus of national attention? Why does the president not visit the families of these communities that have their youth murdered in our inner cities?

2002:
Chicago- 647
LA- 600+
DC- 262
2007: NYC- on pace for 540

My gut feeling is that America likes to believe that the youth killed in "those" neighborhoods are somehow responsible for their own demise. "They" must be gangbangers, prostitutes, pimps or drug dealers. "They" are poor, Black, Latino and, therefore, "they" are not worthy of our overwhelming support and concern. In addition, we would have to actually admit THERE IS A PROBLEM!

Birmighham, AL, 2005: One Hundred and four dead.
San Bernandino, CA, Summer 2006: Lifeguards walk off duty because it is unsafe to be near a pool due to rash of youth murders at pools.

For reasons I do not understand, I have three separate times lived in communities where a White female became missing. The first was in Irvington, NJ, as a little boy, a White, low-middle class teenage girl named Lori Betz (sp?) was kidnapped from our garden apartment complex. This made major news, as it should. Later in my early twenties, a White, middle class young woman whose name I cannot recall, was kidnapped from my neighborhood. The third was in the late nineties when a White, middle class young woman was kidnapped in Bloomington, IN. In fact, I was living in the area that they believed she was kidnapped from, near the Hoosier National Forest.

The "fourth" was the college girl here in Madison, WI who was "missing". The quotation marks are because it ended up being a hoax and she was actually hiding just to draw media and police attention, of course, she was White and middle class and it cost over $275,000 in efforts to "rescue" her.

It is not that I think these women or their awful experiences, which in almost every case was raped and murdered, were not worthy of the attention and focus (except for the college girl here in Madison). It is that we never hear about this kind of attention when poor, Black or Latino women are missing. Again, my concern is not that the White, middle class women do get the attention and support of our nation. It is that the others do not. I am afraid to even write the question I am about to write but what if what happened at Virginia Tech happened at Grambling State University or Milwaukee Area Technical College?

Hartford, Conn., July 2006: Sixteen dead in five days.
Milwaukee, WI, July 2006: Twenty-eight dead over Memorial Day Weekend

All we have to do is look at how what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. How many of us saw the photos with captions below White males stating how they were getting food to help their families survive and the captions below the Black males spoke of looting. It was an awful display of how we view tragedy and despair within class and racial guidelines. Is it not time yet for us to mature as a country? Have we had enough of separation and oppression? When we will be ready to show the same respect and concern to all our brother and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers? I personally, cannot take it any longer! I ache when I think what it must feel like for the parents of youth that are murdered for no reason in our inner cities, while they watch the media and national concern for what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia. I can just imagine the questions that must go through their mind when they see this kind of response; "Why not my son or daughter? Why do they not matter? Why do they not matter too?" Can you imagine what that must feel like for even one second, if this was your child? Even one second?

State of Washington 2006: Nine in nine days.
Philadelphia, PA, 2006: Three killed and three wounded in a half hour.
Los Angeles, CA, November 2002: Thirty-five killed in one day.

Is this not worthy of our national concern?