May 19, 2007
Don't let them die in vain
I seem to recall that when the shooting happened at Virginia Tech, people all over the news were labelling it as one of the worst massacres in American History. It falls at the top of a particularly infuriating list provided by MSNBC1 .
That label struck me as more than odd and it recently occurred to me why I was so perplexed...and angered by it: Off the top of my head, I can think of three other massacres in American History that were just as bad (dare I say it...worse) than the shooting at VATech.
1) December 29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre2, in which approximately 300 Lakota Sioux were killed, most of them women and children, while casualties among the 500 soldiers of the 7th cavalry numbered 25 dead, 39 wounded. The Lakota were unarmed and surrounded by U.S. soldiers armed with four Hotchkiss guns. It was preluded in February 1890 by the US Government breaking a Lakota treaty.
2) November 29, 1864: Sand Creek Massacre3, when Colorado Territory militia attacked a camp of Arapaho and Cheyenne. They were camping on the eastern plains, forty miles away from Fort Lyon, where their cheif, Black Kettle, had declared peace with the government. Colonel Chivington, with 800 troops of the 1st and 3rd Colorado Cavalry and the First New Mexico Volunteers marched to the campsite and fired on the 800 unarmed Indians, despite the white flag and American flag that were flying over Black Kettle's lodge. Among the troops, 15 were killed and 50 injured; among the Cheyenne and Arapaho, nearly 200 killed, about 150 of them women or children, and most of the dead were mutilated and their body parts displayed in local theatres.
3) January 29th, 1863: Bear River Massacre4, when Col. Patrick E. Connor lead 200 infantry and cavalry volunteers against 500 Shoshone Indians and their chief Bear Hunter. 27 soldiers died and 40 were wounded, while the Shoshone death toll ranged from 200-400.
I hope you are no ticing a pattern here. Do I even need to go into the Trail of Tears?
To quote fellow patriot, writer and History buff, Sarah Vowell,
"...Analogies give order to the world, and solidarity. Pointing out how one person is like another is reassuring, less lonely. Maybe those who would compare their inconveniences to the epic struggles of History are just looking for company. And who wouldn't want to be in the company of Rosa Parks? On the other hand, perhaps people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks are simply arrogant, pampered nincompoops with delusions of grandeur who couldn't tell the difference between a paper cut and a decapitation."
I know that the media's claim that the Virginia Tech shooting as the "deadliest massacre in US History" is not necessarily an analogy, and some of the sources I looked up did make the distinctinon of modern US History. Hyperbole is probably a more fitting term. But the label remains, and the anger at the label still simmers in me. Have we become a country that forgets its own History for the sake of journalism? I am glad to see that others were sparked to speak up about this5.
At the end of the semester, one of my professors called me, affectionately, an iconoclast. I guess he's right. While I do mourn that this tragedy happened, I must admit that part of me was thinking, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes." Death is an unfortunate but inevitable part of life, and sometimes it's a waste of time to mourn death. And before you scoldingly and patriotically and understandably ask me, please know that I do support Virginia Tech. I'm not saying that we shouldn't mourn this tragedy, because it is indeed a tragedy when people who have every right to live are forced to die in very unnatural and unnecesary ways. I find it especially tragic that one of the victims, a professor, was a Holocaust survivor. A lot could have been done to prevent the shooting on the part of Seung-Hui Cho and those close to him...a lot more, it seems, than was done.
I'm mostly trying to say that those in the media should consider more carefully the consequences of their words before making labels, and we in the general public should consider more carefully the meanings of the words that media like news will use to keep our attention.
Massacre: noun, the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.
But I'm also trying to say that, under whatever Vonnegut hardened "So it goes" exterior I feel that I have, I can't escape the inner passion for living that I also have and the compassion that I feel for those whose lives and passions are threatened or taken from them, because as different as they are, Wounded Knee and Virginia Tech both affect me the similarly. Because it's your job and it's my job to make sure that they didn't die in vain.
Sources
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I seem to recall that when the shooting happened at Virginia Tech, people all over the news were labelling it as one of the worst massacres in American History. It falls at the top of a particularly infuriating list provided by MSNBC1 .
That label struck me as more than odd and it recently occurred to me why I was so perplexed...and angered by it: Off the top of my head, I can think of three other massacres in American History that were just as bad (dare I say it...worse) than the shooting at VATech.
1) December 29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre2, in which approximately 300 Lakota Sioux were killed, most of them women and children, while casualties among the 500 soldiers of the 7th cavalry numbered 25 dead, 39 wounded. The Lakota were unarmed and surrounded by U.S. soldiers armed with four Hotchkiss guns. It was preluded in February 1890 by the US Government breaking a Lakota treaty.
2) November 29, 1864: Sand Creek Massacre3, when Colorado Territory militia attacked a camp of Arapaho and Cheyenne. They were camping on the eastern plains, forty miles away from Fort Lyon, where their cheif, Black Kettle, had declared peace with the government. Colonel Chivington, with 800 troops of the 1st and 3rd Colorado Cavalry and the First New Mexico Volunteers marched to the campsite and fired on the 800 unarmed Indians, despite the white flag and American flag that were flying over Black Kettle's lodge. Among the troops, 15 were killed and 50 injured; among the Cheyenne and Arapaho, nearly 200 killed, about 150 of them women or children, and most of the dead were mutilated and their body parts displayed in local theatres.
3) January 29th, 1863: Bear River Massacre4, when Col. Patrick E. Connor lead 200 infantry and cavalry volunteers against 500 Shoshone Indians and their chief Bear Hunter. 27 soldiers died and 40 were wounded, while the Shoshone death toll ranged from 200-400.
I hope you are no ticing a pattern here. Do I even need to go into the Trail of Tears?
To quote fellow patriot, writer and History buff, Sarah Vowell,
"...Analogies give order to the world, and solidarity. Pointing out how one person is like another is reassuring, less lonely. Maybe those who would compare their inconveniences to the epic struggles of History are just looking for company. And who wouldn't want to be in the company of Rosa Parks? On the other hand, perhaps people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks are simply arrogant, pampered nincompoops with delusions of grandeur who couldn't tell the difference between a paper cut and a decapitation."
I know that the media's claim that the Virginia Tech shooting as the "deadliest massacre in US History" is not necessarily an analogy, and some of the sources I looked up did make the distinctinon of modern US History. Hyperbole is probably a more fitting term. But the label remains, and the anger at the label still simmers in me. Have we become a country that forgets its own History for the sake of journalism? I am glad to see that others were sparked to speak up about this5.
At the end of the semester, one of my professors called me, affectionately, an iconoclast. I guess he's right. While I do mourn that this tragedy happened, I must admit that part of me was thinking, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes." Death is an unfortunate but inevitable part of life, and sometimes it's a waste of time to mourn death. And before you scoldingly and patriotically and understandably ask me, please know that I do support Virginia Tech. I'm not saying that we shouldn't mourn this tragedy, because it is indeed a tragedy when people who have every right to live are forced to die in very unnatural and unnecesary ways. I find it especially tragic that one of the victims, a professor, was a Holocaust survivor. A lot could have been done to prevent the shooting on the part of Seung-Hui Cho and those close to him...a lot more, it seems, than was done.
I'm mostly trying to say that those in the media should consider more carefully the consequences of their words before making labels, and we in the general public should consider more carefully the meanings of the words that media like news will use to keep our attention.
Massacre: noun, the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.
But I'm also trying to say that, under whatever Vonnegut hardened "So it goes" exterior I feel that I have, I can't escape the inner passion for living that I also have and the compassion that I feel for those whose lives and passions are threatened or taken from them, because as different as they are, Wounded Knee and Virginia Tech both affect me the similarly. Because it's your job and it's my job to make sure that they didn't die in vain.
Sources
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18140540/
- http://www.hanksville.org/daniel/lakota/Wounded_Knee.html
- http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/sandcreek.htm
- http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/bearriver.htm
- http://mostlywater.org/the_worst_shooting_rampage_in_american_history_a_native_perspective_on_virginia_tech
Posted in Wax on, wax off byMidnightsBrokenToe at
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Posted by: MidnightsBrokenToe at
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