I understand that this happened back in 1999, but this, like many other events that are forgotten, should be remembered. Below is an article from The Stranger, a free weekly publication from Seattle, as well as comments on the article. This made me wonder a bit.... why didn't anyone else print what was on Eric Harris' suicide note?
"I'm going to say a few words here...
"I am like the man who wrote this, maybe not horrible tortures but I was picked on and physically beaten on through middle school and even during my first two years of high school (which I am now in the second year of) but I have had those images traveling through my mind...
"Concerning further stigmatizing the already miserable students, it has turned into a witch hunt - the kids who bear the pain to be different are cursed by the administration. They are suspended for rumors, they behave no differently and are suddenly being punished amidst the paranoia.
"I wish it was true that other students would fear the different ones of us, but it doesn't look as though that will be the case.
"Also, once a kid has been different, he can't go back - he will be ostracized and criticized and mocked just the same.
"I have had people more than once ask me what I thought of the shooting and I have said 'I'm not saying they should have done it, but I understand' and
they'll say 'I think it's sick' and I reply with "what they did is sick, but what is worse is that someone could push a person that far with cruelty.'
"Read on..... This mans perspective is truth."
-unknown
"The guy who wrote what you are about to read (about the Columbine H.S. massacre) makes a very good point. Cliques create a negative atmosphere for the youth of the nation to grow and learn. And negativity breeds more negativity. I think everyone's lucky that I decided to take the excess negative energy that I recieved from so many peers in elementary and high
school, and turn it into positive energy that I used to help others and make friends instead of hurt others and destroy. When I was young I was teased all the time, but I promised myself to make sure that I would never treat others as I had been treated. I follow that 'do unto others' principle of treating others as you would like to be treated. I knew people in high
school who were scrutinized and harassed in the fashion that those boys at Columbine were. At least nobody at my high school beat up these people (that
is, to my knowledge). I was lucky to go to the high school that I did, where freshmen didn't get thrown into dumpsters on a daily basis. I think that if everyone made the individual decision to actually
follow the 'do unto others' idea, the nation would be a better place. And if we all made efforts to make friends with the loner sitting in the corner of the room instead of teasing him or her, then there would no longer be a reason for them to hate."
-Lara
"I thought this was a poignant persepctive on the killings that took place at Columbine High School. I certainly relate to it."
- Jeffrey
The Stranger (Seattle free weekly), May 6-12, 1999
1122 East Pike St., Suite 1225, Seattle, WA 98122
(E-mail: postmaster@thestranger.com)(http://www.thestranger.com)
FEAR THE GEEK: Littleton's Silver Lining
by Dan Savage
The tenth or eleventh time DanCBS/PeterABC/TomNBC told me the massacre in Littleton, Colorado was especially horrific because
it happened in a high school, "somewhere children feel safe," I started screaming at the television. What high school were they talking about?
I went to three, and in none of my high schools did I for a moment feel safe. High school was terrifying, and it was the casual cruelty of the popular kids, the jocks and the princesses that made it hell.
"Once upon a time," People wrote in a manipulative and dishonest cover story, "the most that kids had to worry about at school was a looming test or a deadline for a paper." What fairy-tale time was that, exactly? In high school, I had much more to worry about than tests and papers. Like most students, I lived in fear of the small slights and public humiliations used to reinforce the rigid high school caste system: poor girls were sluts, soft boys were fags. And at each of my schools, there were students
who lived in daily fear of physical violence.
There was a boy named Marty at my second school, Saint Gregory the Great, who was beaten up daily for four years. Jocks would rip his clothes knowing his parents couldn't afford to buy him a new uniform, and he would piss his pants rather than risk being caught alone in the bathroom. He couldn't walk the halls without being called a fag, and freshmen would beat him up to
impress the older kids. Teachers, presumably the caretakers in this so-called safe environment, knew what was going on; some even witnessed the abuse and did nothing to stop it.
Another kid I know was thrown through a plate-glass window by a jock when he was a sophomore. When his mother complained to the principal, she was told that if her son insisted on dressing the way he did like a new-waver he'd have to get used to being thrown through plate-glass windows.
A jock jumped another friend, beating the shit out of him and breaking his nose. My friend never threw a punch, but he was suspended for fighting along with the jock.
"The motivations of the two killers," People continued, "were hard to fathom." Actually, I had no problem fathoming Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's motives. While I didn't suffer the extreme abuse some of my friends did, I was fucked with enough to spend four years fantasizing about blowing up my high school and everyone in it. I can only imagine the scenarios that must have rolled through Marty's head on a daily basis. Watching SWAT teams inch their
way toward Columbine High, I wasn't shocked that something like this could happen in a high school. I was shocked that something like this hadn't happened at any of mine.
Klebold and Harris aren't heroes; they were hateful, twisted racists who, in addition to going after jocks, hunted down and murdered one of Columbine's six black students. But they didn't go guns blazing into a vacuum. Harris left a suicide note, discovered by police and reprinted in one of Denver's daily papers, The Rocky Mountain News. I haven't seen the note printed anywhere else, which strikes me as odd.
The note reads:
"By now, it's over. If you are reading this, my mission is complete.... Your children who have ridiculed me, who have chosen not to accept me, who have treated me like I am not worth their time are dead. THEY ARE FUCKING DEAD.... Surely you will try to blame it on the clothes I wear, the music I listen to, or the way I choose to present myself, but no. Do not hide behind my choices. You need to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES.The power cliques that rule American high schools are every bit as murderous as Harris and Klebold, only their damage is done in slow motion, over a period of many years, and fails to draw the attention of parents or teachers let alone news anchors, SWAT teams, and presidents. How many kids ostracized, humiliated, and assaulted in American high schools, like the survivors of Columbine High, are left scarred for life? How many commit suicide every year?
"Parents and teachers, you fucked up. You have taught these kids to not accept what is different. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. I have taken their lives and my own but it was your doing. Teachers, parents, LET THIS MASSACRE BE ON YOUR SHOULDERS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE."
If you think that this perspective of the massacre is totally wrong and should not have been voiced at all, just click here and it'll all go away.
