Yes, there are many problems in society today.  I think one of the worst is the
way society ignores what it doesn’t want to see.  Case in point:

  	 The Columbine shootings.  Two young boys planned a mass scale
massacre, and no one noticed.  They planned for weeks, they made video
tapes, they made bombs.  They threatened people.  No one noticed.  They
were two very disturbed young boys, and everyone knew they had problems. 
No one did anything.
	Society has a problem with turning its head.  There are cases where
women are raped and murdered in front of fourty people.  No one does
anything.  Don’t you think someone should?  As a teen, I walk down the halls
of my school and see what every other teen sees.  All those kids, so much
more perfect than I’ll ever be. I also see other things.  I see the ignored kids
slinking by their lockers, pretending not to be eyeing the preps in envy, I see
the bullies pushing around that puny kid over there by the pop machines, and
no, I don’t do anything.
	This phenomenon worries me.  What can we ignore?  I visit many chat
rooms, and message boards.  The other day, there was a discussion of
Columbine.  One person says: “They were fucked up, who cares?  Let’s just
get over it!”   Yeah.......Right.   Let’s  just ignore the fact that something
drove two young boys to kill their classmates, let’s just ignore the fact that
these boys were so miserable, in what is supposed to be the best years of
their lives, that they went on a killing spree that “shocked the nation”.  Was
our great nation so shocked?  Sure, we cried, we wore ribbons, we hung
wreaths, but really..... what have we really done.  We’ve said, “oh, that’s so
sad, so sad”, but we haven’t opened our eyes enough to see that we, the
citizens of this country, have the ability to help and change our youth enough
to make a difference.  You and I, all by ourselves, can change the future.  I
don’t want to live in a world where people look in the other direction
anymore.  So tomorrow, maybe I’ll say hi to the kids I’ve always ignored,
and maybe I’ll stop the jocks from picking on the puny kid.  God knows,
we’ve got to do something soon