Tragedy Whoring of Virginia Tech

My heart goes out to those who had to endure Virginia Tech’s tragedy yesterday.

Since the shooter is a Korean immigrant I’ve been seeing a lot of news about this in the Korean press. South Korea is pretty shocked about this too. I don’t know how accurate their information is, but some South Korean press reports are saying that Cho Seung-Hui and his family immigrated to America when he was a pre-teen. He and his family are Resident Aliens.

The South Korean press are saying that he had an argument with his girlfriend in the dorm, when a dorm faculty member tried to break it up. Cho shot them both, then went across campus to shoot the rest of his victims. They don't say why there was a two hour delay between shootings. The rest of the details seem to follow those in the American press.


But it is the greedy reaction to this tragedy that is especially sickening to me. Everyone has an agenda that they are trying to fit Virginia Tech's tragedy into. Wall Street Journal columnist and radio talk show host Debbie Schlussel was quick to suggest that Muslims were to blame, and even if they weren't, “Muslim jihadists” would be taking notes. Ken Ham of the ever friendly “Answers in Genesis” says that he isn't blaming the teaching of Evolution for this tragedy, and then he immediately equates non-belief in a literal reading of Genesis with this sort of “death and violence.” And of course Fox News has allowed Jack Thompson 5 minutes on the Fox soapbox to preach about the evils of video games and violence – all without knowing if Cho ever played a video game more violent than Pong.

If I were to profile Cho Seung-Hui, I would think that his parents are affluent, professional and educated. I think that they doted on their kids, but sheltered them. I'll bet they were strict with their child or children too – requiring them to excel academically. Virginia Tech would probably be Cho's first real taste of independence, his first real test of interpersonal relationships, and his first academic environment where he didn't automatically excel. This is all conjecture of course, but what I'm saying is that I believe that Cho's motives will be shown to be complex – and related to the pressures he is under.

I think we'll find that Cho Seung-Hui shares more in common with Charles Joseph Whitman than with Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold.

Of course I could be completely wrong. I'm not a profiler – only a guesser. The difference between my guesses and those of Schlussel, Ham or Thompson is that I don't have an agenda to push. I have no interest in picking over Cho's bones in order to promote anything.

But others do, and I think we will soon see a lot of other talking heads and various leaders who try to connect Cho to their own agendas. For those few Christians that read my blog, I would suggest that you walk out on your pastor as soon as he uses the Virgina Tech shootings to justify Christianity in any way. How could you continue to sit in the pew while the pastor whores out this tragedy?

In this time of grief and pain, I wish the families and students of Virginia Tech the courage and strength to get them through this. My thoughts are with you.