Touching Home Base

The phone rings at 12:35 am last night (okay, technically early this morning). The hubby has long since gone to bed but being the insomniac/bibliophile I am, I am still up, engrossed in A. M. Holmes's latest book, “The Mistress’s Daughter,” a memoir about her experience in getting to know her biological parents (I literally can not put it down). It’s not unheard of for the phone to ring at this late hour around here; my husband does get emergency calls in his line of work, but the ring is shrill and jarring nonetheless.

“Wow, we haven’t heard from our Freshman recently. I guess he hasn't run out of money,” my husband had remarked earlier in the evening. “Shh, don’t even go there,” I say. (I’m the superstitious parent.)

Sure enough, it was him. And because the modus operandi in our family is “No news is good news,” our son rarely calls home. So when he does, my greeting is invariably some version of “Oh my God, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Nothing and everything was wrong. Turns out my son was just fine, though shaken; he had just come back from a candlelight vigil. “You heard about the terrible things that happened this morning?” he asked. “It’s been awhile since we talked so I just wanted to touch base with you guys.”

Like all people everywhere, with kids or not, I am still reeling from the unbearable tragedy that unfolded yesterday on a seemingly bucolic campus in Virginia. But as the mother of a first-year college student ensconced on a similar picture postcard campus, I am fixated on what these students’ parents must be going through. You pack up your child for this next step in the journey of becoming an independent young man or woman. You make sure he has the right jacket (warm enough but not dorky-looking), alarm clock (loud enough but with all the latest cool features), and desk lamp (bright enough but not likely to burn the dorm down), and then you worry about whether he’ll actually use them. You worry about whether he’ll be able to balance writing papers with partying. You worry about whether he’ll make the right decisions. But what you don’t think to worry about is his being gunned down by a fellow student.

My heart goes out to the victims, their families, and their friends, but especially to the parents. I know they’d do anything to receive a late night call from their children – even one just asking for a little extra cash.

Comments

It seems that the Virginia Tech massacre began with the gunman killing his girlfriend. Isn't this what is called for in gansta rap....shoot the ho...kill the police?

We have to realize that words are weapons...and can lead to the use of deadlier weapons.

The rhythmic mantra of slap, shoot, kill...what are we thinking to allow this deadly decay in standards on our air waves?

During the Imus issue, excuses were made...for him and for the Hip Hop industry. In the name of free speech, artistic expression, comedy, entertainment..this filth is being excused!

How many of us even know what lyrics are feeding the minds of our kids through their ipods?

How many of us have seriously thought about the effect of a steady stream of this language into the minds of troubled kids or kids who can become troubled?

How many of us, in our quest for youth, are trying to live through our kids...to the extent that we accept whatever is labeled as popular culture?

This world needs more responsible adults.

My heart goes out to everyone touched by this horrible tragedy, but I have to say to Beth: Wow...that's one hell of a leap. With basically zero information, why is rap music the first thing you jump to as a culprit? We barely know anything about the gunman. Why assume he was a fan of violent popular culture? In the age of the Internet, all kinds of people will have access to every kind of information. Controlling the "air waves" is not just a counterproductive idea, it's impossible. Instead, I think we should focus on making sure everyone has a mentally healthy mindset that is able to process all that information in a positive way.

I know it's easy to try and reach for blame as a way to cope. But why not target the blame to something a little more concrete, for example, Virginia's lax gun-control laws.

My heart goes out to all those who have lost someone in the massacre. Its so hard to think someone could just just go and shoot innocent people. I go to a small college and to me it seems it can happen anywhere and that is one thing that scares me when I get in my car and drive to class,like I did this morning.

A hell of a leap to say that lyrics influence? The shootings at Columbine were linked to lyrics. Cho Seung Hui's companion was his ipod.

Yes, guns are an ingredient in this recipe for tragedy. If both guns and lyrics contribute to inspiring unbalanced individuals to kill, why advocate restricting only guns? Lyrics can lead a killer to knives.

The women of Spelman college are among women's groups working to clean up the "air waves". Those who are the most likely to feel the ramifications of certain lyrics are qualified to speak to the harm they cause.

Those who live in protected enclaves often don't see the aftermath of rap inspired action. To them...listening to gansta rap is like a trip to the edge...from which they return to the safety of sheets with high thread counts.

They don't live where sheets are frequently bloody, where the rap beat blares as the beatings begin...where women are called hos and treated accordingly.

It is counterproductive to assume that all respond to lyrics as you do.

This is a time when we should all be pulling together and not getting into finger pointing about blame. The kid who murdered all these people was a deeply troubled human being. Warning signs were there, he had easy access to guns, the campus security initially misunderstood the level of threat - there's plenty of culpability to spread around.

Let's focus on how we can make our campuses safer and also how we can support the the victims' family and friends, as well as frightened college students, families and faculty all over the country. Step one - a little bit of kindness all around.

There are a million factors that would cause a troubled person to snap--I just don't see the value of zeroing in on music as the primary reason. (And, from what I've read, Seung-hui Cho listened not to "gangsta rap," but mid-90s alternative music, epecially the song "Shine" which actually has pretty positive lyrics.) What would you be saying if that iPod was full ofo Bach and Beethoven? Charles Manson listened to the Beatles--should they be banned?

Just be careful of confusing correlation with causation. Did violence in popular culture cause these unbalanced people to do terrible things, or were they drawn to violent media because of the anger that was already in their hearts? It's something I can't begin to answer. And, since I can't, I would say the only response to horrible tragedies such as these would be more communication--not less.

Once again our media has failed us.

Instead of showing sensitivity and not continually showing the dreadful pictures of this massacre on TV and on other forms of media -- just think of the families of the slain students -- they have taken charge of the situation by trying to sell as much as they can to make money off of this tragedy.

But IMUS was "much too dangerous" to be allowed to continue his radio show -- he was fired by the same networks which are allowing these horrific pictures to be shown on all of our major networks for our college students, high schoolers, grade school children, and little ones to see. And, sorry, everyone, most of us cannot monitor every single thing our children watch, hear, and see on the media.

I like his voice is very very stgger .