While we usually reserve this space for campus or local issues, yesterday’s shootings at Virginia Tech have given us reason to pause.
We’ve got little information so far. We don’t know who and we don’t know why. What we do know is that yesterday morning, 32 students were killed. 32 individual lives, ended in their dorm rooms and in their classrooms. Students like us, on their campus, the place they call school and home.
Yesterday’s events are sure to have lasting implications for college students across the country. We are all old enough to remember the way Columbine changed our high school experiences. We are an opinionated community. Our own Wespeaks page is often filled with barbed attacks by and against students, student groups, or some greater community. Discourse is vital to what we do. But let’s not let the language of division, the quick polarizing so popular in this country right now, onto this campus.
Before these lives of those who were lost become symbols in a debate about gun control, or political campaigns, or any other number of issues that divide us, let’s stop and remember that these lives were not lived, or lost, to be causes. They were real people, united by common humanity, and their tragic deaths are an extreme example of what happens when someone ignores that basic fact.
On another note, last week, the University tested its new emergency broadcast system. We would like to thank Dean Mike Whaley and the others who took the initiative to prepare for what was unthinkable only a few days ago. We encourage the administration to talk to us, the student body, about the impact of this horrific event. We are all here together, after all.
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