Columbine High School -- the World Cries with You! -- Massacre at Littleton, Colorado!

A Painful Day in America: The world and everybody must be outraged about the killings at Columbine High School on Tuesday April 20, 1999 where two students entered the school and shot thirteen students to death before later taking their own lives. They were said to be members of the Trench Coat Mafia -- they hated athletes and minorities. America as a nation trembled to the core and many days after, even during the many funerals which followed, many people are still in shock! Some are asking the question, "why?" This tragedy created a painful wave across the nation becoming a popular topic on many of the radio and television talk shows.

On the Saturday which followed, it was the first time politicians put politics aside. President Clinton appealed to America to help the children overcome the power of the culture of violence we have created since we love violence as a form of entertainment. His appeal was echoed by Republican Governor, Bill Owens asking parents to look at what their kids placed in home pages on the internet.

Reality and Denial: A couple of years ago when a similar incident happened in one of the high schools, one foreign voice from overseas said, "America is a culture of violence and Americans love their guns more than they love their children." This statement attracted a lot of anger and criticism across the United States, yet the reality of the problems never seem to have attracted our attention. As a people we remain in denial! The Columbine High School tragedy was not a surprise.

The reality of these incidents including the Oklahoma Bombing where many federal employees lost their lives and the case in Wimberly, Texas where four  fourteen year old students were arrested a few days after the Columbine Massacre for plotting to  bomb and kill fellow students was very clear! But, it is hard for us as people to face reality. Guns do kill people and the National Riffle Association should be put out of business for life! This is the primary association which puts guns in the hands of children for them to kill themselves and other children because it is their damn right to bear arms! But people are too afraid to attack the NRA because they enshroud themselves with the Constitution of the United States with the right of people to be armed. If the fore-fathers believed this is the mess we would make of the constitution and this is how far we would over-stretch the constitution to create the merchants of death, this monstrous part of the Constitution should have been repealed long time ago. But we don't have enough guts to amend the constitution let alone ban hand guns -- consequently, our children continue to die and the National Riffle Association has a celebration with blood stained hands!

Blame Irresponsible Adults! Any sensible person knows that a child cannot just develop a behavior pattern without copying it from somebody. Adults are the irresponsible ones who created not only a culture of violence, but continue with their rhetoric of madness to fuel and engineer people against the government. Somebody lied to them years ago that government is our only source of problems. Consequently, talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh have done more damage to America by their rhetoric of divisiveness and intolerance being spread across the nation like wild fire. The same view was echoed by The St. Louis American of April 22, 1999 about, "Right Wing rhetoric lays path of destruction." When a man becomes a millionaire bashing the government of the United States, degrading and verbally assaulting the President because he becomes a platform to express people's anger against the government, America we are in serious trouble!

We have cultured our children that if they don't like something, they should yell scream, kick and shoot people down, and they will emerge as heroes! We the adults teach them that, "Don't get mad, get even." They see this all the time on the television as the way we as adults conduct ourselves! Because of the right to freedom of expression, we love to hate a particular group of people in order to boost our own egos. We have heard politicians using racism to promote their political agenda by saying, for example in their political advertisements, "You don't get the job because it is given to a minority," and America voted to put a person like this in office! While preaching their hate for minorities, they forgot or lost their minds and conscience to teach school children that there are some minorities who helped to build this nation with their sweat and blood and we refused to pay them or even their ancestors for the abuse we dished out. Yet we wonder why this group of people are not as patriotic as we expect.  America, we are in deep trouble and painful denial! The children who died in Columbine High School tragedy including the shooters are victims of adults irresponsible behavior! We gave the guns to our children to kill themselves and others!

There is a primary culprit we must never fail to address. Where are the forces of energy that sustained these kids anger over a period of time? Many kids were teased by their peers in school, they did not go around shooting people down. Even adults get angry and get over it in weeks if not in days. However, how did our children's anger become fueled for such a long time eventually lead to this tragedy at Columbine High School? Those of you who advocate opinions through the rhetoric of hate and violence as servant of the devil, the blood of these children are in your hands!

Adult Supervision of Children: Dealing with such a reality of adults being responsible for children is too difficult for us. Blaming the television and the internet is much easier! The reality is, adults are themselves emotionally and physically wiped out when they leave work. Even in a two parent home, the television raises the children. The WallStreet is booming at the expense of the hard work of  workers totally dying of stress on the job. Today's work place is very aversive towards the family, and our children are the ones paying the price. Everybody knows what downsizing has done to America's labor force -- two or three persons' job is now the responsibility of one person. Profit goes up! Our economy is strong! Money is more important than our children and the family continues to break down! With job stress going up, we pay with irritable bowel syndrome, depression, hypertension, gastric ulcer and finally our own children become the strangers living in the house and the high school shootings continue! Why are we surprised?

Where are adults to supervise the children, let alone get into their world and see other things influencing their behaviors? We are sorry because we are too busy making a living, the big houses and the cars are more important as symbols of both our professional and academic achievements. Who pays the price? Our children!

Political Conspiracy: For many years now, the violence in the inner cities were the work of unruly Black kids, society ignored them. The authorities implied that the drug problem is only the evils restricted only to the Black communities! When trouble got bigger in the inner cities, instead of finding what happened to our children, we created laws to put as many Black and minority offenders in jail. We don't want to deal with them and neither are we interested in their plight or what were the forces influencing their behavior. In 1999, there are more Black men in jail over drugs than are Blacks in colleges! Even the main media played a paramount role in defining Black Americans and minorities as criminals. Now, the same forces which were never understood in the inner cities are now affecting the White kids in the suburbs and we are now forced to find answers because the problems finally come home. Wake up America, we are in big trouble!

Worsening the matter are the so call extremists who have not only divided America with their political rhetoric of hate, but have fooled people that they are the servants of Christ with gun in one hand and Bible in another. Some of them use the church pulpit to preach their agenda of hate and divisiveness, and they call themselves the patriots of America because they fall in love with the fetus! Yet, when the fetus is born, he or she is allowed to commit suicide with gun! They deny the rights to those well developed fetuses walking around the face of the earth. Sadly many people embrace these hypocrites and self righteous people. And we are asking the question why the Columbine massacre occurred? May God have mercy on us!

Coming soon is the book MOLESTED by 'Yinka Vidal, published by Lara Publications. Part of this book has a chapter called, Children Don't Grow Like Trees. It is a helpful guide for parents to help them raise healthy kids.

America, let us show the world and our children that, we love our children more than we love our guns! Another Columbine massacre will never happen again! Let us be bold enough to end this culture of violence! God Bless America.

Columbine High School, Littleton Colorado, the world cries with you!

Editorial by Victor Vidal, OUTCRY Magazine