(Issue 1): I refer to the Straits Times report on Saturday 21st April which reported two cases of copy-cat shooters who sent death threats to two schools in the U.S. This prompted mass hysteria as more than 22,000 students were affected where either many classes were cancelled, or orders given for teachers to lock the classrooms, while the police searched for the shooter on campus.
It seems it is a bad judgment call for the media to broadcast the videos and pictures of the Virginia Tech campus killer. Subsequently, it glorified the killer and will only lead to more copy-cat fanatics who seek to create similar sensation; in hope of being glorified as well.
The fallout from this publicity frenzy is that it elevated the hatred for the South Korean community in the U.S and created the stereotype that all South Korean youths studying in the U.S are potential killers. It also created an immense amount of guilt for the South Korean students studying in Virginia Tech; so guilty that they were absent from the memorial services held in Virginia Tech.
I canÂ’t make the judgment call if the media is right in publishing the pictures and videos. The media has a social responsibility to account the truth to the public and through the pictures and videos, the media is thus able to portray the truth, the inevitable truth that this Korean Student killer could have been subjected to severe bullying and discrimination; which accumulated over the years until boiling point when he simply broke loose.
(Issue 2): This is a tragedy in a holistic sense for all parties are victims in this decadent world. The 32 people were killed due to lax gun controls; the killer became what he was due to the immense bullying and discrimination piled on him. Could this incident have been averted if the killer was a white kid and not an Asian? Sure, we understand from the press that the faculty member has recommended him to see a counselor and that the killer rejected help. But if the killer has been a white kid, perhaps there would have been lesser degree of passiveness and maybe a bit more enthusiasm from the faculty or student community to encourage and rally him to see the counselor.
(Issue 3): Amidst all these tragedies, we see the heroic and positive human spirits at work, where we see Professor holding the door down, and taking in bullets to ensure their students can escape, or groups of students who courageously group together to hold off a door to prevent the killer from entering.
But it also raises another ethical question. Could the casualty rate be reduced if the entire class of students rose and fought against the killer? But herein lies the problem, everyone is afraid of death. Probably the first chap who initiated the attack on the killer may be killed, but, the latter ones who sprung on the killer would have been able to subdue the killer. So are you brave enough to be the person that will initiate the attack on the killer? Even I am also not sure if I can garner the courage to lead the attack on the killer. What if IÂ’m the only one who attacked the killer and nobody else budged?