Thoughts: On Virginia Tech Shooting & Day Of Silence
The writing below is an extension and a neat revision of the original comment I wrote for a post by Vivien on InspirationBit called “Can Silence Say More Than A Thousand Words?” The article below may be a bit disorganized and too long for some people, for which I apologize. This exact article will be mailed to the family of those who died, including the family of the shooter, if I can find all their addresses.
Why am I talking about One Day Of Blog Silence?
I was talking on the phone with a friend when she mentioned the Blacksburg shooting. 33 people died, with 1 of them shooting the other 32. It was a shock; the same shock I felt when I read every week how homeless children are dying everyday because of hunger. It was a little bit less shocking than seeing bodies floating in the rivers after hurricanes, or seeing bodies scattered after an explosion. It was, regardless of the intensity, a shock, that someone else out there had mustered up some unknown thoughts and gone after other people. I thought of the people who died in the shooting, and I wondered why this shooter would kill all these people and then kill himself. I also wondered about the families of the victims, and the family of the shooter. What was the reason behind all of this?
Then Valerie told me that she noticed in her WordPress dashboard a link to a post by Lorelle that talked about the killings. She felt that it was strange that a dashboard (that was supposed to only talk about WordPress) was now linking to a post related to the Virginia Tech shootings. The post by Lorelle basically advocated a site called One Day Blog Silence, which wanted everyone to observe April 30th as a day to be silent in order to remember the people who died in that shooting recently. Valerie, as a response to the very site that advocated such a stand, posted “Silence is not the answer.” Later that day, I ran into an article by Vivien titled “Can Silence Say More Than A Thousand Words“, which prompted me to write out more on the topic.
Basically, Lorelle was telling everyone to observe a Day of Silence on April 30th. She was telling people to follow what the site, OneDayBlogSilence.com, was telling people to do: to be silent for one day in memory of those who died.
Take real action instead of being silent
In my view, if someone wants to do something, they should write letters of support to the people in Virginia, especially to the families of those who died. Can you imagine the pathetic stance many people are taking right now? Setting up that site, One Day of Blog Silence, sounds pathetic unless it is run by the relatives of those who died. What will such a site do? What can such a site do? Why not make sure the families feel better by writing them letters or going to visit them and showing them in person that you care?
Why is WordPress allowing personal posts to appear in the WP Dashboard?
Also, why would WordPress allow this personal opinion over the deaths of people to be posted on Planet Wordpress, which gets sent to hundreds of thousands of WordPress admin panels right away? Did we install WordPress to get WordPress news, or did we install the software to read personal opinions about life and death? Does this mean WordPress admins will promote any post by Lorelle to the millions of WordPress websites out there? Really? Are you telling me that anything that is emotional or related to death will be allowed to go into the admin because someone wrote it?
People will be having fun on One Day of Blog Silence
A day of silence? Can you imagine the number of people who are going to be having fun in the offline world while simply not posting in the online world? Why not write a letter yourself to the affected families? Why can’t we create a mentality where we can be happy everyday, and when we find out that anyone died, whether it was due to murder or due to hunger, we feel sad and immediately we resolve to do even more to help humanity if we want to. I can bet a bit that more than a 10 homeless people died today alone is almost every city we live in, yet that did not get broadcast in the news, and thus most people did not get hyper about those deaths.
I will tell you something: I can guarantee you that many posters, including the site linked above, have not even taken the trouble to find out the sexes, ages or even about the character of the people who died unless they came across the CNN article by accident. It is also surprising to see how most do not even talk about the injured people, or about the family of the shooter himself.
Blogosphere is not in deep mourning. Only people taking real action are in deep mourning.
Lorelle said the blogosphere is in deep mourning. I will say that’s not the case. Just because someone dies and I say “the world is sad today†does not mean it is. Almost every commentor to her post who has a blog, probably had lots of fun within an hour of reading that entry and expressing sorrow. Why? Because becoming hyper all of a sudden over a tragedy that is made public over the news does not mean we actually want to do something about the issue. It simply means that we can get emotional and feel ethical when the news wants us to. So I will say this:
“The Blogosphere is posting about it, but it is not in mourning. It is simply news for most online people.”
I get scared of the trends that get started because of the news. More than 500 homeless people died this very day in this country, and they were all innocent. Do we cry about them? No. Yet trends like “Silence Day” are started when the news gets wind of 33 deaths and wants to juice out as much information as possible before moving on to something new?
Is the art of appealing to emotion being used to manipulate us into observing One Day of Blog Silence?
Also, the 2nd post by Lorelle really shocked me. As a friend of mine said, the post used the tactic of appealing to emotion. Right after the first post supporting OneDayBlogSilence, the post that followed talked about the deaths in Israel. Is that post trying to bring out our emotions about the 6 million people who died at the hands of an evil dictator and connect it to Seung-hui Cho, the person who killed the 32 people at Virginia Tech, and the 32 people who died? Is that post comparing the Holocaust to the dead Virginia Tech students? The Holocaust post has nothing to do with what happened, so I have no idea why it would be connected and posted right next to the One Day of Blog Silence post.
I will mail letters ONLY to prove a point. I will then go live my life.
You know what I will do? I am going to start finding addresses of the people whose relatives died. If I cannot find those addresses, I am going to find different the Blacksburg city counsel addresses and different legal addresses for Virginia Tech.
On April 30th and any other “related†day that people are planning without any real thinking, I am going to go to the post office and mail some letters of support and this very post [previously a comment] to the families of those affected. I will also tell those families what I think, how I feel sad, and how I have already moved on my life, and how I would love for them to start living their lives also without forgetting their loved ones.
In the past, I have mailed some letters to people I knew and also people I found out about through other people, whenever I could. If it’s a media blaze like this, one of the reasons I must send letters is to not be a hypocrite and tell others “Silence day is stupid” and not do anything myself. I have counseled and done more for people with all sorts of issues before. Rape, kidnapping, negligence during childhood, and even people from war torn countries and thus people experiencing trauma due to seeing their own families murdered before them. They can choose to remain silent, fine, since they want to forget and move on. But if I want to react to such things, I cannot say “I have decided I am going to observe a day of silence.” I have seen people dying in front of my own eyes because of growing up in war ridden countries, and I have even seen dead bodies piling up less than 12 months ago. Does that mean anything I do is automatically justified? Does that mean I have the right to call for silence illogically simply because I have seen, heard, felt or experienced things?
One Day of Silence may work for you
Some people may like to be silent and that is fine, since they are at least not hurting other people directly. However, I don’t like the concept, as I have been hearing it in vain all my life. Besides, why would I want to follow a trend of being silent when everyday in our own cities hundreds of innocent people are dying due to various reasons? If you try telling me in person that you are sorry about my losses and that you will remain silent to show respect, I will make sure you hear what I have to say over such an idea. And what I have to say won’t be pleasant.
Take some action that helps, or be silent in a way that actually helps
Please do something, or don’t do anything, and if you want to be silent, do it in a way that amounts to something useful. The current form of “silence†that is being promoted makes no sense other than to promote another internet meme that does nothing. When someone in your family dies, I will e-mail you a letter saying “I will offer a Sunday as a day of silence by not posting that day, and by going about my life having already forgotten about your grievances.” Let us see how you feel then.
Yes, silence does sometime make more difference than real action. However, being silent works only when it can be effective. Being silent when someone’s family member dies will not do anything. This is death, not some breakup in a relationship where being silent will comfort a person for a few minutes before you can run off to the movies and forget about everything and find new people to date. This is not a Memoriam; this is just an internet meme.
Doing things just for awareness is just a fad. Do things to make a different and do things to actually see things changing!
Do this: write an actual letter to those families or to their cities and tell them that the incident made you feel sad even for a while before you move on with your life. This is life; you have to remember and care forever. That means if one incident really affected you, don’t just observe a day of silence and forget about it. Keep in touch with that family and show them you are truly sorry about their loss.
If you simply feel sad only when the news talks about it, then I truly for sorry for those that depend on you. Next week the news story will change. Then what? Another day of silence to observe?
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( April 20th, 2007 at 6:09 am )
I dont believe silence is the answer either I think silence is what has created these problems.
On to your comments on moi, I don’t leave comments just to get comments back actually. I leave comments and try to find random blogs I’m letting people know what I’m doing and I email the owners but I don’t really leave comments saying link me! I leave comments to tell people I’ve been to the site my actual thoughts etc. And the reason why I chose 28,000 is engadget has 27k+ links to it so to be #1 I need at least 28,000
( April 20th, 2007 at 11:13 am )
I still don’t quite see what will you accomplish by mailing letters to the victims families? First of all, I doubt you’ll be able to get their addresses and if you just mail them to the counsel addresses I doubt that they’ll be delivered to the right people. Anyhow, if you want to do it just to prove the point and do something other than being silent on Apr 30, that’s your choice. But it doesn’t mean that others should follow your steps.
As you said yourself - nobody talks or does anything about other innocent people dying every day all over the world due to hunger, wars, natural disasters and many other reasons. Mailing letters to all their families won’t make any difference in their lives and won’t improve the world. What will make a difference is publicly and openly talking about them and all the problems our society is facing, protesting or demanding certain laws, and voting for the right people.
One thing I know for sure - in cases like this one it’s important to say something instead of being silent. Expressing your thoughts, posing questions on your blog may prompt others to start thinking and analyzing the event rather than passively following the herd. Just like my blog post has motivated you to take a certain action, hopefully this post would stimulate others to think and act for themselves.
( April 20th, 2007 at 11:47 am )
Amanda, thanks for the comment Amanda. Your comment about silence being the reason is interesting. Maybe people need to voice more opinion, whether privately with the involved parties or publicly regarding people and issues that may be headed for a turmoil.
Also, thanks for replying to my comment. It is good to know that you leave comments to build relations and networks with other people. Also, about the reason you chose 28k as your technorati target, lol!
inspirationbit, good points and thanks for the explanation.
The whole purpose for my action, or the letters, is to show the blogosphere that something as simple as pasting a 39 cent stamp on an envelope and mailing it can do more than just observing a day of silence. Also, Virginia Tech and other places, if they get letters, will hopefully pass them to the families or post them somewhere. At least the city officials should. If they don’t, I do not know any other possible way at the moment to find out their addresses. Either way, at least the message will be clear: doing something is better than simply having an internet meme that does not seem to be making any sense. My letter may not be received by the family, but if it is, it will show what I am talking about and how/why/if I care, and how this event has/has-not changed my life. The day of silence, on the other hand, does not show anything to the families in my view.
You are right: talking about this publicly and doing legal things will help. My effort, or supposed effort, is to mainly show the “One Day of Silence” bloggers what others thing may be even better or more logical. For some reason, however, these silent movements regarding this situation sound like the people who just sit out there and keep saying they care, while other people do all the extra work out in the field.
I agree that saying something is more “important” than being silent in such cases.
You are right about another thing also: maybe someone else, or even your own post, is a better solution than my own. I am speaking from my experience, and thus of course, my opinions are unconsciously and directly biased because of the reasons my opinions are based on, the same way everyone’s opinion is biased in a way.
( April 21st, 2007 at 1:13 pm )
I 100% agree with you. Silence is not the answer or the solution. I wrote a letter to people in SA before through my school once. I believe that your action is the right direction that most people should follow.
What is up with the news and Wordpress dashboard posts? If it was there for awareness then its pretty pointless as you might have already heard it in the news or other forms of media.
I find it quite odd that people just pick a random date and say, “today should be the moment of silence”..but we can actually take action as families or friends are still alive, not dead. Whereas a day such as Remembrance day, we can say that we have a special day dedicated to those whose lives were lost because there aren’t really much connection as to who were the families and such since it isn’t from a specific location like Blacksburg.
( April 21st, 2007 at 10:10 pm )
So some people will choose to be silent on a certain day to honor the memories of the victims. So what? Is that so offensive? Terror is a hard thing to swallow (yes, this was a terror attack since it was an attack on innocent people and will affect people like terror) and people search for ways to deal with it. Some choose silence. Some choose noise. Some choose not to do anything at all and move on.
I live in Israel. Every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day I’m in awe by the power of the 2 minutes of silence observed by the whole country. It is something you have to experience to understand. Lorelle was simply trying to get that across. As someone who observes this silence, I can testify to the impact this has on remembering those who are not fortunate to be here today, and thinking about what we are doing here, who we are, and what the goals of our lives should be. Sometimes there is value to silence, but no one is telling you what to do. Write if that’s what you want to do. You won’t be alone, and the thought police won’t come knocking at your door.
( April 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 pm )
Vera, thanks for the comment.
Were the letters that you wrote part of your class work, or was your school allowing students to do something extra? The people you sent the letters to, do you remember if they were affected by something specific?
I personally thing WordPress should focus on only WordPress news in the main dashboard. I am guessing once you become part of the Planet Network feed, you can post anything and it may get displayed.
I am not sure either how April 30th came to light, but I think it is just the end of the month and a few weeks away from the incident, so it will allow people to spread the word further. Having it on May 30th may have already had most people not participating, as most parts of the blogosphere that may be participating will surely move on quickly and stick to some other “current” news event. You are right: the families are still alive. We can focus on them and offer some help if we want to do something about the situation.
Miriam, thanks for the comment and thank you for stopping by. I really appreciate it.
I agree that people can choose to be silent. That is not offensive to me. The thing I find offending or illogical as how this day is being promoted as something that the majority of the blogosphere promotes, or how such a thing is the only logical thing to do. That is my whole point of this post. I hope I was clear on that. If not, my apologies for being unclear.
Also, I am not sure how the blogosphere, which is already posting different things and enjoying time, some bloggers even forgetting about it within a day, need to “deal” with this stuff. What I mean is this: most people are just “acting” that they care. Forget Lorelle; this post is aimed at the idea and not Lorelle, otherwise I would have named this post “On Lorelle & Day of Silence.” Majority of the bloggers did not change single thing in their life, other than having an extra post count, to show any remorse for the death or do anything useful that helps the dead people, or the direct relatives. It is fine to not do anything, but in my view, it is not fine to pretend to care just because it is a hot topic on the news. That is just plain rude and disrespectful to those who died.
Also, I am not aiming the post at Lorelle. You are right that no one is telling me what to do. I chose myself to tell people how to listen to ideas and how to dissect them to figure out whether or not an idea is good for them or not. That is why I wrote this, so people can decide to analyze something first instead of just jumping on the bandwagon.
I have lived in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Israel and Russia among other places since I was a kid. I have experienced a lot that what I will not write about on this blog, as my blog is not “My experiences of death and suffering” but a site I can use to tell others happier or different things. I do not let my own experience judge my opinions when others are involved in those opinions. I have seen a lot right in front of my eyes to having myself and my family targeted also since I was a kid. I have seen my own family members killed in front of me when I was 8, and I have also been shot when I was a teenager simply because of not following the dominant culture religion in an extremist country [you can guess which one]. I think I know what I am talking about. That is why, because of not allowing my past experiences and those feelings and memories affect my decisions and opinions regarding unrelated issues now, I see no reason on writing a post on Holocaust or Israel and bringing it up to get people to feel guilty about something they do not want to deny, and make them jump on board on the “Day of Blog Silence” trend since not doing otherwise will make such people, who fall for such a tactic of letting their emotions be taken over by a holocaust post not related to the current situation, will feel guilty. Or am I mistaken about something, and we are to look and compare the two since both involve deaths and murder of innocent people, regardless of the scale or reasons? I thought the entire topic was about the people dying at Virginia tech and not death of innocent people itself, since people are only getting hyper about this situation and the new internet trend and not about the deaths of thousands of innocent people who have already died since the time I wrote my post above.
You live in Israel, and you must also be experiencing things first hand. However, let me ask you think: how can we use our feelings for the Holocaust to judge this new situation? Sure, Hitler and this kid were both killers. However, one wanted to eliminate a race, and the other wanted to do something specific that we still don’t know, yet we know that people from all over the world died in the recent shooting. Should I just let the Holocaust or my own experience, which is more terrifying to me than the Holocaust because I saw it with my own eyes and experienced it myself too, let me do whatever and say “I have experience on this, and Silent day is the answer because I am emotional and I said so!“? Please let me know if I am mistaken somewhere in any logic that I may be depending on.
Maybe I am looking at all of this from a wrong perspective. Please let me know what you think. I am not here to defend an idea but probably to criticize one, so the reasons I am using to target an idea seem to be not strong enough for you, which is interesting in my view. I would be more than happy to change my views if I see that I may be mistaken, misinformed or confused about something. There is no shame in being mistaken about something, specially when it is something I am passionate about and I would love to make sure I am going fast in the right direction.
Thanks again Miriam. I hope you will stop by and participate more. I hope I am not confusing or offending in my comment. Please let me know if you any questions. I would love to hear more from you on this topic, as some of what you say makes a lot of sense to me.
( April 22nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm )
Hi Bes, I’m back! Thanks for that long and thoughtful response to my comment. My point was not to say that silence is the answer, but to explain why some people might think it is. Silence can be very powerful, as it is here on Holocaust Day (and today on Memorial day too - we Jews unfortunately have a lot of people to remember). But silence can also be very damaging, as in the case of those who are silent while evil takes place, and in effect become accomplices to that evil.
You’ve been through some really terrible things in your life which nobody should ever have to go through, and your ability to move forwards and write about life is praiseworthy. Your perspective holds even more weight because of your experiences.
I don’t know what’s right or wrong. The Virginia shooting was terrible, and every death is a tragedy, but there is one place in the world where a genocide is actually taking place, and nobody seems to care: Darfur. The way the world is ignoring the plight of the people there is reminiscent of the Holocaust. An Israeli blogger began an initiative where bloggers end all posts, no matter what they’re writing on, with the following sentence:
“Moreover, I advise that the genocide in Darfur must be stopped.” I’ve decided to adopt this on my blog, and you can see a more detailed explanation there.
Thanks again for responding. It’s not an easy world, eh?
( April 23rd, 2007 at 1:02 pm )
Hi I want to know if I can send a letter to people that knew or cared about the 33 people that were got shot, injured, or were there. I am with a middle school and we want to make something for these people…. Thank you for your time.
( April 24th, 2007 at 1:00 pm )
Miriam, thanks for coming back!
And thanks again for the detailed response.
That makes sense. Silence can be very powerful, and silence can be a dangerous thing. The same way it can make people feel better and help them move on, it can also make people stand around an issue forever and hate others for various reasons.
I also do not know what is right or wrong. The shooting was terrible, agreed. Now if we move onto Darfur from the current topic, silence makes even more sense; you are absolutely right. However, I am a bit confused as to how that is related to the topic at hand? You are right also that many entities are ignoring the issues of different places like Darfur, which is resulting in more civil wars and more people dying simply because people are not doing anything.
Your “advice” on the genocide is really interesting. For people who have not yet read about that, Miriam posted about Darfur recently.
Thank you for replying again Miriam. It is definitely not an easy world, but we can try to make it simpler and safer everyday through various things. I wonder if there is a single key element to everything like the Holocaust, Darfur and the recent Virginia Shootings.
Ana, thank you for coming here. You can probably send letters to people that know the families. However, you may have to call a few people to find out the appropriate addresses, like address of the city counsel who may be willing to forward all mail to the families of the victims.
Here are a few numbers and addresses if you want to contact the people who somehow knew the 33 people shot and the other people injured, or were there:
Memorial Website at Virginia Tech
The Hokie Memorial Fund - 1-800-533-1144
Town of Blacksburg Community Relations Office at 540-961-1199 or e-mail them at tobinfo@blacksburg.gov
Someone at one of those sites, e-mail or phone numbers may be able to tell you which appropriate address to send the letters to, or how you can make something for those affected.
If you find out anything Ana, I would really appreciate it and be happy if you could come back and share it here, or if you could e-mail me the information. I would then post it here so everyone else can see.
Thank you again Ana, I really appreciate you taking the time to come and commenting about what you and your middle school are planning to do! Making something for those who were affected directly at Virginia Tech is a very nice thing to do! I wish you and others at your middle school the best!
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
( September 17th, 2008 at 4:16 am )
This incident was something that changed my life forever..
I and my mom had a big fight and I was packing my bags to get out of the house… As I was approaching the door, the news channel started flashing the images and news of the incident and I stood still…
My mom was there too and we both stood in silence and she started crying…
That moment I realized how precious life is and how precious family is….
My prayers are there with all those people who are dearer to god…