NOT SURPRISED

TO THE EDITOR:
THANK YOU! In your May 6 issue you privileged me and
the rest of my school with a recap of everything we’ve been saying [“Blown Away:
If You Were Shocked by Littleton, You’re Not in High School”]. Reading those
articles was intensely comforting in ways I can’t describe. You pointed out
the movie similarities (who DIDN’T cheer at Heathers?) and gave a concise
and intelligent summary of just EXACTLY why it happened, and why it will happen
again, and likely again and again. I happened to be one of the lucky ones–I
got my ass to Nova Alternative School and crawled out from under the suicidal
shadow of standardized education, but too many are not so lucky. When this week’s
stack of The Stranger arrived, there was a unanimous cheer at its headline.
Because not one of us was surprised.

Stormagnet


JOCKS AND THUMPERS

TO THE EDITOR: Dan Savage’s “Fear the Geek” and the interviews with
high-school kids is the only–repeat, only–decent coverage I have seen about
Littleton. I have searched in vain for any mention of queer kids in the coverage
nationally, and with the exception of a blip where coverage seemed to blame
Harris and Klebold for being queer–i.e., they were “accused” of being queer
and therefore they were–there have been few column inches. What is ironic is
that the accusations have been taken semi-seriously, rather than investigated
as a problem.

Tim Kingston

COLUMBINE HIGH SURVIVOR

TO THE EDITOR:
Finally, an article addresses what is really going on here [“Fear the Geek:
Littleton’s Silver Lining”]. I actually used to live in Littleton, and went
to Columbine High School. I totally agree with this story. When I went there,
I was having the same exact problems and no one cared at all. One day I was
walking outside during lunch when some “jocks” decided it was my turn to be
beaten. One of them started hitting me to impress his friends… I hit him once
in the face and ended up on the ground. One teacher was right there, and did
nothing to stop it. I was sent to the principal’s office and told that I should
try and “fit in” with the rest of the students and not wear black clothes. All
I can tell you is that on days like that (and there were many), I could have
shot them all. I ended up leaving the school, and driving to the next town every
day to attend an alternative high school. I learned more there in the first
week than I did in the three years I went to Columbine. When I talk with friends
who went there, not even one person was surprised this could happen. We were
just surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

Jason DeTrempe

NO SILVER LINING

TO THE EDITOR:
I have read Dan Savage’s article entitled “Fear The Geek: Littleton’s Silver
Lining,” and I am amazed, wondering what on earth he was thinking when he wrote
the piece. How could anyone find silver lining in that ugly business? There
is none.Dan, could you please get that straight and mind your big influential
mouth? Kids with weaponry are a huge fucking problem. Kids without enough reason
to behave sanely plus armaments spell disaster. This is unquestionable and plain.
Becoming angry and violent when provoked is no trick. These days, for many of
us, becoming hostile when hardly provoked seems to be no trick. This human defect
(the get-crazy-angry-and-act-on-it defect) cannot be defended. Under no circumstances
can it be defended.

Nancy J. Martin

FUCKING RIGHT

TO THE EDITOR: I applaud Mr. Savage for having the balls to write
a piece on the Littleton shooting without descending to the depths of bathos
plumbed by the rest of the media. It’s about time the nostalgic, patronizing
asshole quotient of “sympathizers” had it pointed out to them how culpable the
student body is. Fucking right!

Dan Ward

CAN RELATE TO DYLAN AND ERIC

TO THE EDITOR: Dan Savage’s article [“Fear the Geek”] touched a
chord with me. I was one of those outcasts who was mercilessly teased in elementary
school, in the “rich kids’ school” I went to for junior high (I was a middle-class
kid), and to a lesser extent in high school. The morning after the Columbine
High shootings, I read the profiles of the gunmen on CNN’s website. When I read
the accounts about how they were “outcasts” and how others teased them, it brought
back a lot of strong emotions and painful memories from my school years.My
heart goes out to those killed and injured in the shootings, the people close
to them, and the whole community of Littleton, Colorado. But I also could relate
to the overwhelming sense of rage and shame of the two gunmen, and apparently
that was the impetus behind what they did.

The blood of those killed and injured in Littleton isn’t just on the hands of Dylan and Eric. I believe it’s also on the hands of those students who chose to tease instead of being tolerant–and the adults who chose to look the other way.

Brian Heath

PITY THE JOCKS

TO THE EDITOR: In my overly privileged and white high school in the
western Chicago suburbs, we had a similar display. Only in our case, the perpetrators
were caught before they could do any damage. These kids espoused the same sentiments
as the Littleton killers. Confiscated from “The Circle,” the [group of] misguided
youths from my high school, was a list of all their planned victims. Included
were administrators, teachers, jocks, blacks, Latinos, and gays. In Littleton,
the list is similar. Is this a list [written by] underdogs? NO. It’s the misinformed
plans of a bunch of cowards.No matter how you slice it, it was their pathetic
political leanings, not their heroic “fuck you” to the jocks and parental authorities,
that provided the impetus for Harris and Klebold to try and turn every student’s
diabolical daydreams of dynamite and school deans into a reality. These are
the crimes of a couple of privileged white kids in privileged communities. They
couldn’t do these things in, say, working-class minority neighborhoods on the
south side of Chicago. Halfway through their first “sieg heil” they’d receive
the beat-down of their lives.

High school is incredible shit. No argument there. But both the jocks and the Harris/Klebolds are cowards. The jocks from my school who made the most fun of the “losers” did so because they were starting to get a little peek at the truth. They’d be stuck in dead-end, middle-management jobs the rest of their lives, and the kid they were beating to a pulp would be kicking it in Silicon fucking Valley. I don’t think Harris and Klebold have necessarily struck fear in the eyes of jocks everywhere. They’ve made a spectacle, and they’ve died. People will forget about them like yesterday’s news.

Joe DeNardo

ABUSE CAN KILL

TO THE EDITOR: I thought Dan Savage’s “Fear the Geek” was especially
well said. One of the kids in my poor, rural school eventually did kill himself
due to the pretty much daily humiliation and physical abuse. I had my share
of problems with abuse in high school as well, and the trauma took me years
to work through. But I guess the point the mainstream media is trying to make
here is that neither of those things involved dramatic public bloodshed or had
much of an impact on beautiful/popular/rich/white people or their social clique.

Anonymous


THANKS FOR MAKING SENSE

TO THE EDITOR: Thank fucking god for Dan Savage’s article “Fear the
Geek.” In all of the non-stop bullshit that I have been inundated with since
the massacre in Littleton took place, this is the first commentary that has
made any damn sense! This is the type of article that should be headlined in
each and every paper in the country, rather than the finger-pointing, blame-Marilyn-Manson-and-every-movie-that-has-violence
crap that all the periodicals are touting.

Darcey L. Barker

LITTLETON SHIT PATTIES

TO THE EDITOR: Judging by the brilliant use of People‘s cover
on this week’s Stranger, I thought maybe you guys were going to skillfully
avoid the mainstream impulse to pound out more Littleton media shit-patties.
Then plop, plop, plop. From “Were You Surprised?” to “When Steven King Ruled
the World”–eight pages of trite, redundant, self-important, pseudo-social reflective
horseshit worthy of the somberest of People magazine specials. And I
can tell by the melancholy layout that you’ve done it with a straight face,
too. How? Did you borrow an editor from Parade? As a loyal reader, one
who knows you know better, let me ask that the NEXT time a school gets shot
up and you’re tempted to eat your poo-poo-pundit style, please! My God! My God!
DON’T DO IT!!

David Russo


Editor’s Note: We received more letters on our Columbine
coverage. Read them, and related stories (see archives), at www.thestranger.com.