Virginia Tech

The shooter of the worst mass school shooting in our nation’s history did so because he was pushed to a breaking point. In an article from MSNBC news, classmates claim vouch that Seung­-Hui Cho was under constant ridicule from classmates. A senior at Virginia Tech, Cho’s bullying dates all the way back to his high school days where his fellow classmates often made fun of him due to his shyness and strange way that he talked. One student, Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech student who also graduated with Cho from Westfield High School, recalled upon a time in English class where everyone had to read aloud and that when it came time for Cho to read he refused until the teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation. When Cho began to read he did so in a deep voice that sounded there was something in his mouth. This resulted in a thunderous laugh from his classmates followed by some of them pointing at him and telling him to go back to China.  When undergoing constant heckling for such things as his speech it is no wonder why Cho barely ever opened his mouth and tried to avoid striking up conversation with others as much as possible. Among some of the other strange things Cho did to alienate himself from others were things such as, on the first day of a literature class, on the sign in sheet he signed himself in as a question mark. From this, students bestowed upon him the nickname “the question mark kid.” In the article in states that the day of Cho’s massacre, he mailed in a multimedia package to NBC News. The package consisted of different texts, photographs and a video. In which Cho to rant on and on in explicit hatred towards all of the people (without disclosing names) who had done him wrong in the past. The package also added to the portrait that many people had of Cho as a lonely, solitary man that never was able to manage normal social interactions. With that said, it surely didn’t warrant the constant criticism that Cho had received over the years. In the video that Cho had sent he claims that when the time had come to carry out with his plans he felt that he “had to do it.” This suggests that he felt that there was no other way to deal with the situation and that he felt that he had been forced into a corner and there was only one way to get out of it. Seung-Hui Cho was a very unique individual, who, after consistent bullying year after year, finally snapped. What resulted were the worse school massacres in our nation’s history. While we should grieve for the victims, we should also take a step back and address the problem of bullying in our country and the profound effect it is having on people in our society.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/