WORLD AFFAIRS

Killed in school

The fear of being gunned down preys on the minds of most Americans; the massacre by two teenagers in a Colorado school has added to the panic.

VIJAY PRASHAD

ON Adolf Hitler's birthday (April 20) this year, two teenagers walked through their school in Littleton, Colorado, United States, shot 13 people, planted bombs across the campus and then, when it looked like the game was up, took their own lives. President Bill Clinton came on national television, and expressed grief at this, the largest such massacre in recent years. Just as U.S. planes bombed Yugoslavia, Clinton noted that "we must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons."

Talk shows on radio and television and columnists in the print media turned their gaze from the Balkans toward the little town in western U.S. Littleton (population 35,000) sits in the outskirts of Denver and houses mainly white residents with college degrees who hold steady jobs (many at a Lockheed Martin factory that builds rockets and satellites for telecommunications and space exploration). Politicians, psychologists and journalists cannot seem to make sense of the massacre, since it does not fit the stereotypes to which the establishment normally turns. Yes, the young men did feel alienated from their schoolmates; yes, they did form a fraternity known as the "Trenchcoat Mafia"; yes, they did evince sympathy for neo-Nazi ideas. But, the question remains, how do young boys in a middle-class suburb feel suicidal and homicidal, and from where did they get their arsenal?

Since October 1997, five major incidents of school violence have distressed the U.S. public: Pearl, Mississippi (three dead, seven wounded), Paducah, Kentucky (three dead, five wounded), Jonesboro, Arkansas (nine dead, 10 wounded), Springfield, Oregon (two killed, 22 wounded), and now Littleton, Colorado. This spate of fury is not new. In 1994, Congress passed the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act in order to deal with sporadic acts of serious violence. Three years later, the National Centre for Educational Statistics (NCES) reported that in 1996-97 schools sent them notices of almost 200,000 incidents of violence (including 4,000 cases of rape or sexual assault). There are no geographical areas more prone to frenzy, since 75 per cent of U.S. schools reported routine incidents.

In the midst of this violence, the U.S. has seen renewed media attention on police brutality. A Haitian immigrant (Abner Louima) was assaulted brutally by the New York police, while 19 bullets from a special squad of the New York police killed a west African migrant, Amadou Diallo (the police fired 44 bullets at him). In Hartford, Connecticut, a police officer killed a 14-year-old African-American, shooting him in the back with a .45 bore weapon just as the boy put his hands into the air to surrender. These incidents of what is called 'excessive force' drew hundreds of thousands of people to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 24 to rally against police brutality, itself an epidemic for non-white residents of the U.S.

GARY CASKEY/ REUTERS
Students and teachers run from the school in Littleton, Colorado, after two members of the "Trenchcoat Mafia" opened fire on students.

Certainly, one of the problems here is the ready availability of weapons and their cavalier use. In Colorado, for instance, guns are not required to be licensed or registered and there are no age restrictions for the possession of rifles or shotguns (persons under the age of 18 are not permitted to possess handguns). The National Rifle Association (NRA), the right-wing lobby for guns and gun manufacturers whose spokesperson is actor Charlton Heston, was in the process of pushing through a bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons. With such a lax attitude towards guns, Handgun Control (a U.S. non-profit organisation) shows that in 1996 handguns were used to kill two persons in New Zealand, 15 in Japan, 30 in Britain, 106 in Canada, 213 in Germany and 9,390 in the U.S. The NRA, in fact, is scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Denver soon, and in anticipation of this, a billboard stands sentinel on the road to Littleton with a portrait of Heston carrying a gun and asking his fellow Americans to "join me".

Some of the public debate has renewed the call to put checks on the availability of guns. However, the legislature is chary to act on this since the gun lobby is strong (it pours large sums of money into the political process). Instead of addressing the question of guns, the political leaders talk of "gratuitous violence" on television and in films. In addition, there are repeated calls to militarise further the schools through metal detectors, armed guards, school uniforms and random (and illegal) searches of students. This despite the fact that the schools are already militarised and the acts of violence occur despite them. In Littleton, the two boys walked across the football field with their guns in plain view; in other places, the shooting took place from outside the school. More serious issues, such as the alienation of the youth, have not been discussed except by pop-psychologists.

On August 27, 1998, Clinton released a profile of the young killer which included uncontrolled anger, drug and alcohol abuse, a preoccupation with weapons and explosives as well as a sense of being "pushed out of being part of the community". The National Vital Statistics Centre reports that (in 1997) 18,774 Americans died in homicides. However, 29,725 Americans died by their own hand. In Colorado, last year, of the 44 adolescents who were shot, 23 killed themselves while 16 were killed deliberately (five were unintentional deaths). The vast sense of alienation among the youth for a host of complex socio-psychological reasons has not led to a nation-wide discussion. Instead, more money is being spent on the police.

In the Littleton case, the boys clearly sought refuge in neo-Nazism. Harris was known to shout 'Heil Hitler!' and to proffer a Nazi salute when he felt pleased with himself. The members of the "Trenchcoat Mafia" spoke to one another in German and some of them wore Nazi insignias. A lack of trust in the state, a sense that the economy does not produce the 'American Dream' and resentment against the mild forms of redress for chattel slavery of peoples of African descent, combine to produce a strong sense of racism amongst some young people. That the state chooses not to attack racist sentiments frontally and that it often propels these feelings (as in its Welfare Reform efforts in 1996), allows alienated youth to turn to these circles for succour.

GARY CASKEY/ REUTERS
Students outside the school building wait for their friends trapped inside.

There are, of course, other places that the youth go towards, such as rock or hip-hop bands (Rage Against the Machine, The Coup) and political outfits (the Animal Defence League, anti-racist groups, socialist and labour solidarity organisations). In the wake of a massacre, the media tend not to look for these progressive avenues of social change, but dwell on the areas of social dysfunction.

Even the discussion on dysfunctionality, however, is limited as there continues to be a national panic about homicides. Whether in popular culture or in the media, the fear of being gunned down preys on the minds of most Americans. One is afraid to walk alone at night and one certainly makes sure to lock every door. However, statistics show that handguns are rarely used to kill strangers: one is more likely to be killed by a friend or a relative. In addition, a U.S. resident has a better chance of committing suicide than of dying by someone else's hand. The lack of a public discussion on youth alienation and of suicide is a matter of grave urgency. In a recent book (Dharma Girls, 1996) Chelsea Cain offers us what it means to grow up in the shadow of the Hippies: "Just because you don't still have something doesn't mean it is lost." Just because the young of America seem not to be on the path of social liberation, does not mean they have forgotten the path itself.

REUTERS
The 1998 yearbook of the Littleton school shows an entry by some of the members of "Trenchcoat Mafia", a fraternity holding neo-Nazi ideas.

Vijay Prashad is an Assistant Professor, International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.