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More than individual victims, we need to mourn for the direction our society continues to take. The social ills are many, but what appears to lie at the bottom of all of them is an us and them - an adversarial point of view we cling to. Like it or not, we impose all of our mistrust, misanthropy, greed, hate, stress, etc. on to the youth that live amongst us.

In my fair city, the homicide rate is up about 15% this year. That's not a statistic to be proud of, is it? We're not even in the twenty largest cities in the country, and we have lost more lives in homicides than in the VA Tech incident. And this is going on all over America.

While the killings are tragic, to be sure, what is more tragic is that we continue to turn a blind eye to the societal mores and pressures that produce the killings.

When I was young, if I got into a fight at school, there was a protocol. First, it was mano a mano - and weapons weren't ever thought of. We played with guns, army men and tanks, etc., yet a grudge or dispute was settled with words or fists. What has changed? Second, if the parents got a call from school, it meant big trouble.

This week in a fight that started amongst students at a local high school, kids involved in the fight called their parents on cell phones, and parents arrived, AND JOINED IN THE FIGHT!

Gee, what message does this send to little Johnny?

I grew up in a time and place where all of the neighbors knew each other well, the adults socialized regularly throughout the community, and the children could run free and safe, all played together no matter what age or what background. In the summer, we were out and around all day long and our parents weren't worried about molesters, or that we were associating with the "wrong" kids.

How is it that my generation has become so mistrusting, so paranoid and so blatantly class conscious that our kids can only play together on structured "pay dates," can't leave our sight while playing outside, etc.? How is it that parents now join in their children's rash battles, rather than teaching them how to better resolve their problems?

Yes, we should mourn for those victims of the VA Tech shootings. Yes, we should mourn for all of the victims of senseless violence in today's world. Yes, we should mourn for the loss of an open and free society.

But mourning does not beget change. Regrettably, those of us reading, writing and thinking about these issues are not likely the ones who are most responsible for the conditions. Nonetheless, we need to vigilantly introspect and as ourselves what we can do to effect positive change.

Learn more about this author, K D Grey.
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