Looking into the mind of a shooter

As my personal circumstances isolate me greatly from the news going on in the world, I found out about the Virginia Tech shooting when my alarm clock went off this morning. (Talk about a startling wake up call.) Yesterday, as the news broke out across the rest of the world, my school's internet access went down because of the heavy weekend rains. Add to that, the computers that I use at my job are intentionally disconnected from the network, and I was blithely ignorant of the horrific news.

I feel obligated to comment on this topic as I made such a poor joke about the matter mere days before it happened. I will start with a disclaimer: I do not know the details of the incident beyond the facts that the gunman was of Korean descent, that he was a loner, and that thirty three people are dead from the same set of hand guns which had his fingerprints on them.

So, my comments are based on my own speculations based on the above facts. (Or in otherwords, I am probably talking out of my rear end) I do not know this person, nor did I know of his plans for such an incident.

I would speculate on the perpetrator of this terrible incident, as I know there will be many who have undoubtedly discussed the victim's perspective. I can infer from my own experiences as an asian and observations I have made of other asian families that there are some good reasons to explain how he became a loner.

As a child, I grew up going to a school that had perhaps a dozen asian students scattered amongst the entire body of students. The cultural dichotomy that warred within us as we left the familiar confines of our homes and entered the schoolyard surrounded by children that saw us as different. They would hear me speak with an accent that was unfamiliar to them and know that I did not belong.

A perfect example of this dichotomy is in how my parents and the parents of some of my friends reacted to our test grades. My friends parents would see a ninety eight score and would make a big deal out of it, hanging it on the refrigerator door, often lavishing attention and praise on my friend. My parents would as often as not ask me why I didn't score higher when I presented a test with the same mark.

In asian countries, I would imagine that for many parents, that response would be an accepted and common thing to say. There, it is culturally ingrained into the cultural psyche that education goes hand in hand with advancement. Their desire for success from their children is a cultural norm. Here, presented with my parent's demanding reaction and contrasting their reaction with my friends parent's reactions, I knew that something was different. And it wasn't my friends who were different.

I don't mean to make my parents look like monstrous beasts, as I know that they love me and want the best for me. I have presented this observation as an extreme contrast to show that there is a cultural difference. Yet, being aware of that difference, it is in the human's natural behavior to want to belong to a larger group. Having the knowledge that you are different can easily gives rise to the feeling of being a pariah.

I also have friends who are Korean, and I have observed that the pressures they receive from their parents are no less than I received. In some cases, I have observed that it is much worse than I had ever received from my parents. (Thank goodness they never forced me to learn to play a musical instrument.) Now, this generalization might not cover every asian family, but there has to be some kernel of truth from which this generalization arises.

I can recall this one time when I watched an asian girl in my class burst into tears when she received a grade that she wasn't accustomed to getting. She was among the smartest people in the class. (I remember being relieved that she scored that poorly, since I had gotten the same grade. I had every intention of telling my parents that no one in the class scored higher. I didn't care about the grade, I cared about avoiding the punishment that would be attached to the low grade.) She wasn't so upset over the grade as what her parents would say when she got home. I knew that I felt the same way, but I had already developed my story in defense of the grade.

That pressure never really stops, even when you go away to college. I remember, being introverted, how hard it was to make new friends. Also easily recalled was the sense of isolation I felt because I had moved far away from home and missed the comfort being in a familiar environment gives you. Then came the sudden discovery that the classes moved at a lot faster pace and often you would be behind no matter what you did.

The stress levels kept compiling on top of all that pressure you received from home and some people find ways to cope with it or snap. I probably oversimplified things, but I don't doubt that this guy's naturally serious and introverted personality coupled with familial pressures and the stress of the increased workload kept him isolated from those around him. And, instead of bending under the pressure, he snapped.