Tag: Bullying

Howard Center Presentation

Episode 016 – SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 – Burlington, VA

Sue Klebold is the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two gunmen responsible for the Columbine High School shootings of April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. Dylan and his friend killed twelve students and a teacher, and wounded more than twenty others before taking their own lives.

Klebold’s talk was followed by a Q & A and a panel discussion with Colchester School District Superintendent Amy Minor, South Burlington Police Chief Trevor Whipple, Howard Center Board of Trustees member Kelly DeForge, and Director of Howard Center’s Baird School and INCLUSION Program Kristie Reed. The discussion will be moderated by Charlotte McCorkel, Howard Center Director of Project Integration. [Source]

Randy Brown released his book!

Finally. So, glad that Randy was able to accomplish publishing his insiders take on Columbine along with his words-of-wisdom on the reoccurring school shooting problem and how it should be address to truly begin to tackle it head-on. I understand that Randy was really ill there for a while so I was really crossing my fingers that he would find the strength to preserve and finish his book!

Released hot off the (paperback only) press on June14th, the book is entitled:

The Inside Story of Columbine: Lies. Coverups. Ballistics. Lessons.

Go check it out and write a review if you’re up for it. I just bought mine and am truly looking forward to seeing his angle on things as I agree with him that bullying was an instrumental component which laid the foundation for this tragic event.

Randy Brown on the cancellation of today’s Columbine-related Oprah broadcast

Westword
Michael Roberts 
April 20, 2009 

Kate Battan, Dave Cullen and Dwayne Fuselier on a Columbine-related episode of “Oprah” that will no longer air today. (for the 10 year anniversary)

As pointed out earlier today in a blog about the many media appearances of Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis, Colorado journalist Dave Cullen, author of the widely praised volume Columbine, was scheduled to appear on Oprah today, the tenth anniversary of the massacre at the high school. However, yesterday afternoon, Cullen sent out a note to folks on his e-mail list revealing that the program wouldn’t run due to “a production decision.” This choice was confirmed earlier today on the Oprah website. A note from host Oprah Winfrey reads: “I decided to pull the Columbine show today. After reviewing it, I thought it focused too much on the killers. Today, hold a thought for the Columbine community. This is a hard day for them.”

The Winfrey comment suggests that there’s more to the story – and there is. Randy Brown, father of Brooks Brown, a friend of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who has worked indefatigably over the past ten years to make information about the killings public, says that he was among several members of the Columbine community, including relatives of victims he declines to name, who contacted producers to express concerns about the show, which was heavily promoted in recent days on Channel 4, Oprah’s broadcast home in Denver. Brown and company were especially distressed by the presence as guests of Kate Battan, Jefferson County’s chief Columbine investigator, whom Brown believes was part of an information cover-up, as well as Dwayne Fuselier, an FBI profiler whose son was a Columbine student who made a parody video depicting the destruction of the school two years before the assault.

Brown, who has appeared on Oprah in the past, doesn’t denigrate Winfrey for moving forward with this particular lineup. Instead, he praises her profusely for taking to heart complaints from families. “I think it’s an incredible sign of Oprah’s humanity and understanding that she would listen to these people and do something about it – not air the show out of respect for them,” he says. “That’s a really good thing.”

A spokesperson for Oprah doesn’t make the same cause-and-effect connection between the complaints and the change in the content of today’s show, which now features a segment about a mother released from prison. The spokesperson says family members voiced objections prior to the taping, and the decision not to air the Columbine program was Winfrey’s alone.

Whatever the case, Brown is clearly no fan of Cullen’s book. He posted a one-star review of the tome on the Amazon.com website in which he states, “This book is not the true story of Columbine.”

“The biggest problem I have with Cullen’s book is his conclusion that Eric is a psychopath,” Brown adds. “Whether that’s true or not, Dylan wasn’t a psychopath – and these children had motivation for what they did. As misguided and ridiculous as their response was, they had a motivation: bullying at the school, and the atmosphere there. You can’t bully and humiliate people without them having a response to it. Now, in this case, that response was ridiculous and violent and wrong. But to just say they’re psychopaths is so easy. People don’t have to think anymore. They don’t have to worry. They can say, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it.’ But that’s not true. You can do something. You can stop bullying and harrassment in schools and in the workplace.”

That Cullen would be joined on Oprah by Battan, who some Columbine families despise, and Fuselier, a man with what Brown considers to be a major conflict of interest on the Columbine story, only raised more red flags, Brown says. And he has just as many negative remarks to offer about DeAngelis, who appeared on the taping of the show last Wednesday via Skype. “He’s making his attempt to rewrite his place in the Columbine tragedy,” Brown argues. “And he’s very good at it.”

Such thoughts were shared in e-mails sent to the Oprah production office, Brown notes, “and a senior producer responded to – well, it’s an understatement to say ‘misgivings.’ More like anger at having Battan and Fuselier and Cullen on that show. And the people at Oprah listened to them and responded accordingly out of respect for the families.”

The eleventh-hour plug-pulling is a huge blow to Cullen, who declined to comment for this item. After all, author appearances on Oprah have provided larger book-sale boosts than any other promotion or forum in recent years. But Brown isn’t shedding any tears on the author’s behalf. Instead, he lauds Winfrey. “Television shows are big productions, and there’s a lot of work that goes into that show,” he says. “It had to be a difficult decision for Oprah. And I certainly think she made the right one.”

[Source]

Meet Dylan Klebold’s (S)hit List  

#405 Dylan Klebold (S)hit List – (Control Number) CN 2173:
Redacted revealed to be…. Brett O’Neill Grade 12 Senior

Interviewed [Redacted (Brett)] on 5/11/99.  Didn’t know why he was on Klebold’s List.  He has known both for about 5 years but had no association with either. He said that years ago Klebold was made fun of because he didn’t fit in and was very odd. [Redacted (Brett)] did not recognize any nicknames on the list.

Klebold was quiet. […a very long redacted sentence that we all wish we knew what it said…..] “He was sort of the brunt of jokes”.  They would never make fun openly but O’Neil said that it was a possibility that Klebold may have been aware of it.

Described Dylan as: [6,974] quiet, follower

The breadcrumb trail case for bullying is there. It needs to be looked at and acknowledged instead of looked away from as Cullen has dismissively done along with his brainwashing book’s agenda since 2009.  It’s a crime to pretend like it didn’t happen at Columbine and have a hand in affecting these boys and warping them mentally to believe that they needed to fight back by attacking their school and destroying themselves.  Yes, the majority who have been bullied and harassed don’t do the extreme thing they chose to do but that does not negate that they were bullied and chose to externalize their pain and send a message to the world.  People who have been bullied get their message loud and clear.  This is a key thing that society is failing to acknowledge and understand in order to prevent others from wanting to follow in their footsteps.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Randy Brown trashes Cullen

by randybrown on March 22nd, 2009, 12:00 pm #722168

Article Discussion: Greene: Backward, forward on Columbine  
[Article is under the cut]

To a Columbine insider this book is full of errors and speculation. It is as if a complete outsider decided to do a book on Columbine, with a few notes and very little research. I was very upset at the number of glaring errors and the total lack of research. But, it is the pure speculation and the imagined responses and emotions he ascribes to Eric Harris that I find so disturbing. They are absurd.

Unknowing people will read this book and accept it as fact, and they will be sorely mistaken. The psychological profile reached in the book is based on so little information it should be an embarrassment to the investigator.

This book is a joke to anyone who knows many of the truths about Columbine. A joke. A sad, full of misinformation, joke.

The final verdict, according to the book, is that Eric and Dylan were not bullied. I guess the writer has never heard of the Regina Huerter Report, or read the many accounts of bullying from students.

Oh well, let’s just rewrite history. It is much easier than telling the truth, and much less painful. If Eric was crazy, as the book contends, no more questions need to be asked. If he was not crazy, and his reactions were a response to the bullying and resulting hyper-vigilance, then we need to change ourselves. Crazy as an analysis is so much easier.

I hate this book. If you read it,remember that it is a fictional account of Columbine. Learn your lessons accordingly.

Randy Brown

A Columbine Parent.

—

Article Discussion: Greene: Backward, forward on Columbine
Postby randybrown on March 26th, 2009, 2:39 pm #729873

The author has a responsibility.

I have just read the book by Dave Cullen on Columbine. I was angry at first, and then just disappointed.

I read it knowing that this was not a novel, not fictional, but a story about a real tragedy, with real people involved. I read it knowing that the story is so complicated that some errors are expected. I read it with the expectation of imperfection, but with the assumption that the author would research his story, and try to get as close to the truth as possible.

What I have found is just the opposite. The author relied on two main sources for his book, a police officer from Jefferson County and the lead FBI Agent for the investigation. Both are not reliable sources without some corresponding research into the other facts that exist, and they both certainly have a biased agenda.

The police officer and the FBI Investigator both have slanted agendas, biased by the Law Officers point of view, and both should have been kept out of any objective story about Columbine. At the very least they should have been interviewed, and their interviews weighted with the real facts as they were revealed years later. I am not saying they are dishonest, just that they have such specific agendas that the story shouldn’t rely on their input for its soul.

Unfortunately, it does.

The bullying, which is such a large part of Columbine, is dismissed by the FBI agent and the author, and that glaring omission changes the story of Columbine to a work of fiction. So many students from the school have told us about the bullying, and so many interviews by the police during the tragedy mention the bullying that it is inconceivable to me that this was left out of the book and dismissed in its entirety. There is actually a report made during the Governor’s investigation with Chief Justice Erickson that mentions and explains the bullying, from the constant fear to the persecution of a Jewish student by the school athletes. Perhaps the author should have read the Regina Huerter Report. To leave this major part of the tragedy out of the story is to rewrite history.
That is what this book is, a revisionist version of the Columbine Tragedy, which leads the reader to believe so many falsehoods that, upon completion of the book, I even questioned all of the things I know to be facts. I even questioned my knowledge of Columbine, and I lived it. In fact, I not only lived it, I researched it for years. This book, and the stories in it, will change the way people look at Columbine, and it will forever confuse researchers and lead them down false paths that are not the real truth.

Yes, I know that some truths can be perceptions, and can be discussed by experts for many years. I understand that some theories are going to vary about the two killers, and about the way Columbine is perceived.
As an example, the failure of the police to go into the school for hours is seen by many as cowardice. It is the glaring example of the failure of the police to protect children and citizens, and the failures at Columbine led to drastic and serious changes to first responder methods. That is basically a truth. But, the book makes light of this failure and doesn’t clearly show the terror and the abandonment of the children left alive in the library that were rescued many hours later. The name Lisa Kreutz is barely a footnote, and she is the best example of the failure of the Sheriff’s department. Ignored are the wounded children who may have died while waiting for the police. Ignored is the complete absolvement of the SWAT team by the D.A. before the ballistics report was returned from the CBI, a most questionable and suspicious situation.
In addition to the failure to police mistakes, is the absurd way he gives the two killers emotional responses and feelings of regret when no evidence exists to support this. It is akin to a WW2 reporter saying that the Nazis were sorry and that they didn’t really mean it. Really?

As a Columbine parent, I find this book repulsive, for the main reason that it rewrites the Columbine tragedy. The author doesn’t owe me anything, even though I was interviewed for the book. The author owes the public an attempt to tell the true story about Columbine, not an agenda influenced version based on the stories of two policemen and some incomplete research. I am disgusted, discouraged, and disappointed, and sorry that this book fails the people of Columbine in so many ways. I am mostly sad that some reader will read it in 3 years or 25 years, and think that this is the truth. They will be very wrong.

The people who lived through Columbine know parts of the truth. Everyone knows a different story, and every story is painful and sad. It is better not to tell the story of Columbine if the truth about bullying, the environment at the school, and the causes for the murders are diminished by pseudo-experts who use the tragedy to further their own career or to rewrite history to make the police look good.

Anyone who watched the police response at Columbine for hours, and saw staging but no activity, knows the truth about the police response. It is described in one word: Failure. In fact, the police failed us before, during and after Columbine. In their defense, the new first-responder policies are a direct result of brave policemen watching the failure at Columbine and correcting the problem with new policies designed for a quick, direct and effective response to a school shooter situation.

But, the biggest problem I have with the book is the easy summary that the author and his expert arrive at: There was no bullying, Eric was just crazy. That is so easy it is banal. That is so easy and so convenient.
If one of the killers was crazy, then we can all relax. It is beyond our power to change it. It is an act of God, and craziness stands as the panacea for all of the worried parents.

“Crazy” means that we do not need to acknowledge our part in this tragedy. We do not need to acknowledge our violent world, the environment of bullying and humiliation in the school, the alienation, the loneliness, the depression, the failures of the psychologists and counselors before Columbine and the pain. We do not have to change. We do not have to try to stop the next school shooting, because you can’t stop “crazy.”

Crazy is easy. Self-analysis and acknowledging our failures is very difficult and very painful. How will we ever learn from this, and stop the next school shooter, if crazy is the final analysis? That is the source of my disgust. This is a revisionist story about Columbine that does not acknowledge the many truths about the Columbine tragedy, which actually dismisses the real cause of the tragedy, in print for the parents, principals, psychologists, counselors, and others to read. This Columbine story, told by an outsider without the complicated and multiple causative factors explained, leaves the reader with a misconception that will last forever.

It was a real tragedy. If the author can"t tell the truth, he should have written a fictional novel.

Randy Brown

A Columbine Parent

By the way… The latest on Randy Brown’s book is that he is self-publishing and will make it available online.  No date yet as to the title or release date.  Probably will be a self-publish sold on Amazon.  Since I am in complete agreement with Randy on the bullying factor to Columbine, I personally cannot wait to read it! 🙂 
—

Here is the entire Denver Post forum discussion.

Another Columbine Parent that goes by AVSgirl (unknown who their identity is) also adds their disgusted reaction to Dave Cullen’s book too. The publisher of Jeff Kass’ book also expounds on the reasons why “Columbine: A True Crime Story is the better read. ( Jeff Kass’ and Cullen’s book both came out in 2009).  

The article referenced by the Denver Post forum which Randy responded about is under the cut : 

Greene: Backward, forward on Columbine

By SUSAN GREENE   [Source]

The Denver PostMarch 21, 2009 at 1:35 pm

You can forget a lot in 10 years.

Like most reporters who covered Columbine, I was content to let much about the massacre slip from memory.

Such as bickering over the crosses at Clement Park. The human chain shielding students from journalists. And the debate over whether victim Cassie Bernall really died for God.

So it was with some hesitation that I picked up “Columbine” by Denver author Dave Cullen, touted as “the first complete account of an American tragedy.” And it was with some surprise that he managed to hook me in his first pages.

The book took 10 years of research, financial struggles and self-doubt for Cullen, a former Arthur Andersen consultant who as a closeted high- schooler was the target of homeroom spitballs. I’m happy to report that he hit it out of the ballpark.

In April 1999, he writes, “Littleton was observed beyond all recognition.”

Jefferson County instantly became a symbol of godlessness, bullying and all that’s wrong with Goth culture, video games, school safety, suburbia and the demise of families in general. Not to mention Abercrombie & Fitch.

“Columbine came to embody everything noxious about adolescence in America,” he writes.

Cullen goes on to set the record straight by chronicling the lives of victims, educators and law enforcers through years of investigations, legal maneuvering, and recovery.

He takes us to college and even the wedding of Patrick Ireland, the junior who saved himself by flopping out the library window live on national TV.

He walks us through years of depression haunting outwardly peppy principal Frank DeAngelis, including the demise of his marriage.

Cullen takes to task local evangelicals for exploiting the massacre with the folk tale that Bernall was shot for her Christianity. In one of the trickiest tightrope walks I’ve seen by a writer, he debunks the martyr myth while still dignifying the need for Bernall’s religious family to find meaning in her death.

Cullen shows the failure to protect the public from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both long known by Jefferson County to be violent and criminal. Then he shows, step by tax-funded step, how officials lied about that knowledge. If you lacked respect for Sheriff John Stone before reading the book, you’ll now want an indictment.

Cullen’s finest work is his portrayal of two killers he came to understand as well as if he had carpooled with them to bowling class or tossed pizzas with them at Blackjack’s.

He explains Harris not through the lens of normal teenage mental illness but as a psychopath consumed with contempt for everything from the WB Network to all of us idiots sucking up air on a planet he considered fit only for himself.

“For Eric, Columbine was performance. Homicidal art,” he writes.

Cullen’s read on Klebold in some ways is simpler — as a kid who was deeply lonely and pining for love. But it grew complicated when, over years studying his journals and videotapes, Cullen told me he “absorbed a lot of Dylan and his pain.”

“There were times I got depressed and found myself sympathizing with him,” he admits.

Before you conclude that Cullen’s a nutcase, do read his book. For empathizing with a killer isn’t the same as defending him. Rather, it’s such insight and sensitivity that make his work powerful.

If Columbine was analyzed beyond all recognition in 1999, it has taken a decade finally to hold a mirror to the wounds that still fester there. It turns out that some scabs in fact do need to be picked, but only with Cullen’s brand of honesty, meticulousness and care.

Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.greene@denverpost.com.

“I always dream about Dylan. I had a dream about him a couple of nights ago where I was in a van and a policemen was driving this van. I looked out the window and Dylan who was about four years old in the dream was with a little boy, a friend, and the van was driving away and I looked down, and Dylan was chasing the van trying to catch up to me. And the policeman who was driving the van slammed on the breaks, got out of the car, threw both of these little boys into a dumpster, and slammed the lid down and locked it so they couldn’t get out. You know, I’m always having ‘drama queen’ dreams, always crying and pounding things in my dream. But in that dream, I’m in this van trying to get to my son and he’s just been locked away. You can get the full symbolism here. The front door of the wall of the bin opened and Dylan ran to the van where I was pulling  away and he chased this van. And I opened the door, and I grabbed – I pulled him in with me. When he got with me into this van, he was telling me that he was hurting. ‘I’m hurting; I am sad’.  And I looked at his face, and he had this terrible – these spiky sores were coming out of his face. And I was trying to fix him and put lotion on him and he said “It can’t help, it hurts too much for you to touch these.”  And ah, in this dream I was – all I could do was to hug him and let him rest his head on my chest and then I woke up..”  
–Sue’s dream, excerpt from her Reaching for Hope speech, Feb 16, 2017

Sue is really engaging and especially really thoughtful, attentive and receptive to people’s questions and comments at the end of this particular intimate speech given in a small conference room.  Seems this casual setting is easier for her to manage than the TEDMED speech where she didn’t have a podium to hold on to for a bit of security while placing herself in the seat of judgment in front of an audience.  Another highlight was near the end, when a guy mentioned that he too had been a gifted kid that was severely bullied in school dealing with  homicidal thoughts poses important questions to Sue as yet another could-have-been Dylan.  

I must say that I found the nose level of the audience offensive and it seemed strange that the event planners decided to allow the audience to dine while listening to Sue’s speech. Plates were clattered and people were milling in and out of the room and a couple of times, they walked right in front of Sue as they were likely making a restroom break. Very distracting and disrespectful. In my opinion, the meal should’ve been arrange after her talk so that the audiences’ full, undivided attention could’ve been given to her as she was imparting her tragic happening and lessons learned from it.

Enjoy!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

In regards to an ask I sent you earlier about a blog post by Devon about Matt Ketchter (sorry I can’t get it off my mind lol) Do you think Dylan knew Matt used to bully her? Or do you think it was mere coincidence that Dylan ended up killing him? :/

everlasting-contrast:

Which blog post are you referring to? I do believe that everyone Dylan and Eric maimed and/or killed on that day were completely random people..er, targets.. that were at the wrong place at the wrong time. They killed no one that day with a specific intent out of a personal vendetta and none of their victims were on their Hit Lists. That’s how much they literally missed the mark with Operation NBK.

The article that you were referencing by Devon Adams in connection to having been bullied in the Fourth Grade by Matt

Ketchter

is entitled The Human Condition: Hatred and Society.  As you can see Devon is a very good writer and very wise having blogged this at the age of 24 in 2006. It’s not hard to see why Dylan was jealous of Zack’s good fortune in landing such a kindly, compassionate, caring girlfriend. It’s no wonder that Dylan couldn’t resist her charms  as she inclusively unconditionally extended her boyfriend’s best friend an easy friendship 

I’ve decided to post the entire article because not only does it mention Devon’s trying experience of dealing with Hate in connection to the bullying she endured way back in elementary school by a classmate that, ironically, ended up becoming a permanent victim of bullying at Columbine, but also because some of what she mentions in the article is in regards to Muslim persecution. I find that what she touches upon is ever so relevant and spot-on in connection with what is going on today here in my every ‘everlasting-contrast’ conflicted, sordid country of America. :-/ Also, to address the anon’s question above in having read this article in full including the bit about Matt Ketcher, I still tend to doubt that Dylan went after Matt because of his friend. Of course, it’s true that we’ll never really know if Devon confided in him about this happening.  But because this occurred to Devon as a kid in grade school, long before she met Dylan, I doubt that he specifically shot Matt as a vendetta for picking on Devon. 

“I grew up in the “white bread” suburbs of Denver. I lived in one of the more “diverse” areas and was exposed to many different cultures, nationalities, ages, sexualities and races as I grew up. I didn’t care what color your skin was, where you grew up, if you liked men or women, whatever – as long as you were nice to me – I wanted to be friends with you. Even though I grew up in the Catholic Church, homosexuality was not something that was discussed at the time – so I never realized it was “wrong” until I was a summer camp in junior high. And I never “got” that there was a “difference” between black people and white people until my junior year of high school – when I was accused of being a racist (another story for another time). I had lived a sheltered life, it seemed, but in this “sheltered life” that so many found so disdainful had protected me from having the same prejudices of my peers. I just could not understand the fear and hatred that some carried for those who didn’t look/think/act like them – and I was a victim of this hatred.

The first time I felt hate – really felt hatred – was in the fourth grade. There was a kid, Matthew Ketchter, for whom I was the perfect target for teasing, ridiculing, and humiliation. But I didn’t hate him. He was a kid, just like me, and I had a hard time hating someone my own age. But I hated my teacher. Matt’s torture of me was nothing compared to what she put me through. She actively encouraged Matt’s torture of me, and threw in some of her own for good measure. And I hated her – I hated her enough that it completely consumed me and turned me into an angry, spiteful, violent little girl who my 5th grade teacher had the monumental task of sorting out. But I didn’t hate her because of the way she looked or because she was a different religion, or anything about who she was – I hated her because of the way she treated me. And the few people I have truly hated since then (and they are very few) are because of the way they have treated me, or, most likely, the way they have treated someone close to me.”

The Human Condition: Hatred and Society  – By Miss Dev

Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:45 AM

The gates at Auschwitz-Birkenau – one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. Fear, ignorance, and hatred resulted in the deaths of 6 million people during the Nazi regime – many because of personal and religious beliefs.

In America in the 1600s women and men accused – often baselessly – of being witches were executed – often by being burned at the stake. Today, pagans are still persecuted in many societies – including America.

The lynching of African Americans continued well into the mid-20th century in America. The victims were accused of everything from rape to being in the “wrong place at the wrong time”. And, often, there was no explaination given at all.

There are many debates in modern society about learned behavior versus innate behavior, or “nurture vs nature.” It comes up in the gay rights debate most frequently in the question of if homosexuality is a choice, or a biological difference. It is also a talking point about education, income, social status, propensity toward violence, and almost every other social or economic issue facing modern society.

It is also a large argument in the debate of hatred.

Nurture vs nature is too often an excuse for bigotry. One is example is that for a long time it was “common knowledge” that African Americans were less intelligent than Caucasian Americans because they didn’t go on to college or hold jobs that required intellectual skills. As we now know, the reason many African Americans did not go to college or hold highly intellectual jobs wasn’t because they are less intelligent or incapable of critical thought or anything of the sort – rather it is because they were not given the academic opportunities of the Caucasian population with poorer schools and with a lower economic standing were unlikely to be able to afford college. This would mean they would be without the degrees necessary to advance to higher positions in the workforce.

But what else that is “human nature” is a learned behavior? Some people believe that sex is sinful, and is only meant for procreation – others, that it is also an act of love and pleasure. Biologically, would the human orgasm exist if sex was not meant to be, at least in part, pleasurable? Or how about gender roles? Is it the way women are born to cook and raise children and men to go out and make the money? But by studies of cultures around the world and throughout time we know that gender roles are fluid and vary from culture to culture and situation to situation – so we know that gender roles are learned.

And then there are the two most consuming human emotions: love and hate.

I am about to argue that one is a natural emotion – one that we are born with – and the other a learned emotion. But how can that be? How can one exist without the other?

Every child is born knowing how to love. When it firsts begins to bond with the mother, it begins to recognize her scent and who she is. A newborn baby will attempt to get as close to its mother as possible – even when it does not need nourishment or warmth – but simply to be close to her. Very quickly, a baby will come to know the people closest to it and will respond to their gestures and care. A baby will smile and laugh and reach for the people that it loves when it gets older. But none of this is, strictly, “love.” Except when you compare it to hate. When a baby is born it does not hit with anger, or try and harm those around it. When a baby gets angry, it is because it is uncomfortable, not because it hates something.

Babies – and, especially, toddlers – are very curious creatures. They are interested in learning anything and everything about the world around them. It is why the baby safety industry is so lucrative – babies, because they have no fear, need to be protected from their own curiosity. Since fear is the bases of hate, and fear is a learned response, it stands to reason that hate, also, is a learned response. A child who has never seen a person with a beard may be frightened of that person at first, but, if encouraged by someone that child loves, it will be curious and seek to understand the person – even though they are afraid. If the person the child trusts does not encourage that curiosity, the child will become more afraid of the other person, and it could develop into hatred.

One example: a little girl I know hates dogs. When she was born, she was around my dog quite often. She would smile and giggle at Kicha when she would get up close. But, when they moved away, this girl began to get a fear of dogs. Nothing bad happened – she was never even bumped into by a dog – it was just that her mother does not like dogs, so never encouraged the girl to not be afraid. Now, not only is this girl afraid of dogs, but she hates them, actively lashing out at them when they come near her. This little girl was born with the capacity to love – or at least – be affectionate towards the dog. But, it was thru her mother’s actions that she first learned to fear, then hate dogs.

So, if children are born innately curious to the point that they must be protected from themselves to keep from being hurt – then they are without fear. And the basis of hatred is fear – fear of the unknown, fear of the different, fear of what is not understood.

Love is an assumed emotion – everyone assumes that everyone else can love. It is even assumed in the Bible – in 2 Timothy – that people “lacking in natural affection” are sinners. But when we talk about hatred – we talk about its causes. You don’t talk about the “causes” of love. Love happens. One day, you meet someone, you fall in love. You don’t just fall into hate. It’s the same way that you don’t start loving someone because of what they do. That can make you more partial to them – like them more – admire them – but an action will not produce love. Whereas you can hate someone for what they do – if they cause enough pain (physical or emotional), you may hate them. So, love is an internal emotion whereas hate is an external one.

I grew up in the “white bread” suburbs of Denver. I lived in one of the more “diverse” areas and was exposed to many different cultures, nationalities, ages, sexualities and races as I grew up. I didn’t care what color your skin was, where you grew up, if you liked men or women, whatever – as long as you were nice to me – I wanted to be friends with you. Even though I grew up in the Catholic Church, homosexuality was not something that was discussed at the time – so I never realized it was “wrong” until I was a summer camp in junior high. And I never “got” that there was a “difference” between black people and white people until my junior year of high school – when I was accused of being a racist (another story for another time). I had lived a sheltered life, it seemed, but in this “sheltered life” that so many found so disdainful had protected me from having the same prejudices of my peers. I just could not understand the fear and hatred that some carried for those who didn’t look/think/act like them – and I was a victim of this hatred.

The first time I felt hate – really felt hatred – was in the fourth grade. There was a kid, Matthew Ketchter, for whom I was the perfect target for teasing, ridiculing, and humiliation. But I didn’t hate him. He was a kid, just like me, and I had a hard time hating someone my own age. But I hated my teacher. Matt’s torture of me was nothing compared to what she put me through. She actively encouraged Matt’s torture of me, and threw in some of her own for good measure. And I hated her – I hated her enough that it completely consumed me and turned me into an angry, spiteful, violent little girl who my 5th grade teacher had the monumental task of sorting out. But I didn’t hate her because of the way she looked or because she was a different religion, or anything about who she was – I hated her because of the way she treated me. And the few people I have truly hated since then (and they are very few) are because of the way they have treated me, or, most likely, the way they have treated someone close to me.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, hatred is not only taught – it is encouraged and nurtured so that it my bloom into the kind of mass hatred and generalizations that are rarely seen – and never produce good results. Our parents saw it in WWII – when the Germans pumped so much fear of Jews (as well as Gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) into the German populace that it stood by and watched as 6 million people were massacred. Today, I see the seeds of mass fear and hysteria being planted once again.

Yesterday, on the radio, a woman called into a talk show claiming that she “knows a Muslim when she sees one” and that she supports a “Muslims only” line at the airport. Recently, some very public figures have called for deportation of all Muslims from the US. What’s next? Internment camps like those the US subjected the Japanese to? Concentration camps? Death camps? This woman who can spot a Muslim has been fed so much fear that she cannot see how absurd she’s being. I have three Muslim friends – one is from Singapore, on is half Welsh and half Bangladeshi, and the other is a blue-eyed, blond haired man from Texas. I wonder if this woman, with her heart so wrapped up in fear and hatred of these people, would know that my friends are Muslim. Would she be able to tell that I’m a Druid? My brother, Catholic? My mother a Unitarian? Can she tell what kinds of books people read? Where they grew up? What kind of foods they like?

The fear-mongering and hatred that is beginning to appear all across the world from one group for another group – based mainly on conjecture, stereotypes, and the actions of small groups of individuals is truly stunning. What is prompting our governments and media outlets to teach the populace fear and hatred, rather than love and acceptance? But that kind of education begins with our parents and is perpetuated in school by our peers and teachers. What is keeping the people of the world from educating themselves about one another? Ignorance can no longer be an excuse for those of us who live in the US or other “developed” nations as we have open access to information thru libraries, television, and the Internet. That there are people in the US who still believe that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are Arabs is frightening and disturbing. And that there is a large group of people who are insistent on perpetuating this myth and making sure that this group or that group is the current scapegoat of society is chilling.

Why do we hate? We hate because we fear. And we fear what we are unfamiliar with or don’t understand. We are born with an intense curiosity about everything – we want to see and feel and experience and know everything around us. It is only when our parents (or other adults around us) instill fear in us that we learn distrust and then, to hate.

If we are to ever stop the destructive hatred that is moving like wildfire thru our culture – and many cultures – around the world, we must first take steps to stamp out age-old prejudices and work to educate each other on our differences. Those same differences that start wars are also those that create the beauty in life. It is our diversity as a nation, a culture, a world that makes us strong – but hate and fear are threatening to tear that strength apart. We cannot allow prejudice based on stereotypes and ignorance to be the downfall of civilization. With fear quickly becoming a US policy we must take it upon ourselves to pander to our inborn instincts – those of love and compassion – and reject the external influence of hatred.

If we are to ever stop the cycle of violence and destruction in the world, we must first stop the problem at its roots. We have to raise our children to practice love and compassion and foster their desire to explore and learn about other people, cultures, and beliefs. Maybe war is the only way at the current time – for the current generations – but we have a real opportunity to change things by taking the time to raise better, kinder, more compassionate children who will eventually run this world. If you are afraid of something – teach your child to embrace it. If you hate something – encourage your child to love it. Do not pass on the prejudices of past generations on to this new one. We have the power to stop this madness – if we just look within ourselves and take the time to care.

[Source]


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Those kids are laughing at me.

“There was one more odd incident on our way home, which at the time Tom and I chalked up to Dylan’s desire to get back to his friends. The three of us stopped at a packed McDonald’s in Pueblo for a quick bite. A large group of teenagers had taken over a couple of tables against the wall. We’d just unwrapped our sandwiches when Dylan leaned forward, hardly moving his lips, and said urgently, “We have to go. Those kids are laughing at me.” I looked over. The teenagers were hooting and hollering and having a great time, and none of them was paying the slightest bit of attention to us.

“Relax, Dyl. Nobody’s looking at you,” I said. Besides, if a person didn’t want to be noticed, why wear a floor-length leather coat? But Dylan grew more insistent, casting quick, paranoid glances over his shoulder at the oblivious kids. He was so uncomfortable that we bolted our burgers and hustled out of there; the teenagers didn’t even look up at us as we left. The rest of the ride home was uneventful.”


Hypervigilance – a symptom of bullying and/or trauma related PTSD Vs. Mental Illiness related Paranoia


What is PTSD Hypervigilance?

One of the many hyper-arousal symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is hyper vigilance and this refers to the experience of being constantly tense and ‘on guard’- your brain is on high alert in order to be certain danger is not near.

This state of increased awareness, anxiety, and sensitivity to the environmental around you often manifests as a need to always scan your surroundings for potential threats. With the brain resources on constant alert, the results can be inappropriate or even aggressive reactions in everyday situations.

People displaying hypervigilance can be so involved in their scrutiny of whats around them, that they tend to ignore their family and friends. Often, they will overreact to loud sounds and bangs, unexpected noises, smells, etc. They can get really agitated and irritated, when they move into a crowded or noisy area as there is too much to scrutinise.

Even familiar surroundings and people can be an issue as hyper vigilance can make people acutely aware of subtle details normally ignored – body language, a persons voice and tone, their mood, their expressions – all things which are continually assessed.

Some of the common behaviours of hypervigilance are:

  • Lack of objectivity – reading too much into situations
  • An over awareness of what people see or think about us
  • Looking for others to betray constantly
  • Constantly concerned about others
  • Not being aware of what is obvious to others
  • Over scrutiny/analysing behaviour of situations

    [Source]

It upsets me that Dylan was bullied. He seemed like such a chill person. Yeah, he was shy but he would have opened up eventually. I would have loved to befriend him and listen to some gnarly tunes while chilling in his room or something. He had some pretty sick taste in music. I guess some people were just too blind to see the good in him. I can’t help but feel bad for all the shit he had to go through.

But let’s not forget that Dylan also participated in bullying upon occasion and ultimately chose to become the ultimate, cruel and merciless of all bullies on 4/20. Yes, he was a chill, shy dude who had great taste in music, and yes, we can feel empathy for him for being victimized and bullied. We understand his pain as our own. Dylan suffered and endured shame and pain and internalized it until he was numb and depressed and apathetic. It changed and calloused him until he reached the point where bullying others weaker than him was gratifying and that eventually, murdering people suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad solution to having the last word with all of humanity, So, we also must keep in mind that Dylan, like each one of us, had shades of gray, that potential for goodness and brilliance but also that

susceptibility

to giving in to the bad and the ugly.  That in his need to displace the anger, self-hatred and pain – the lack of self worth resulting from his own bullying-  caused him to become the very thing that injured him, the very thing he hated. The bullied transforming into the bully. We should keep in mind of the duality within himself that he struggled with and wrote about in journal as the everlasting contrast symbol which has relevance to us all.  That he is anyone of us, in our own moments of weakness, giving in and succumbed to the wrong and easy choices, to becoming the wolf going after easy prey and relishing it for a moments self gratification. I can’t help but feel badly for him too, you know. So, I understand what you mean when you feel so strongly about the wonderfulness you prefer to see about him.  It’s just that we shouldn’t be blind to the flaws about him too which are a part of his ordinary complexity, struggles and ultimate tragedy as a human being.

Do you think the reason dylan was rough with girls in gym was because it sort of turned him on? like he said he had ‘an extreme bondage liking’, so do you think he got like a kick out of doing that to some of the girls? like it was sort of one of his fantasies?

Well, to preface, Dylan was automatically determined a social misfit in general at Columbine but no where else was his ‘loser’ reputation more intensely amplified than that of gym class.  P.E. is a class that expects and assumes social collaboration and social competitiveness in an active way. Dylan felt excruciatingly excluded and ostracized. You can just imagine skinny, gangly, long-limbed Dylan in his mandatory CHS gym uniform of shorts and a muscle or t-shirt and there is an instantaneous sense of this poor guy standing out like a sore thumb as the ‘tallest in the class’, automatically made to feel stripped visibly bare simply by his sheer physicality –  yet internally, shy, awkward and introverted, and wishing he could blend into the wall and disappear. The impulse to ditch or be really super late for class must have been tempting. Peers in the class referred to him as “stretch” or the “jolly green giant”. The gym teacher made Dylan do
bear crawl exercises for being late to class constantly. Can anyone blame him for stalling on his way to a much detested class which made him anxious and on guard? Somehow being late was worth the public peer humiliation of bear crawls in a twisted, defiant sort of way.

Dylan’s diversion file report shows an ongoing account of the counselor noting his dropped grade in gym and that he’d better stop making “victim” excuses with the tardies to remedy the situation – or else.   Like many of us that loathed the infamous gym class, I think it was pretty obvious that Dylan automatically assumed a form of ‘survival mode’ upon finally showed up for the class. He would brace himself and don a thick armor of ‘sneer’ and folded arms as his best posturing defense. Pretending not to hear them talk about him.  It also sounds to me that he didn’t even have so much as one friend in this class. (Thank goodness morning bowling with friends was a P.E. option in senior year!)  Peers referred to him by those ‘freak show’ like names, and you can bet he was acutely aware of it – though on the surface, he pretended indifference. Dylan internalized all of it with a bitter attitude and acted out his aggressions when/where the opportunity arose.

So, given all of that: it’s easy to see how he took a retaliating, justified posturing during competitive games –  slamming people with a contemptuous expression during the no-rules dodge ball game or tackled people, heck, why not girls?, when they were playing tag team football, even ‘cheating’.Though we’re not entirely certain what she means by his supposed blatant cheating.    Dylan didn’t have the nerve, or the physique, to physically go after the jocks and tackle them without likely getting ganged up on.  Instead, he passive-aggressively took out his pent up frustration on those who he sensed were easiest, vulnerable targets – girls. Dylan occasionally seized the opportunity to act out and push a few girls in line, to tackle girls during games and harass them by calling them “bitch” when they talked back to him.   I speculate that he wasn’t just seeking out random girls either but especially attempting to victimize the snooty, vapid girls – those he felt had popular status levels in their associations with jocks. Anything remotely associated to a jock just got his hackles up.   Tara Zobjeck is probably a prime example of that type.  When her boyfriend, who is likely a jock, confronted Dylan, he backed off immediately.  Of course, we don’t know for certain that Dylan only singled out girls associated with jocks but I think it’s a good bet even though it’s a speculation on my part   So, Dylan walked into that class daily believing that the class, as a whole, rejected him. He was by himself most of the time, he was habitually late to class, he barely squeaked by in most of the sports and was seen as inept and uncoordinated.  From Dyl’s POV, he was certain the entire class was ‘the enemy’ against him from the start and so he probably felt the need to ‘defend himself’ against them whenever, wherever and however he could, armed with his bitter contempt and a massive chip-on-his-shoulder.

Dylan was vastly different outside of gym class. Friends describe Dylan outside of gym as as‘gentle’, ‘happy’,‘laid back’ and ‘nice’ – but here, in gym class, Dylan discovered a bullying streak with himself and had discovered a pastime outlet for his frustration by exploiting a few girls when the perfect opportunity arose.  They’d be sorry for wasting his hour in a worthless class.  Of course, I am in no way trying to minimize his bad behavior. Bullying sucks period. Feeling so desperate and powerless in class that you feel you’re only capable of victimizing girls is..sad.  That said, I’m simply attempting to explore the full snapshot and potential psychological mentality that led to Dylan’s normally uncharacteristic passive-aggressive style of acting out. 🙂

On a deeper level, I think Dylan took his aggression out on girls in gym class because, in his mind, he felt that women didn’t recognize him as attractively worthy enough and he believed to his core that he could never have women because women would never want him. So, there was this contemptuous, bitter, self loathing posturing about him.   In a class where it’s all about the competition, Dylan’s own form of competitive expression was to rage against the entire class as a collective group against him that rejected him for his low-on-the-totem-pole social status.  Based on gym class witnesses, Dylan was automatically rejected as inadequate in regards to the male competitive sports stuff. Since, he was painfully conscious of that fact that he performed more visibly, physically uncoordinated that he normally would, if he were playing soccer or baseball among friends he knew, people that liked him. Plus, I think in gym, Dylan just went out of his way to under perform as much as possible; he slacked off with defiant indignation.  Why give it your best shot when you feel no one likes you by default?

As if that wasn’t painful enough to endure for the hour, there was also, another sort of ‘competition’ that he innately knew he was out-of-league in regards to: that would be the undercurrent of female-to-male attractional potential within the class. The threat of that and his failing in it, made him jealous of others i.e. jocks, And of course, it’s pretty apparent to dudes that girls are wearing the bare minimum with the gym uniform of shorts and a t-shirt revealing bare legs and jiggling bits. 😉 It’s that usual, unavoidable awkward/distraction thing about co-ed gym where everyone is wearing the socialistic ‘cookie cutter’ uniform that despite looking dull manages to show enough ‘bare’ to be..noticable – and to begin with, teens are at odds with involuntarily displaying more of their bodies than they’d like to their peers. Gym class is judgment and distraction personified. Even Eric mentions how he couldn’t help but notice the girls in gym and how he’d fantasized about having them by force. 

Dylan’s conduct in gym class was invariably a potent explosive cocktail of anger, resentment. self-loathing (“nobody accepting me even though I want to be accepted, me doing badly and being intimidated in any and all sports, me looking weird and acting shy — BIG problem.”) plus that physical and metaphorical frustration over girls. Women were untouchable and off limits to him, so he in return, treats them roughly, spitefully. I don’t even think Dylan even consciously sets out to bully girls in gym class; instead, it’s more of an unconscious, reactive thing he just devolves into doing it out of a combination of suppressed rage and self-perceived sexual unattractiveness.  There must have been a smug adrenaline rush after exerting his body physically over girls in class – with a shove or a push, relishing in his harassment of some stuck up, shallow, designer clothes wearing ‘bitch’ was like a small victory to him. The she on the receiving end of his slight, represented something that was too good for him and so why not make a point of pissing off her and a few others when they got in his way – then they’d know he was not just some loser freak-geek that nobody in the class liked – but someone to be reckoned with.  That sneerish vibe of  ’girls: stay away from me if you know what’s good for you.’

From witness testimony, it sounds as though he also instigated on occasion and tackled girls during flag football.  Why go after the guy opponents when you can tackle a few girls with some unexpected, hard body contact? Like most teen dudes, Dylan didn’t process his aggressive, suppressed sexual impulses – he just did annoying in-your-face shit to piss girls off. Instead of it being the usual ‘boy picks on girls because he likes them’ it was more like a Dylan picking on girls because he hates them because he’s not entitled to like them.    Bullying has a sense of power about it; at its very fundamental level, it simply satisfying and boosts self confidence to exert ones will over others, putting the instigator in charge and control – end of story.  And to answer the question, yes,  I do see Dylan’s behavior in gym class as potentially connected to that hidden, sexually kinky side of himself, his  ‘bondage-extreme liking’.  In his journal, Dylan seems conflicted and chagrinned about that side of him self that gravitated towards fetish and bondage porn.  His ‘urge and purge’ mentality translates to an obvious outlet for his suppressed frustrations, his assumed permanent inadequacy with the opposite sex – essentially, his lack of control over females.  So, roughing up girls in gym class out of a blurred, confused ‘turned-on’ mix of pent up aggression and unconsciously repressed sexual frustration over girls, yes, definitely. Do I think he got a kick out of roughing girls up in gym?  Yes.

This, of course, doesn’t mean we should make the assumption that this automatically makes Dylan sexually dominant in all of his 17 years. 😉  What it does mean is that Dylan is generally shy, quiet and introverted and he’s used to automatically suppressing the more aggressive, ‘in appropriate’ or negative aspects of himself and so these parts of himself spill out in other ways, including his personal taste in porn.  He discovered opportune moments in the much loathed gym class where he could act out his aggressions physically, and as a bonus, with girls (!) and he could relish asserting his authority, feel empowered and in charged for once. Mm..a bit like when normally reticent Dylan suddenly exudes an air of smugness while wearing his trench in a restaurant with  mom and doesn’t stop when she asks him to take the coat off because it’s scaring people. His occasional inappropriately abusive contact with girls in gym provides him an opportunity to exorcise control over girls when he normally feels he has none, and so this connects and relates to his attraction to his ‘extreme liking’ of certain bondage/fetish porn and related fantasies thereof.  

Michelle Hartsough’s accusation that Dylan hit her at Blackjack pizza, seems to be the only location, other than gym class, where Dylan was reported to have acted out physically aggressive manner with girl.  I think the fact that he chooses to act out aggressive in Gym class is an integral component. Overall, Gym class is a rampant place for bullying, girls and dudes are in close proximity in the minimal gym uniforms. Plus, it’s an environment where engaging actively in sports gives plenty of opportune instances to have some manner of accidental or intentional physical contact. Dylan could minimize his instigated physical contact under the veiled guise of ‘just engaging in gym class activities’. He could loath the class as a whole for automatically rejecting him and play ‘kick the dog’, asserting his dominance over vulnerable targets – girls – because he already assumed they were against him by default. Then when some girls called him out on his shit, he could feel justified in calling them bitch. Dylan set up a self-sabotaging, self fulfilling prophecy for himself – a viscious cycle of: class rejects him as a freak; he rebukes the class and acts out passive-aggressively; they, in turn now, really dislike him; repeat. But not everyone disliked Dylan in gym class, not every girl outright rejected him, unfortunately, unbeknownst to him too. Some, one?, like Sara Schweitzberger, could see the bigger, sadder picture beyond the political pecking order and understood the essential core of Dylan’s struggle and misery in gym class. 

Tara Zobjeck: “Bitch” (2) vs. Klebold (1) Gym class = battle zone
Called her a bitch after gym incident. Harassed her.  Dylan Klebold cheated on games in gym class and was always pushing people. “He was like a loner in that class. Nobody liked him.”

Nicole Ziccardi:Had gym with Klebold, she said that he would play dodge ball in the class and that he played hard and always had a sneer on his face that seemed to her to be hateful look.   Several people in the class referred him as “The jolly Green Giant”.

Josh Chavez: Stretch:Everybody made fun of Dylan in class. They even called him “stretch” because he was so tall.  He said Dylan was uncoordinated and wasn’t very good at sports.

Reddit:planetanimals:What I remember about Klebold. He was awkward looking, kind of unnattractive I guess. I remember the teacher making him do bear crawls for being late to class constantly. We played this no rules dodge ball game. It was just every man for himself, with like 50 or 60 kids. Him and this really scrawny kid were last and the scrawny kid beat him. for some reason i won’t forget that., kind of unnattractive I guess.

Sara Schweitzberger: To Love The Unloved
Some of the kids would tease him because of his height as he was the tallest person in his class.  She continued to say that Klebold just ignored them. Sara said it was obvious he felt socially ostracized. “He really felt unloved,” she said. He wasn’t so bad. He was lonely. I just wish I could give him a hug and tell him that I care.

Anyway.. that was rather long-winded. My apologies for the uber lengthy late-night Dyl thesis. 😉

subcultureofthenight:

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Read More

Q. Where did Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold fit in?

DEVON ADAMS: Dylan Klebold was one of my best friends. And when I hung out with him, there was just something that happened. I mean, whether they were wearing jeans and a T-shirt, or whether they were wearing their black trench coats, people would give them looks. Just like, “You don’t belong here, would you leave?”

Let’s block out last week when I say this – they hadn’t done anything physically wrong to people. I mean, they dressed different. So? They wore black. So what? It’s just, they were hated and so they felt they hated back. They hated back.

MEG HAINS: They’d call them freaks, weirdos, faggots. It was just stupid name calling, acting like little children. It’s like my cousins come home, they’re only 2 and 3, and they come home and start calling me names, calling each other names like butt-head and all these other things. They probably couldn’t handle it.

DEVON People called them fags. People thought they were gay. And that’s not right. I mean, even if they were – and which, they’re not – it’s not right to say that.

Columbine Students Talk of the Disaster and Life
April 30, 1999 – New York Times On the Web 

By calling their victims ‘nerds’, a label that seems to have been applied to themselves, the boys[Eric and Dylan] were putting their victims into the roles they had been given by their peers. They were assuming power over them. Ironically, their frightening strength is more likely to be remembered than their feelings of loneliness, isolation and weakness.

www.rickross.com/reference/shootings/shootings22.html (via columbineartist)