Melissa's Introduction

On April 16th, 2007, a gunman shot a killed 32 students and faculty at the Virginia Tech University then killed himself. In the National Ledger on April 17th, 2007, journalist Jon Shanks wrote an article revealing the identity of the gunman, “Virginia Tech University officials have identified an undergraduate student from South Korea as the gunman who shot and killed at least 30 students and professors on Monday. Police identified the classroom shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English department at Virginia Tech and lived in a different dorm on campus.” According to Susan Sontag in Regarding the pain of others, “American prefer to picture that evil was there and from which the United States … is exempt.” The way the identity of the Virginia Tech University shooter was revealed, by constantly repeating that he is South Korean, it seems like they are saying that because Cho Seung-Hui was South Korean had something to do with why he killed 30 people. Americans like to believe that this country is better and do not have problems. In this example we could see that by labeling the gunman as South Korean, the Americans feel that they did not cause such a tragic event, that they had nothing to do with it, it was not an American but a South Korean that caused so much grieve. The Americans constantly blame others when a tragic event occurs so that they can still feel that they are better and they do not have problems.