Violence, Children and the Virginia Tech Tragedy

We are all shaken by the tragedy that took place on the campus of Virginia Tech a few days ago. With 32 innocent people--most of them young students--murdered for no reason, many of us are asking why 23 year old college senior, Cho Seung-Hui, suddenly exploded in this rage. There are many people asking why he wasn't identified as an at-risk individual earlier.

From outside the country, we hear many commentators noting the violent nature of American culture. Many European and Asian countries are amazed at the ease by which American citizens are able to gain access to guns, knives and assault weapons. The power of the NRA lobby has made sensible gun control a difficult measure to implement. Many of us agree that hunters should be permitted to hunt with rifles, but the gun advocates push the envelope by insisting that there be NO limits on their rights to bear arms. Their argument: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people". While the latter sentence is true, the prior one is not, and an onlooker does not have to be a forensics expert to note that if gun laws were more strict, Cho Seung-Hui would not have been able to kill as many people as he did. If we agree that psychopaths will kill whether or not they have access to guns, let us also acknowledge that if Cho would have been forced (by reasonable gun laws) to exact his brutality with the use of a mere knife, he would never be able to create the carnage that Cho created.

But a more important issue here is the violence that we find in our society: the violence that we encourage, the violence that we tolerate, the violence that we have become numb to. Poetry professor Nikki Giovanni made some important statements when she commented on the creative writing work that Cho was giving to her during the semester that he was in her class at Virginia Tech. She told him that she was not going to accept or tolerate the vicious nature of his writing. Cho told her that she couldn't refuse to accept it, and she shot right back, "Oh yes I can." This is the type of stand that all of us have to take whe we see violence being encouraged and tolerated in our communities and schools.

As an attorney and an author, I have a great appreciation for our civil rights that are afforded to us by the Constitution, but we cannot misinterpret that as suggesting that hate speech (and what could have been more hateful than the writings--and recorded video--of Cho Seung-Hui?) should be accepted and embraced. Too many music videos, computer games and films aimed at young people glorify violence, murder and assaults on individuals. Violence has become so much a part of our culture that many of us forget that young people who are raised with it are also slow to recognize its impact on the human psyche. Violence is now seen as entertainment. A murder or a shooting is no longer the "money shot" at a crucial moment of a film or a video game; it is now the ongoing backdrop to the rest of the show or game. In these films, killers are no longer the bad guys who get punished; they are often the heroes who win applause from the viewers.

My wife and I do not allow our children to watch films or to play videos that permit the killing or maiming of people. This may make us appear to be pollyannas to some, but we want our children to be sensitized to the violence in our society so that they can recognize it in themselves and in others when it rears its head. Right now, the parents and family members of Cho Seung-Hui are strangely silent, so we don't really know if his was a childhood that embraced a culture of violence. But if we continue to surround our children with images of violence, we will create young adults who see it as an inevitable future for themselves.

My Political Commentary on TV this weekend

For those fellow New Yorkers who are interested in my comments regarding the New York State budget that was just passed by the State Legislature and our exciting new Governor, Eliot Spitzer, I hope that you will watch my half-hour TV appearance on "Newsmakers", which airs on News 12. Airing on both Saturday and Sunday, I am conversing with hosts Janine Rose and Brian Conybeare, and debating with Republican strategist Michael Edelman.

Governor Spitzer, who was elected in a landslide victory following an extremely successful term as New York State Attorney General, has seen his first budget pass on schedule. Known as the "sheriff of Wall Street" following his policing of the financial industry and other segments of the business world, Spitzer is attempting to curb waste in governmental spending, as well as addressing the need for greater ethics in Albany. Key issues in our News 12 discussion include rising property taxes, increased school aid, Medicaid expenses, and the ongoing struggle between a Republican State Senate and a Democratic State Assembly.

We also discuss the Presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

Washington Post story re: my book and D.C. Mayor Fenty

Many of you read the Washington Post article last week about my book, The Senator and the Socialite, and its significance for D.C.'s new Mayor, Adrian Fenty. Post op-ed columnist Colbert I. King quotes from my book and eloquently argues that Mayor Fenty should consider one of the the important lessons that I report: It was a lesson that was experienced by Washington's first black superintendent of schools in the early 1900s. As my book described, the highly celebrated black Washington superintendent Roscoe Bruce lost the support of influential black Washingtonians--and eventually his job in 1921--when he decided that the opinions of black residents, educators and intellectual leaders did not matter. Roscoe Bruce was not only a phi beta kappa graduate of Harvard's class of 1902, an honors graduate of Phillips Exeter and a friend of Booker T. Washington, but he was also the son of U.S. Senator Blanche Bruce, the first black to serve a full-term in the U.S. Senate. None of these credentials saved him when black Washingtonians discovered that here was a black leader who had turned his back on the very residents who had put him in power.

Washington Post columnist King uses his March 24 article "A History Lesson for Mayor Fenty" to argue that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty should realize that Washington's elite are paying attention to the appointments that he is making and the opinions that he is seeking. Columnist King suggests that Fenty could find himself in the same predicament as the once well-regarded Roscoe Bruce if he is not thoughtful and respectful to the constituents who elected him to the position of Washington, D.C. Mayor.

Welcome to Lawrence Otis Graham's Blog

Welcome to my new blog. After writing 14 books and numerous articles for magazines and newspapers, I am finally entering the blogging universe. Please be patient as I learn the proper protocol and discover which format works best.

First, a little bit about myself: I am an attorney and a New York Times-bestselling author of 14 nonfiction books and numerous articles that have appeared in New York Magazine, Essence, The New York Times, Glamour, U.S. News & World Report and Reader's Digest. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, I grew up in Westchester County, New York, and I still reside there with my wife, Pamela Thomas-Graham, and our three children.

Basically, I will be discussing the issues that I write about in my books and that I discuss in my TV & radio interviews and public appearances: Politics, Law, Race, Class, Society, Culture, Education, Business and Diversity. I will be commenting on current events and share research that I have gathered for my past, current and future book projects.

With the recent release of my newest book, The Senator and The Socialite (HarperCollins), a biography of Senator Blanche Bruce, the first black to be elected to a full-term in the U.S. Senate, many people are asking me to comment on the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, as he campaigns for President. Although Senator Bruce was born a slave and elected to the U.S. Senate in 1874 from the state of Mississippi, his story and experience is strikingly similar to Obama's today. I will share some of those facts in the coming weeks as Americans continue to compare him to the other Democratic front runner, Senator Hillary Clinton.

I will also bring attention to projects that I am publishing in Reader's Digest where I serve as Contributing Editor.

Whether it is to discuss any of these topics or to ask me about my past books like Our Kind of People, or to just share your own ideas, please send your comments. And thanks again for visiting.
All the best to you, Lawrence Otis Graham