A further comment
on my post from yesterday, "The Kids Aren't OK." I commented on shooting up high school. One of the fucked up things that happened with this is that, shortly after the Columbine massacre, the term "Trenchcoat Mafia" came around. The strange reaction to this was an attempt to ban kids from wearing trenchcoats to school.
Seriously, WTF?
What valid use would that have been? "Well, kids, the misanthropes who shot up their high school wore trenchcoats, so that means that if we let you dress that way you'll be a danger to society." Um. Yeah. Thanks for trying to repress us MORE. In other moments, I'll talk about how I think school uniforms might not be such a bad thing, but this was a shallow, reactionary response built out of.... I don't know, pure stupid. Taking away the outward signs of nonconformity won't make it go away.
Around here, the general statement was "Er.... we wear trenchcoats because it rains all the damn time." Nobody could really argue with that, so it got dropped. And now that Columbine is faded from public scrutiny, I expect that it's a rule that's fallen to the wayside everywhere else too. Funny, that.
Back in HS, towards the end of my junior year, somebody set off a more or less pathetic pipe bomb under the bleachers during an assembly. Yes, at squeaky clean suburban Shorewood. I got called out of 5th period so they could ask me about it. It went like this:
"Lori, do you know anything about the pipe bomb that was set during the assembly?"
"Um, no. I didn't go to the assembly, I was in the SAC. I knew something crazy happened, I mean, I saw the fire trucks and stuff, but didn't hear the details until the beginning of this last class hour."
"Nobody asked you anything about how to do something like that?"
"Er, no."
"Which of the kids who go out and smoke do you think would be smart enough to make a bomb?"
They actually asked me which of my friends was smart enough to build a pipe bomb. It wasn't even a very good pipe bomb, it didn't so much as bust any of the flimsy folding supports on the bleachers. It barely left a burn mark on the gymnasium floor.
"Any of them, I guess."
Personally, if JN hadn't graduated already, I'd have guessed it was him. Or Ben V., but Ben was actually TOO smart - if he'd decided to bomb the place, folks would be dead. Same with D., who was already well acknowledged for liking to play with gunpowder and Unsafe And Insane fireworks; besides, he was an honors kid so nobody would have given me any credence.
"Well, if you hear anything, you tell us, OK?"
"Yeah, sure."
To this day I'm still a little blown away that when something like that happened, I was viewed as someone who might do it. I hated my peers as much as the next guy, but I'm not DUMB enough to try to pipe-bomb the bleachers during a pep rally. And I think they knew that; I never felt that they thought I did it, but rather that the perps might have let me know that it did might have bragged to me about it or even asked me for info. I never knew who actually did it. If I had found out, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have told.
The whole incident was scandalous but was completely overshadowed the next year when a student murdered his girlfriend. Welcome to the burbs.
For the record, this happened in 1992, seven years before the shootings at Columbine.
Seriously, WTF?
What valid use would that have been? "Well, kids, the misanthropes who shot up their high school wore trenchcoats, so that means that if we let you dress that way you'll be a danger to society." Um. Yeah. Thanks for trying to repress us MORE. In other moments, I'll talk about how I think school uniforms might not be such a bad thing, but this was a shallow, reactionary response built out of.... I don't know, pure stupid. Taking away the outward signs of nonconformity won't make it go away.
Around here, the general statement was "Er.... we wear trenchcoats because it rains all the damn time." Nobody could really argue with that, so it got dropped. And now that Columbine is faded from public scrutiny, I expect that it's a rule that's fallen to the wayside everywhere else too. Funny, that.
Back in HS, towards the end of my junior year, somebody set off a more or less pathetic pipe bomb under the bleachers during an assembly. Yes, at squeaky clean suburban Shorewood. I got called out of 5th period so they could ask me about it. It went like this:
"Lori, do you know anything about the pipe bomb that was set during the assembly?"
"Um, no. I didn't go to the assembly, I was in the SAC. I knew something crazy happened, I mean, I saw the fire trucks and stuff, but didn't hear the details until the beginning of this last class hour."
"Nobody asked you anything about how to do something like that?"
"Er, no."
"Which of the kids who go out and smoke do you think would be smart enough to make a bomb?"
They actually asked me which of my friends was smart enough to build a pipe bomb. It wasn't even a very good pipe bomb, it didn't so much as bust any of the flimsy folding supports on the bleachers. It barely left a burn mark on the gymnasium floor.
"Any of them, I guess."
Personally, if JN hadn't graduated already, I'd have guessed it was him. Or Ben V., but Ben was actually TOO smart - if he'd decided to bomb the place, folks would be dead. Same with D., who was already well acknowledged for liking to play with gunpowder and Unsafe And Insane fireworks; besides, he was an honors kid so nobody would have given me any credence.
"Well, if you hear anything, you tell us, OK?"
"Yeah, sure."
To this day I'm still a little blown away that when something like that happened, I was viewed as someone who might do it. I hated my peers as much as the next guy, but I'm not DUMB enough to try to pipe-bomb the bleachers during a pep rally. And I think they knew that; I never felt that they thought I did it, but rather that the perps might have let me know that it did might have bragged to me about it or even asked me for info. I never knew who actually did it. If I had found out, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have told.
The whole incident was scandalous but was completely overshadowed the next year when a student murdered his girlfriend. Welcome to the burbs.
For the record, this happened in 1992, seven years before the shootings at Columbine.