When we choose to care

So all the news today is all about the mass murder at Virginia Tech. It was a creepy, scary, violent, and sad event. Sympathy, support, love, and money poor in from all over the country to the surviving families of this tragedy. The news media covers the lives and stories of the slain students.

But I am concerned about the narrow focus of this response. Thousands of people die from gun violence every year, and all those deaths go largely unnoticed. If you want to be remembered for a shooting death, make sure you die with a lot of other people. Don't be gunned down alone!

A family who's house is wiped out by hurricane Katrina gets national media coverage, national sympathy, and financial aid. A family who's house is wiped out by a tornado in Oklahoma is ignored.

15,000+ people are killed every year from drunk driving, and people barely notice. Millions die from war and famine in Africa each year....and we really couldn't care less.

But the 32 people who died at Virginia Tech will receive the full grief and support of our whole nation.

That many people are killed almost every DAY in Iraq, and we don't care (much). And then we wonder why the rest of the world hates us.

I'm not saying I don't understand why this happens. I've been a sucker for the news coverage and sad stories from the Virginia Tech massacre myself. But I do find it terribly unfair and unfortunate that our national sense of tragedy is only capable of such limited and narrow focus.

There is more death and suffering in the world than any person can deal with, and so we pick and choose just a very few people to help and feel sorry for. And we pick those people who are most like us, and who come in the most convenient packaging.

I'm sure there are many parents across the nation who have lost a child due to senseless violence, and watched their child pass into obscurity, never to be remembered. And I wonder if they look at the news coverage of the Virgina Tech massacre...and the video tributes to individual kids who died...and I wonder if they think "What about MY child?"