Lessons from Littleton
by Claudia Horwitz, May, 1999
I still have not washed my brown shoes. A week ago they were caked in mud. I did wipe some of it off last weekend before I had to present a workshop at a conference. I stood over the sink in my hotel room and wiped off the mud with my wet, purple bandana. I watched the dirt swirl around, mix with the water in the sink, change colors and consistency, and then finally disappear down the drain. But I didn't wash all of it away. Some of the mud is still there, on the bottom of my shoes, in that triangle of space between the shoe's wide heel and the rest of the sole.
This mud is from Clement Park, which sits adjacent to Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. I arrived in Denver six days after Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had shot 12 classmates and a teacher before shooting themselves. Without any direct connection to Columbine or the town of Littleton, my short four-day stay in Denver was still framed by what had taken place there the week before. At the airport I noticed blue and silver ribbons pinned to many lapels. Driving towards Denver in my rental car, I was greeted by a large digital sign on the side of the highway: "Colorado Joined in Grief." And so it was.
For each of the next four days I read the twenty-some pages of newspaper coverage in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. I was fascinated, really, by the outpouring of grief, by the attention, by the commentary, and the range of angles. There was extensive coverage of each funeral. There were articles about violent video games, Marilyn Manson, and how the U.S. Marines rejected Eric Harris because he was being treated with psychiatric medication. (So, apparently our military only wants folks who aren't being treated with psychiatric medication but that is another column altogether...) There were endless lists of funds where people could donate money to help victims, families and violence prevention programs, and scores of places where folks could get counseling. Families involved were offered free airline tickets, transportation, hotel rooms, and child care. A group of students made 2,000 angel pins, one for each student at Columbine High School. Even tattoo parlors offered half price for any tattoo including the date of the shooting and the initials "CHS." I am not making this up.
Truth be told, the importance of this event, dreadful though it was, has saddened me almost as much as the event itself. In this country, 12 kids are killed every day by a gun. Every day. Over 75,000 since 1979 when the Children's Defense Fund first started keeping track. Have these 15 deaths received so much attention because they were somehow more dramatic, as if this was even an appropriate term to apply to murder? Is it because this country has not let go of its subconscious (and often conscious) belief that white, upper-middle class lives are worth more? Is it because the shootings at Columbine represent the death of the so-called American dream? Earn a good living, move out to the suburbs so your kids can go to a good school—isn't this what we lift up as the ideal scenario? Don't most television sitcoms begin here? I'm not knocking the suburbs; I grew up in one and I mostly feel grateful for it. But I wonder how much longer we can perpetuate the myth that suburban kids are not violent, don't use drugs, don't play with guns, don't rape, don't drink, don't have abortions. My own recollection of high school is that we did most of the same crazy things those kids in the city did. Although I never saw a gun in high school (actually, I still have never seen a gun...) I do remember a cross-burning on the lawn of a white girl who was seeing a black guy, both of whom went to my high school. And this was at Lower Merion High School, part of one of the best public school systems in the country, a place I knew I was lucky to be, even as a ninth grader.
So, I keep the mud on my shoes because I haven't quite figured out everything there is to learn from Littleton. I think, though, that is has something to do with owning and telling the truth. Coming face to face with truth is a spiritual endeavor. It has to be, because it is not easy. Sometimes it seems anything is easier to face than the truth. We are so reluctant to face the true nature of this nation's violent history. Europeans have used violence to take land and life from indigenous people all over the globe, to enslave Africans and other peoples, to exterminate Jews.
And in our present, this violence continues. Didn't we all hear President Clinton make a statement on the evening news about how we must "teach our children to resolve their differences and express their anger with words not weapons" while the band is still playing "bombs away" in Kosovo? I cringe as I admit that I can periodically forget the intense levels of violence people are subjected to here, and in other places around the globe. This list goes on. I try hard not to forget, but my privilege is too deeply embedded and my life too comfortable.
So, on my last day in Denver I took a detour on my way to the airport. Driving into Littleton, it was clear when I was nearing Columbine High. Blue and silver ribbons encircled the trees and hung from fences. As I got closer, banners began to appear, tied between lampposts. They proclaimed messages like, "We are all Columbine," and "God is with you." And then finally I arrive at Clement Park and joined the line of cars on the side of the road. I wandered around for an hour or so, looking at the most public display of grief I'd ever seen—the makeshift shrines, the thousands of messages and bunches of flowers, the photos and the posters, the stuffed animals. I read the banners that hung from the fences of the tennis courts and stared across the yellow police tape at Columbine High.
Then, I trudged through the mud to the top of a small hill and stood in line to see the 15 crosses that had been erected there, one for each person killed on April 21. (The crosses for Klebold and Harris were later removed by one of their victim's fathers.) I watched people kneel down in prayer and praise the "angels." It was high drama and it was real, and I couldn't help thinking about all the other people who deserved shrines and moments of silence, and who would never get them.
Questions for Reflection
- What was your own reaction to Littleton?
- What is the truth about the levels of violence you have been subjected to? What about your family, your friends, your colleagues, your community?
- How does this get acknowledged? What would it take to tell a more complete truth?