Like most people this past week I watched in numb horror as the tragedy in Colorado unfolded. When all was said and done 15 people were dead, a number that included the two gunmen. We later found out that over 40 bombs were found at the school. In one of the kid's diaries he had written that they wanted to kill 500 classmates, burn the school down and then go on a killing spree in the neighborhood. One of their goals was to hijack a plane and crash it onto a metropolitan area. 

Bizarre stuff, to put it mildly. While I was listening the media tended to point out the fact that the shooters were "Goths", people who are into the Gothic style of dress. It's actually more than that; Goth's are an entire subculture.

Let's be honest here for a moment. Goth's are an easy target; they look strange, they act strange. And we all know that people that pierce every part of their body, and then display the piercing to the world, must be crazy. So the media begins pointing the finger, ever so subtly, at this particular subculture. One of the local TV stations here went so far as to go to a local Arabica coffee house to ask the Goths that were working there what they thought of the shootings. For those of you who don't know how ridiculous this is, what would have happened if these shooters were American Indian's, and a TV station had gone to the first American Indian they found and asked them what they thought?

I guess that the Goth angle sells more papers than the fact that the kids were also (allegedly) into neo-nazism. I guess that's getting boring (and the fact that the shootings coincided with Hitler's birthday was a pure coincidence, I'm sure).

I know what I speak of here. Elsewhere on my web site I mention that I enjoyed playing a LARP, or Live Action Role-Playing. Specifically I played Vampire; by its nature it attracted a lot of the Goth crowd. I'm now friends with a lot of these folks; when I first met them I was usually coming straight from work. I was dressed in a suit and tie with the businessman's haircut, about as far from these folks as one could possibly get. Yet, when I was introduced, none of them batted an eye. Ever.

When we went out to eat afterwards I certainly can't say the same for all the "normal" people that were in the restaurant. The looks that were shot our way, and the comments that were said in "whispers" (but loud enough so that we could hear them) were beyond anything I ever heard any of my group say. When asked if such comments bothered them they tended to shrug it off and laugh about it. Not once did I ever see any of them say or threaten to do anything violent (outside the game, of course; Vampires don't tend to be "nice").

I write from experience, not the false assumptions and knee-jerk reactions that seem so prevalent in today's media. And I am a big believer in pointing out what I feel right and wrong. That's one of the advantages of being an adult. Sorry kids, but I've lived through your age and I do know a few things about what goes on in your head. I would be the first to scream from the hilltops if something that you were doing was exceptionally weird, or wrong. But I don't believe being part of the Gothic genre is that bad.

While I'm not part of the Gothic group, I am friends with an awful lot of them. Have been for several years. And from what I've seen they accept people for what they are far more quickly than vice-versa, and are about as non violent a group as I've seen.

But that doesn't sell newspapers.