"Columbine" Quotes
The book "Columbine" by Dave Cullen provides a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of the 1999 school shooting and its aftermath.
nonfiction | 417 pages | Published in NaN
Quotes
We are all capable of such extremes. That’s the most frightening aspect, the real lesson of Columbine.
They weren’t goths or loners. The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver’s Columbine High School 10 years ago weren’t in the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” disaffected videogamers, or members of one of the other outcast groups that one might assume would hatch a diabolical plot.
The Columbine killers are not the jocks, the good ol’ boys, or the cheerleaders. They are not even the losers, the outcasts, or the weirdos. The killers are those who are most invisible, those who could act with the most freedom.
Kids who felt like nobody ever saw them. Kids who felt completely ignored and alone. Kids who were totally convinced that they were invisible. These kids are not seen by anyone; they’re just completely overlooked.
They were not simply victims of monstrous bullying. They were also bullies. They wouldn’t just take it.
The case has been made that they were not just bullied but also were bullies themselves. That is clearly true. They were both at different times, and they were both frequently.
They were not the targets of bullying; they were the perpetrators.
The best thing we can do is to keep talking about it, keep remembering, and keep working for change.
The boy’s deaths stunned them, but it was the murders that horrified and confused them. The deaths were expected, and in some ways, understandable. The murders were incomprehensible.
We all want to believe that we are better than the killers. We want to believe we would never do that. But what if we’re wrong?
