Cho Seung-Hui's play "Richard McBeef"

mammasan

PaperPlates wrote:

Art is a reflection of life, and twisted art is therefore a reflection of a twisted life. As usual, many signs pointed to this person being an unstable person, but political correctness prevented preventing this. Sad, really.

No political correctness is not to blame here. This has nothing to do with the university being too PC. The university, in my opinion, just failed to act. The kid was stalking another student and he set fire to his dorm room. Those two incidents are grounds for suspencion if not expulsion from the school. Yet they did next to nothing. You would think that after the whole Seton Hall University dorm fires from a few years back they would have done more to this kid than just send him for some counceling.

bryn_cmbs

you can read another one his plays here:

http://news.aol.com/virginia-tech-shootings/cho-seung-hui/_a/mr-brownstone-title-page/20070417141309990001

Tom K

The more I read about this student, the more I feel that the university dropped the proverbial ball. He was clearly distrurbed. This student was admitted to a mental health facility in Dec. 05, there were many allegations of stalking and other abnormal sexual behavior, he was kicked out of classes, and attempted to light his dorm room on fire. Reading his work should have def. sent up a flag for the university and VT should have took more drastic action. The question I'll pose is:

If the student was a white male, would the university have taken different action?

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Tom K wrote:

The more I read about this student, the more I feel that the university dropped the proverbial ball. He was clearly distrurbed. This student was admitted to a mental health facility in Dec. 05, there were many allegations of stalking and other abnormal sexual behavior, he was kicked out of classes, and attempted to light his dorm room on fire. Reading his work should have def. sent up a flag for the university and VT should have took more drastic action. The question I'll pose is:

If the student was a white male, would the university have taken different action?

They were probably hoping he'd drop out and go work somewhere like Wal-Mart like all the other students that fall through the cracks in the US.

mammasan

Tom K wrote:

The more I read about this student, the more I feel that the university dropped the proverbial ball. He was clearly distrurbed. This student was admitted to a mental health facility in Dec. 05, there were many allegations of stalking and other abnormal sexual behavior, he was kicked out of classes, and attempted to light his dorm room on fire. Reading his work should have def. sent up a flag for the university and VT should have took more drastic action. The question I'll pose is:

If the student was a white male, would the university have taken different action?

No and I don't think race is an issue nor is it even relevant.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

The dumb fuck ate far too many cereal bars...

soulsinging

Tom K wrote:

The more I read about this student, the more I feel that the university dropped the proverbial ball. He was clearly distrurbed. This student was admitted to a mental health facility in Dec. 05, there were many allegations of stalking and other abnormal sexual behavior, he was kicked out of classes, and attempted to light his dorm room on fire. Reading his work should have def. sent up a flag for the university and VT should have took more drastic action. The question I'll pose is:

If the student was a white male, would the university have taken different action?

i doubt it. my guess is they were worried about liability and being sued on some sort of first amendment grounds.

hippiemom

I read both of these plays last night. I'm apalled that these, on top of his other bizarre behavior, didn't elicit more of a response from the university.

Also, content aside, they look like they were written by a 12 year-old. In fact, if one of my kids had written something of that quality when they were 12, I wouldn't have allowed them to turn it in. Either this guy was very gifted in some other field of study, or the admissions standards at V-Tech are extremely low.

tybird

somebodyelse'ssky wrote:

. how did this get out? .

Apparently the other students in the class that the play was written in had copies...one works at AOL, that's how they got the copy according to this morning's paper.

OneLove

Tom K wrote:

The more I read about this student, the more I feel that the university dropped the proverbial ball. He was clearly distrurbed. This student was admitted to a mental health facility in Dec. 05, there were many allegations of stalking and other abnormal sexual behavior, he was kicked out of classes, and attempted to light his dorm room on fire. Reading his work should have def. sent up a flag for the university and VT should have took more drastic action. The question I'll pose is:

If the student was a white male, would the university have taken different action?

I honestly don't think that race played a role here. It just seems to be so completely unrelated. Having been to VA tech and knowing many who graduated from there, I can tell you that this campus is pretty well diversified. The campus is nearly idylic (spelling?), everyone just seemed to get along for the most part.

Soulsinging seemed to pick up on my "cry for help" comment earlier. Perhaps that was an unclear statement, no, the author wasn't literally saying "i need help", but often in situations like these people do things that will attract attention to themselves, ie attempting to set their dorm room on fire, etc.

Could the university have done more? Hard to say, if he was reccomended of offered help and he refused, they would have been in a bind to make him get help. Had he commited crimes before? Sounds like he may have, perhaps that was a missed opportunity too.

I have a really hard time blaming the university for this. Parents, loved ones, friends, the shooter himself, all of these people played a role in this persons life, for better or worse. Society as a whole has failed if people can get to the point that this man did.

You simply cannot force someone to get help. I know this first hand, the legal red tape that exists in my state of VA, and pretty much everywhere else makes it near impossible to make someone get help for issues that they aren't interested in helping themselves with.

By the time this person got to VA tech, it seems that it may have been late in the game, if you know what I mean. He had most likely already had years of trouble. I wonder what his high school & elementary school teachers thought. Chances are there were warning signs even back then.

I belive that there is a much larger lesson to be learned here. We all have opportunities in life to lift people up, rather than beat them down. I hope that I will be open enough to remember this the next time I am faced with a situation in which I have just that opportunity.

ledvedderman

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but do people really say to their significant other right after a huge fight where you were accused of getting ready to strike/molest your stepchild "let's go upstairs and do it doggystyle like you like to".

a) I don't see the assault happening to me, so that eliminates the fight

b) If I were to mention "go upstairs and do it doggy style" (fight or no fight) to my fiance, I would get punched right in the mouth. I think I would deserve it too.

soulsinging

ledvedderman wrote:

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but do people really say to their significant other right after a huge fight where you were accused of getting ready to strike/molest your stepchild "let's go upstairs and do it doggystyle like you like to".

a) I don't see the assault happening to me, so that eliminates the fight

b) If I were to mention "go upstairs and do it doggy style" (fight or no fight) to my fiance, I would get punched right in the mouth. I think I would deserve it too.

no, nobody really says that. which is why this kid was clearly batshit crazy from day one.