Haha, youâre like a total 180 from the other anon message I got about that same ask! Great to hear that you vibed well with it and that youâre same-paging with me on this one. =D
Todayâs been fairly decent! Iâm counting down the hours until the weekend, lol, and might finally have some writing inspiration.. I hope all is well with you, too!
I.. donât…đđđ Oh my god, thanks for the laugh!!
My anon asked me about Ericâs racism, not about his misanthropy. Of course he hated humanity as a whole and I am not disputing that in my post. Just because somebody has decided the entirety of the human race can go and die doesnât mean that they canât be called out on targeted racism anymore. So, yeah, fine, Eric hated everybody. Big whoop. It happens. But then, he targets specifics. Then, he targets minorities. Then, he says something like this:
people always say we shouldnât be racist. why not? Blacks ARE different,
like it or not they are. they started on the bottom so why not keep em
there. it took them centuries to convince us that they are equal but they
still use their color as an excuse or they just discriminate us because
we are white. Fuck you, we should ship yer black asses back to
Afri-fucking-ca were you came from. we brought you here and we will take
you back. America=White.
And thatâs when itâs not just misanthropy anymore. Thatâs when the narrative shifts from ârahrah kill the whole fucking world except a few tribes in the middle of fuck-all nowhereâ to âletâs ship all black people back to Africa and say that America is white and that white people rule the roost even though our societyâs built on the remnants of the Native American lives and culture we even now try to destroyâ. Ericâs misanthropy is well-known. But we should recognise his racist comments separate from that, too.Â
Ericâs a hypocrite. Thatâs known to almost everybody. Him writing that he hates all racists but then making racist remarks up the wazoo is, well, freakinâ typical for him. But that hypocrisy of his is fine, according to him, because
“Iâm higher than you peopleâ. Itâs exhausting, lol, but basically Eric flip-flops back and forth between one opinion and another on the regular and makes problematic remarks all the time. Were I to rewrite and condense his hatelist, though, Iâd land at the following:
YOU KNOW WHAT I HATE??!!
ERIC HARRIS!! OH MY GODDDD I HATE MYSELF MORE THAN I HATE ANYTHING ELSE!
Also, I would say that any non-white people he associated with in Colorado were more acquaintances than good friends overall? Back in Plattsburgh, however, some of his best friends were supposedly black and Asian. But thatâs not the point here, the point is that Eric made racist comments and admired the Nazis. And we canât say âwell, actually, he was a misanthrope so he really hated everyone equallyâ because that would be erasure of all the horrid shit that came outta his mouth on the regular.
A casual passerby wouldnât immediately know that Eric was a misanthrope. They would just hear shit like âI am one racist mother fucker too, fuck the niggers and spics and
chinks, unless they are cool, but sometimes they are so fucking retarded
they deserve to be ripped onâ and flinch at it. They would hear stuff like âpeople spend millions of dollars on saving the lives of retards, and
why. I don’t buy that shit like "oh heâs my son though!” so the fuck
what, he ainât normal, kill him, put him out his misery. he is only a
waste of time and money, then people say “But he is worth the time, he
is human too” no he isnât, if he was then he would swallow a bullet cause
he would realize what a fucking waste and burden he wasâ and they would likely go âuhh, slow down, Hitler 2.0, you lost the war the first time too so donât try and start your Nazi bullshit up nowâ.
Basically, if it looks like a duck and waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck.. itâs likely to be a duck.
I think a lot of it was a front, or at the very least amplified on purpose for shock value. Racism is only really suggested in his Colorado years, as he used to be friends with non-white kids pre-Colorado, and his Nazi admiration is well-documented in the 11k overall. I do believe that Eric came to believe some of what he was preaching, or at the very least didnât yet have the maturity to sort out that jumble of half-prejudiced half-Darwin-gone-wrong whining of his. Itâs likely he wouldâve mellowed out with age and I personally donât believe that it was âjust the way he wasâ.
That said..
I donât think it matters if he genuinely believed it or just wanted to make people believe that he believed it. I think that there is no difference between spewing hatred because you genuinely believe it or because you somehow want to look like a total douchebag. Racist comments are racist no matter which mindset fuels them. Nazi admiration is Nazi admiration no matter which ideological agenda youâre pushing. Hatred is still hatred, no matter what kind of weird shit youâre going through in your life.
Ericâs comments are still hurtful, alienating, and asinine. They are still derogatory toward entire groups of people and they are messed-up if you really allow them to sink in for a second. I spent half my time with his journal going âfuck no you didnât just–â and âEric Harris you complete and utter fucking piece of shit I will bring you back to life just so I can kill you all over again so help me godâ, and I can only imagine how itâd make someone feel who was literally being attacked by some of those passages in his writing. At that point, it becomes irrelevant to me why he wrote it. All that matters is that he did. He willfully and knowingly added to an already toxic dialogue regarding racism and Nazism, and he promoted it as if it was a glorious thing.
Letâs not sugarcoat it. He may have believed it. He may not have. But he said it, and enjoyed saying it. That makes him a piece of work no matter how you look at it. It just makes him look like an asshole.
I donât think they were much worse than all of the other footage and manifestos we have from other shooters. In this information age, any idiot with a video camera and too much time on their hands can reach infamy in a heartbeat. Anyone can upload anything to the internet and have it spread before authorities get wind of it. The authorities themselves are often not even versed in online culture enough to know how these things work, which becomes problematic when you spot something concerning online and have to spend more time explaining the website you found it on to law enforcement than you have to spend explaining the concern itself. Itâs very likely that the basement tapes would have been all over the news if Columbine happened today, although one could argue that Columbine kickstarted this epidemic and our mass shooting landscape would look a whole lot different if it hadnât happened when it did.
Thing is, Eric and Dylan were probably the first to do this type of video chronicling/manifesto-creating. I think authorities grappled a lot with these videos back in the day because they were virtually unprecedented – there hadnât been that many mass shootings, and as far as I know no shooters had left behind so much material about their means and motive as Eric and Dylan did at the time. I believe that when law enforcement initially cited concerns about copycats, it sounded perfectly legit to most people back then. It just sounds dumb to our ears now because, well, we live in a post-Columbine world in which mass shootings are a commonality and a shooterâs words and actions are often shown in the media we consume.
I will always support the release of the basement tapes. To me, the copycats argument just shows fear. To some, that fear might even go as far as to suggest that Eric and Dylan still have power today. If law enforcement wanted to make Eric and Dylan look like incompetent little kids with a chip on their shoulder and a horrifying violent streak, they should have released the tapes. Any other course of action directly feeds into the mythos that surrounds these two. And myths, well.. theyâre often more dangerous than facts.
Makes sense! And yeah, itâs likely that Sue meant Mark with that comment because Mark shows up in the video a fair bit. She probably wouldnât have met Mark and Phil, or Jessica for that matter..
Anyway, lol, glad we got that sorted out. ^^ This is what I like about keeping my askbox open – just getting feedback and additional comments on the things Iâve written, itâs good. â¤
Right, yeah, see, this is what you get when you check just one site for confirmation of whoâs in the video and mostly recall seeing Mark and Jessica on screen aside from our two miscreants.. Phil was the one filming most of that video, wasnât he? đ Thanks for the addition!
Thatâs Jessica Miklich. As for ârest of the guysâ, there was only one dude there with them and that was Mark Manes. Mark and Jessica were dating at the time. Mark was also the one who sold the TEC-9 to Dylan in those final months and who sold Eric 100 rounds of ammunition the night before 4/20.
I do not have the 2016 edition, as far as I know, and I have yet to read the last few chapters of his book as we speak. As I refuse to give this man any money for his toxic take on the case, I am going to respond to what youâre saying here alone..
He claims heâs done interviews with bullies, but somehow never reached out to Anne Marie Hochhalter and her family while writing his book even though her story features in it in such a way that makes you think he spoke with them directly. Iâm therefore taking Dave with several grains of salt here, although itâs true that he did write up some things about bullying and Columbine back in the day for the opinion site Salon. He could very well have done interviews with bullies.
Howevuh. We have factual evidence and witness accounts stating that Eric and Dylan were both subject to bullying. Dylan himself claimed that Eric âhad it worseâ, according to Sue Klebold, and Brooks Brown confirms that in his book as well. Scroll down in this file and youâll get to see examples aplenty for both boys.
Secondly, Regina Huerter (Director of Juvenile Diversion for the Denver District Attorneyâs Office) conducted her own investigation into bullying at Columbine. Her nine-page findings were based on interviews sheâd held with twenty-eight adults and fifteen current or past students, and she had this to say about it:
“All students with whom I spoke, independent of their status at school, acknowledged there was bullying,” Huerter wrote. “One identified the unwritten rules of survival in the school as: Don’t screw with anyone who can beat you up, don ’t look at jocks in the eye, bump them, or hit on their girlfriend, and don’t walk in the wrong area …’”
At the same time, Huerter noted “a strong perception from nearly everyone I spoke with that there was ‘no reason to say anything about the bullying â no one was going to do anything. ‘Some students were just ‘untouchable. ”’
Huerter described an “overwhelming” sense that teachers responded only to bullying they had personally witnessed â and that when “certain parties” were involved, even these incidents were overlooked.
As for students like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Huerter wrote that
everyone she interviewed described the pair as “loners” and “often the brunt of
ridicule and bullying. Although no one had specifics about when and the degree of
bullying they received, most often it was about shoving, pushing and name-calling.”Even those who associated with Eric and Dylan were punished. A female
student told Huerter that she was talking to Dylan Klebold in the school hallway
during her freshman year. “After their conversation was over, one of the notorious
bullies slammed her against the lockers and called her a ‘fag lover,’” Huerter
wrote. “Many students were in the area, but no adults. She did not report this to the
administration. When I asked her why, she said that everyone told her ‘it wouldn’t
do any good because they wouldn’t do anything about it.â
In other words, sounds to me like Dave chooses to believe the words of a bunch of bullies because it fits his narrative better than the notion that there was extensive bullying going on at Columbine and the boys were influenced by this in terms of their motivation for the massacre and Eric in particular wasnât the suave psychopath Dave claims he was. As with everything else, Dave is fucking wrong. Again.
Her channel name is Teal Swan, which you can find here. I watched one of her videos on emotional healing a long time ago, by the recommendation of a close friend of mine, and that really opened the floodgates for me back then. For some reason, I thought of her channel again last night and was so surprised to find this school shooter-centric video on it. I initially dreaded listening to it, but a couple of minutes into it I started bawling because this is everything Iâve been putting out there all these years and it is just so good to hear someone else say it for once.
Also, I hope you donât mind me publishing your ask but I received another message asking for her channel and thought people might appreciate a post that links to it directly. ^^
This? This is a must-see. This is exactly what Iâve been speaking about on my blog for all these years. This is the message I carry with me, always, and the message I most wish to put out there. This goes beyond diagnosis, beyond external causes, beyond everything we hear as âreasons whyâ.. to land at the feet of something that may be very familiar to you, if youâre an avid reader of my blog.
And, yes, sheâs New Age-y. Yes, there might be elements in this video that donât jive with you. Yes, she promotes two of her other works within it. Tell you what: watch it anyway. Watch it. Think about it.
Let it exist. Please.
Itâs important.
Thank you very much! What a lovely thing to hear.
â¤
Thatâs awesome!! Little nuggets like those can really make someoneâs day – Iâm assuming you got it? đ
(2 / 2) Columbine Memorial Victim Plaques:
- Daniel Rohrbough
- Dave Sanders
- Rachel Scott
- Isaiah Shoels
- John Tomlin
- Lauren Townsend
- Kyle Velasquez
Photos taken during trip to Denver, CO in June 2017
(1 / 2) Columbine Memorial Victim Plaques:
Cassie Bernall
Steven Curnow
Corey Depooter
Kelly Fleming
Matthew Kechter
Daniel MauserPhotos taken during trip to Denver, CO in June 2017
I honestly.. try to? Am trying?
I have over 200 asks sitting in my inbox right now. The earliest of them dates back to September 2016, but is actually still one Iâm working on and hope to complete someday. I unfortunately took a rather extensive break from this blog last year that has caused messages to pile up to their current state, because I was not in the right mindset to give them the time and attention they deserved and I was struggling with feelings of wanting to delete my blog altogether.
Now that Iâm back, Iâm kind of fighting the tide in my inbox.. answering the things that are easy or that claim my interest right away, filing other things away for âlaterâ.. and I donât really want to delete them all and start over, because it makes me feel bad for the people who put time and effort into messaging me. (Then again, Iâm pretty sure some have felt ignored simply because it takes me so long to get back to them, so Iâm still debating what to do over here..)
So, yeah. Trying is the operative word here, Iâm afraid!
Here you go! Alternatively, itâs @betweenearthandsea!
He so wasnât! #comeatme
Dave Cullen said so himself! #howcanyoupossiblycomebackfromthatone?
Dave Cullen is a liar! #Ihaveasockpuppetforthat
đ
I could lean on his head with my chin if I wore heels.
Iâd get murdered.
Columbine 