Bob_Moore's Blog

24 hours after the shootings at Virginia Tech -- I wake up with the enormous and sobering realization of "lost potential" -- the victims and the gunman

At that moment my job to do a follow in Friday's massive vacant warehouse fire seemed so totally unimportant. A story that consumed television news late Friday afternoon into the evening with movie-like aerials of the fire -- now in the aftermath of Virginia Tech seemed unimportant.

I did my Monday story -- realizing it would have a low priority on the news food chain. All the while my thoughts were not on the two 14-year-old boys who confessed to setting the Jefferson fire -- but the dozen of young people dead in Virginia. I checked with the news room at 1:15 p.m. to see if there was need to switch my story to some kind of local react to the Virginia Tech shootings -- but I was told to proceed with the fire follow. That's my job and I did as instructed.

The real impact of the story hit as I wrote the fire follow story with a television sitting beside me -- and realized the dead were young people who likely weeks ago were enjoying spring break. They were young people who might have included seniors about to graduate and start their adult lives on their own. Or maybe freshman excited about finishing their first year of college and pondering what the summer will hold. Perhaps graduate students dedicated to learning more about a specific subject area vis-a-vis their commitment to pursue a masters or Ph.D.

Lost potential. I felt the lost potential of nameless students I will never personally know -- or would identify once the media flash their pictures to the world.

I got my first image of one of the murdered as I sat waiting for my GEICO claims adjuster to checkout storm damage to my car. There was the first image I saw as I sat in the car dealership -- Ryan Clark. The image surprised me immediately -- because a new layer of reality hit me -- the shooting victims were of different genders, ages and, yeah, race.

The news report on television pointed out that Clark was a dormitory resident assistant, in the VT marching band and a strikingly handsome African-American male. What warmed my heart more were the three students who set aside the grief to talk about Clark -- stand in the gap for a young man who could no longer speak for himself.

My emotions welled as three white students spoke about an average yet standout human being. Not once having to resort to mentioning, "Oh yeah, Ryan Clark was African-American." To these three young adults they saw and got to know Clark beyond is dark skin but into his heart, mind and character. While the interview reflecting on Clark lasted only minutes, I realized these three people got it. They got to know another fellow classmate as a human being first and hit race did not seem to be a salient factor. What a relief. What a blessing. What an expression of hope for our society.

But as we learned Tuesday the identity of the shooting being an Asian male -- race in this part of the story will unfortunately become a big factor. How much so, only time will tell. Even for the shooter -- there is lost potential too.

I sit here in Milwaukee on an unexpected off day this overcast Tuesday, trying to think how I would begin reporting a local angle on the Asian shooter. A story that from my news roots needs to be told. A story told in our Wisconsin context where two high-profile murder cases involved Asian men. The Asian male who shoot deer hunters in far northwestern Wisconsin. And the more recent shooting death of an Asian man allegedly at the hands of a white man.

It's a story that will be done -- and that begs for the right perspective, objectivity and sensitive voice. Which ever of my news colleagues gets that story -- I am comforted in knowing I work with reporters who each has that right perspective, objectivity and sensitivity. As I am welled up with thoughts of lost potential -- it would have been cathartic for me to have drawn the news assignment Tuesday to put the race of the shooter into some kind of useful focus.

I am now at the car dealership where my fog light will be replaced from the car dealership where my GEICO adjuster issued the claim. Hours since I first saw the news report on one of the first shooting victims Ryan Clark -- I still feel the heavy emotion of lost potential -- not because Clark is African-American but because Clark was like all the shooting victims young people in the process of excelling.

My prayers are with the surviving friends and family members of each young person gunned down Monday. While I cannot even begin to offer an explanation, I can based on my faith offer that God's will is perfect. Stay strong, stay focused and do not let the oftentimes powerful poison of race confuse or cloud your future feelings. The VT tragedy is a shared tragedy -- and the lost potential is a shared loss.

This act is the face of a mad man and not an act of racial hatred. 

Consider the following.  Distinguished professor of english at Virginia Tech, the poet-activist and celebrated author, Nikki Giovonni,  told her university community -- "Nobody understands or deserves this tragedy ... we are Hokies, we will prevail, we will prevail, we will prevail, we are Virginia Tech."  Every American of compassion is too a Hokie.

RAM