Stop Prejudice

(Overheard at the Supermarket:
"Wait, he was SOUTH Korean? I thought the North Koreans were the bad ones?")



Prejudice must not follow on the wake of the V.A. Tech massacre. It is ugly to cast upon an entire group a suspicious glare, but it's hapenned once and again: Salem Witches, Muslims, and Catholic priests know what I'm talking about, The V.A. tech murderer is NOT representative of a group, and before there are ugly waves of retribution upon the innocent, let me say this:

The average English major is a mostly harmless creature. You may see us brooding and reading "Catcher in the Rye" or "Confederacy of Dunces" and instantly hold on tight to your purse, but let me assure you, our downcast depressive ways seldom result in outright violence. Sure, there is something inherently anti-social in the way we persist on reading Beat poetry, and no one but a schizophrenic pervert would willingly subject themselves to exploring James Joyce or, God forbid, Ezra Pound, but our congenital alcoholism and drug use prevents most of us from engaging in high energy activities like shooting down a campus. An English major may PLAN a massacre, the same way he may PLAN a ten-volume epic depicting the rise and fall of a Kentuckian family, but they will abandon both projects as soon as an "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" marathon goes on the air. Should we go really off the deep end, we mostly end up in the gas oven or shooting ourselves (and only ourselves), after writing a goodbye poem comparing our lives to a sea-gull caught in a heavenly net of clouds, or some such bullshit.

I hope this provides reassurance.