The tenth or eleventh time DanCBS/PeterABC/TomNBC told me the massacre in Littleton, Colorado was especially horrific because it happened in high school, "somewhere children feel safe," I started screaming at the television. What high school were they talking about? I went to three, and in none of my high schools did I for a moment feel safe. High school was terrifying, and it was the casual cruelty of the popular kids -- "the jocks and the princesses" -- that made it hell.

"Once upon a time," People wrote in a manipulative and dishonest cover story, "the most that kids had to worry about at school was a looming test or a deadline for a paper." What fairy-tale time was that, exactly? In high school, I had much more to worry about than tests and papers. Like most students, I lived in fear of the small slights and public humiliations used to reinforce the rigid high school caste system: poor girls were sluts, soft boys were fags. And at each of my schools, there were students who lived in daily fear of physical violence.

There was a boy named Marty at my second school, Saint Gregory the Great, who was beaten up daily for four years. Jocks would rip his clothes knowing his parents couldn't afford to buy him a new uniform, and he would piss his pants rather than risk being caught alone in the bathroom. He couldn't walk the halls without being called a fag, and freshmen would beat him up to impress the older kids. Teachers, presumably the caretakers in this so-called safe environment, knew what was going on "some even witnessed the abuse" and did nothing to stop it.

Another kid I know was thrown through a plate-glass window by a jock when he was a sophomore. When his mother complained to the principal, she was told that if her son insisted on dressing the way he did " like a new-waver " he'd have to get used to being thrown through plate-glass windows. A jock jumped another friend, beating the shit out of him and breaking his nose. My friend never threw a punch, but he was suspended for fighting along with the jock.

"The motivations of the two killers," People continued, "were hard to fathom."

Actually, I had no problem fathoming Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's motives. While I didn't suffer the extreme abuse some of my friends did, I was fucked with enough to spend four years fantasizing about blowing up my high school and everyone in it. I can only imagine the scenarios that must have rolled through Marty's head on a daily basis. Watching SWAT teams inch their way toward Columbine High, I wasn't shocked that something like this could happen in a high school. I was shocked that something like this hadn't happened at any of mine.

Klebold and Harris aren't heroes; they were hateful, twisted racists who, in addition to going after jocks, hunted down and murdered one of Columbine's six black students. But they didn't go guns blazing into vacuum. Harris left a suicide note, discovered by police and reprinted in one of Denver's daily papers, The Rocky Mountain News. I haven't seen the note printed anywhere else, which strikes me as odd.

The note reads: "By now, it's over. If you are reading this, my mission is complete.... Your children who have ridiculed me, who have chosen not to accept me, who have treated me like I am not worth their time are dead. THEY ARE FUCKING DEAD....

"Surely you will try to blame it on the clothes I wear, the music I listen to, or the way I choose to present myself, but no. Do not hide behind my choices. You need to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES.

"Parents and teachers, you fucked up. You have taught these kids to not accept what is different. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. I have taken their lives and my own " but it was your doing. Teachers, parents, LET THIS MASSACRE BE ON YOUR SHOULDERS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE."

The power cliques that rule American high schools are every bit as murderous as Harris and Klebold, only their damage is done in slow motion, over a period of many years, and fails to draw the attention of parents or teachers " let alone news anchors, SWAT teams, and presidents. How many kids ostracized, humiliated, and assaulted in American high schools, like the survivors of Columbine High, are left scarred for life? How many commit suicide every year?

Watching traumatized students at Columbine rush TV cameras to share their stories with a national audience (traumatized, yes, but composed enough to take a few questions from the media pack), I heard more than one describe Harris and Klebold and the rest of the Trenchcoat Mafia as "freaks" and "fags," and some boasted about having picked on the two. In our rush to make martyrs of the victims and demons of the murderers (the cover of Time magazine screamed, "The Monsters Next Door!"), the culpability of the other kids at Columbine has been glossed over. So long as some kids go out of their way to make high school hell for others, there are going to be kids who crack, and not all of the kids who crack are going to quietly off themselves.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Dan and Peter and Tom went in serch of lessons we could learn from Columbine High. The most important, judging from TV, is how to spot and further stigmatize already miserable kids (bad clothes, bad music, bad attitudes). But there's another lesson we might want to learn. If nothing else can restrain the equally "if less dramatically" violent behavior of high school royalty, perhaps the murders at Columbine will. Before the jocks beats the shit out of the skinny freak in black, or humiliate the geek from the French Club, maybe they'll remember what happened in Colorado and think twice. What if the kid I pick on today shows up tomorrow with a gun?

"There can be few students who feel entirely confident that they won't one day encounter a fellow student with a gun in his hand and madness in his eyes," wrote People.

Call it a silver lining.

I Could Have Done The Same Thoughts on Virginia Tech from a woman in a multiple personality system.
Massacre of the Soul Idat describes the gut feelings of those who could do such things.
Prof. Jenkins Goes to Washington This is the story of how a mild mannered MIT Professor ended up being called before Congress to testify about "selling violence to our children".
Kurt, Kurt, Kurt... Bob King reflects on life in high school, bullies and their targets, and kids with guns.
How to create a school shooter Look at our culture, look at our entertainment, look at what happens to people who are different. It should be no surprise.
The Untouchable Mean Girls The death of Phoebe Prince.
Tell Us What Happened Why classmates are afraid to speak up about what happened to Phoebe Prince.

Wikipedia entry on bullies and what is being done currently.

Think about the chilling effect events like these have against children's self-expression and creative outlets. The self-expressions of young people -- especially those who have been bullied -- will now be scrutinized more closely than ever. Taking their writing, taking their art, taking video games, Internet, TV etc., even guns, away will not stop the rage inside, the despair and shame. Society itself has to change at a fundamental, core level. Do you think it can change? Do you think you can help make that change?