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It was a hammer-blow to us. What had these four young people – and the nine wounded – done to deserve that? Occupied a building – shouted some slogans through a bullhorn – thrown some rocks at well-armored soldiers; where was the threat to “national security” in that? What purpose was there in opening fire?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are hunting us down
Should have been done long ago
Ironically, two of the four students killed – Sandra Lee Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder -- were in no way involved with the protest but were simply walking to class when the shooting started. Schroeder was an ROTC student on his way to military service after graduation.
The other factor that we never heard – at least not for years afterward – is that the closest protestor to the soldiers was at least 71 feet away – far too far to have posed any meaningful threat to the safety of the guardsmen.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
I have visited the parking lot that now on the site where the students died and it is moving. Little plaques mark the places where they fell, and there is a small monument nearby, but other than that, there is little to distinguish that place from any other on campus and students and faculty and staff walk by it without notice of any kind.
Not that they should kneel down make offerings every time they pass by – that would be ridiculously overwrought. Kent State was, after all, merely one episode in an era of violence and upheaval and deserves no more ceremony or criticism than any other. But I think it shows a disconnect and one that extends much farther than mere observance of an event.
The students at the school where I teach are predominantly African-American and, one might think, would be very conscious of the struggle of their parents and grandparents for the simple rights of a citizen of the United States.
Instead, there is not only an ignorance of the events and issues of that time, but also an ignorance of why they should even care about them, or of what they have to do with their lives.
On a regular basis, I am confronted with a shrug and a wave of dismissal by a student when I point out that the fact that they can pick their own seat on a bus, or that they can attend any school they wish, or that they have access to the best colleges is something that is, in reality, not yet half-a-century old. I have had to try to explain what relevance these things have in the lives and futures of these young people.
More than that, I have had to address the issues of why there wasn’t more progress? Why should they have to confront the remaining pockets of racism and prejudice? Why didn’t we take care of it while we were at it, and, more so, why should they bother worrying about it when they have a life to live all their own?
It reminds me quite a lot of the campus I was covering twenty years ago.
