I am sure many of you have heard of the murder of Eve Carson. She was the student body president of UNC and was loved by most on campus. The arrested two young men and charged them with her murder and a spree of other crimes. So, is it their fault they were out early in the morning murdering a young woman. Of course not it was education’s fault, as this letter writer to our local paper says. When can we place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the offenders responsible for these horrendous crimes?
Gol durn it, if the people don’t want to go to school, no amount of money you throw at the problem is gonna fix that. Are we going to somehow magically will away apathy and laziness?
A letter to the editor of the News and Observer, sums it up for me.
The letters accepting and assigning guilt for the behavior of the suspects in the Eve Carson killing are as predictable as the shortcomings of our society.
Yet the questions arise: Why don’t we pass some get smart laws? Well, the laws are there. What could we have done to keep them in school—art, music, dance, drama? Well, those are available. Why don’t we stop blaming and start addressing the problem? Well, the churches are there. The courses and the teachers are there. The schools are there. (I spent my first eight grades in a one-room school, with one teacher, the whole thing surrounded by cornfields. It worked.)
Then, on March 18, I saw the column about Rep. Thomas Wright. He was a role model until he got caught. Where and how did we let him down? What might we have done—perhaps some dance lessons? How much quiet, determined effort and altruism does it take to overcome one Wright?
Crime will always be with us. My cynicism has not been assuaged. But we are trying; moreover, in most cases we are succeeding. I concur that we must keep trying. In the words of a well-known late philosopher, we must never, ever, ever, ever give up.
Quentin Haning, Ph.D.
Raleigh