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05/06/2005: "Guest Writer - Mark K Tilsen on The Red Lake School Shootings"
THE SHOOTING AT THE RED LAKE HIGH SCHOOL
An Indian boy went crazy. He killed 5 kids 3 adults and himself. He was 16 years old. It’s a replay of an old tragedy and another scene in a new trend. We ask ourselves almost reflexively, why? And what does it mean? How could this happen?
Speaking as a native these deaths were our tragedy. I think we felt a special immunity to this. Our kids just commit suicide. We only murder each other when we’re drunk. This hit home in a way Columbine didn’t. This kid was poor, dark skinned. He could have looked like one of my cousins. School shootings were for the middle class and rich white kid’s schools. Not us.
The signs were all there in hindsight, they always are. He was a loner with few friends and known as the scary kid in school. He was picked on a lot and his dad committed suicide. His mom was in a coma and he was on anti depressants. He wore eye liner, a trench coat, combat boots, the typical gothic uniform. His suicidal writings online were not enough to tip anyone off. He was bright and could be articulate. Read some of his stories and you’ll see what I mean. His online signature was a winking face with a knowing smile. He was planning something if people knew where to look. He wanted to die but he didn’t want to do it alone. He knew about the security at his school and thought about Columbine. He knew he was going to be noticed and get the infamy and attention he wanted. He didn’t have hope for himself though.
The national news didn’t pay that much attention to Red Lake. There was the obligatory media coverage and then they went back to the death watch on the comatose woman in Florida. It was cycled so fast out of mainstream media that it shocked me. I was surprised that I could still be shocked. The lack of this tragedy being nationalized left it intimate. It left it for natives, for people with animals in their last names. It left it for the lonely mid-west to figure it all out. This was some thing outside the scope of the passive aggressive “Minnesota nice.”
The raw truth of it is I have no words. No final analysis that makes sense of murder and blood shed. I didn’t shed any tears for Red Lake and I don’t have any that will bring back those who are dead.
This is what I think of Jeff Wiese, the 16 year old shooter. There was a disease that crept into his heart. His spirit left him and what was left was his pain and loneliness. All the torment of his peers building up in the fun house mirrors in his mind till it snowballs on his self loathing. Each cruel joke reflected, distorted, amplified and relived again and again. His anger rots and turns to hate, hate the school, his folks, himself, the world. He was imprisoned in his world with death being the only way out he could see. He turned his hopelessness into power with a gun in his hand.
As we sit here in the comfort of our loving family we ask ourselves what does this mean to us? We feel pain and we are horrorstruck by this event but what is the lasting impact? On this night we recite to ourselves, “This year we are slaves next year we are free!” We are not free until all men are free. How do we combat the imprisonment of a young man’s spirit? We stand in solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. This has been our rally cry as a family. How do we live this in our lives? I am guilty of selfishness, of only focusing on the few tasks in front of my face. My most frequent kindness is picking up hitchhikers on the rez. In my heart I know this is not enough. There will come a time when being compassionate by proxy will not be enough. Where a helping hand will need to be offered. Mark K. Tilsen
Mark Kenneth Tilsen is a 22 Year old Jewish, Oglala Lakota Man. He has been writing most of his life.
He wrote this to read at the Tilsen Family Passover Seder 2005. I am honored to be his Uncle and his Friend. - David Tilsen