The shooting at FSU is nothing short of a tragedy. Outside of the victims’ injuries, the real lasting tragedy is the sense of safety that FSU students lost after hearing the news that the library, a place meant to be a safe, quiet building to focus on work away from the noise of life, was the site of a shooting.
When a friend told me there was a shooting at FSU, I immediately hopped on Google to find what the hell happened. I felt the same shock as everyone else when I heard the news, but upon reading that it had happened in Strozier Library, I can’t say I was as surprised as everyone else.
Via: NBC News
We in college are the lucky ones. Most of us at UF, and FSU alike, come from good homes in safe areas. The most dangerous thing we ever experienced was buying weed from a guy with a mustache in a hoodie at a dark apartment complex in the “bad” part of town, or going to a gas station at night. We’ve walked around most of our lives never considering the danger that exists every single day.
I think a little bit differently than everyone else when it comes to safety. My parents grew up in Brooklyn in the 70s, not cool hipster Brooklyn, but scary Jay-Z’s early work Brooklyn. The neighborhood they’re from still has yet to be gentrified and crime rates there keep increasing. Let’s just say when we go back to visit, we don’t get out of the car.
They grew up with a very different mentality than those of us from suburbia, but when they moved to Boca Raton to raise me, they didn’t totally understand that mindset of always being aware of your surroundings doesn’t necessary apply to everyone. Sure, the biggest crime around Boca is between tax evasion and old ladies stealing jewelry from Bloomingdales in Town Center, but that doesn’t mean that bad things can’t happen there, too.
Via: Business Insider
I walk around understanding that at any moment how easy it would be for someone to attack me. What’ stopping a crazy person from approaching me at the Hub as I write this? Not a whole lot of security. My roommates think I’m insane when I get up to lock the door when we’re all sitting in the living room (it’s very easy for a homeless man to just walk in, plop himself in my bed, and refuse to move).
I take my stuff with me to the bathroom when I’m at the library, I slide my card out of my wallet at bars so I don’t flash my wallet around, I don’t take my phone out when I’m at a bus stop at night because someone could snatch it (“That’s what they’d do on the subway” my dad tells me all the time), and the list continues.
Too often I see people not taking simple precautions to stay safe when they’re out and about and I hope this shooting serves as a reminder that danger is everywhere.
Between the tragedy at FSU and the sexual assaults on UF campus, it’s time we realize that this way of going about life isn’t as crazy as it seems. Yes, our campuses should be little bubbles of la-la land where nothing can harm us, but the reality is that our campuses are not walled-off from the real world and the real world has disgusting humans who want to do us harm.
The best example of my mild paranoia is when I walk walking down University with my girlfriend one night when she stops me in my tracks, and starts kissing me. I politely pushed her off and told her, “Look around, there aren’t any people around. Do you know how easy it would be right now for a crazy person to attack us while we’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk unprotected, with no one around, with both our eyes closed?” Her eyes bugged out because she’d never thought about the potential danger of that small romantic moment, which I killed. Score.
Via: Borderstan
I am by no means encouraging you to never leave your house and wear a tin helmet all the time so the aliens don’t read your thoughts. Just be aware that there are despicable people in the world. We can ask ourselves until we’re blue in the face “When will the violence stop?” but that isn’t productive for anyone. Whenever events like this happen I’m deeply saddened, but never surprised.
We need to be constantly aware of danger that could come out of nowhere. Be alert, don’t nap in public, don’t get blackout drunk and walk home alone. Just make wise choices because the la-la land can’t last forever.
Feature photo courtesy of: Pix Good
