Makes Me Wanna Holler
by Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

They were a group of outcasts basically. They kind of asked to be made fun of and picked on. It seemed kind of obvious that something could happen.

-- a Columbine High School sophomore --

They were just very angry, but they didn't know how to release their anger. They were angry about people not accepting them...

-- another Columbine High School student --

Every time someone slammed them against a locker and threw a bottle at them, I think they'd go back to Eric or Dylan's house and plot a little more...

-- Brooks Brown, an high school acquaintance of the two culprits --

The first reports of the high school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, described the two shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, as social misfits, loners and outcasts who were teased, picked on, made fun of and eventually shunned and ostracized by most of their classmates, who were filled with anger and hate for their school and their community. While not on the same level as Harris and Klebold, it wasn't hard to recall that Barry Loukaitis in Moses Lake, Washington; Luke Woodham in Pearl, Mississippi; Michael Carneal in West Paducah, Kentucky; Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson in Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Kip Kinkel in Springfield, Oregon were similarly characterized. But it was Harris and Klebold who struck a sensitive nerve in me. What I felt towards these two youngsters whose hearts had rotted so irreparably was far from the disbelief, outrage, dismay, horror, alarm and eventual sorrow I'm sure a vast majority of people felt in the aftermath. Because what I was too ashamed and embarrassed to admit publicly was that as the mass media described these two young men I felt as if they were talking about me.

Surely everybody by now is clearly familiar with the theory that the ingrained cliquishness of American public schools played a role in Harris's and Klebold's murderous rampage. However, because of the ingrained social stratification that is high school is something that we all have had to deal with, it is also a theory that is quickly downplayed to the more politically identifiable social ills such as lack of parental supervision, exposure to the gun culture, the lack of school prayer, and violent media found in computer games, television and movies. After all, we all had to go through the social stresses and peer pressures of growing up, and the kids that we knew who were outcasts never did anything like this.

We are well aware that school (at least public school; I can't speak for private institutions), even as far down as grade school, has a very well defined social structure. That structure generally follows this pattern: Jocks and cheerleaders make up the upper crust; preppies and skaters comprise the middle class; stoners, gangbangers or gang-wannabes are part of the lower middle class (but middle class nonetheless); and nerds, weirdoes and freaks constitute the lower class. In a majority of cases, even the nerds, weirdoes and freaks - whom are arbitrarily defined as such for no apparent reason -- find what few individuals co-exist with them at the bottom of the social food chain and generate healthy friendships based on common interests that at least are not destructive.

But let's further define the social structure. What of the child who exists even below the lower class? A youth so far off the radar he/she isn't even noticed? A kid whom even those who dwell in the lower class don't even acknowledge as being human? A youngster who not only has no friends but he/she literally has nobody to even talk with?

For five years, that youngster was me.

In the summer of 1970 my parents moved me and my twin sister from a Rust-Belt industry town to northern California and -- taking advantage of the new housing, employment, and educational civil rights laws passed in the Sixties -- plopped the only two African-American nine-year-olds into an all-white suburb and school system. I can only guess that my father, an otherwise intelligent man with a graduate degree in business starting a new job as an engineer at a Santa Clara valley electronics company, incorrectly surmised that we would be welcome in a community that was heretofore closed to us. It never occurred to him that just because it was now legal for us to be there didn't mean we were wanted.

My mother once said that children can be the cruelest people. She also said that childhood hurts are the worst hurts. I immediately found out how right she was.

From virtually the very first day I was treated like a virulent disease that they were determined to eradicate. At first my classmates wanted me to play pickup games with them, but I was small for my age and not very athletic. When they found that out it destroyed their stereotypical image of blacks, so they had no use for me and quickly became vicious. Aside from the usual assortment of racist stand-bys - "nigger", "coon", "spearchucker", "jungle bunny" - my classmates got rather creative: "afro", "chocolate", "chocolate chip cookie", "black bass", "brownie", "tar baby", "burnt toast", "nig".

When they then found out that I didn't like to fight -- another stereotype buster -- their cruelty went to a new level. By the end of the first week, like a soldier negotiating a minefield, I was slithering my way around several callouts. After less than two weeks I finally did get into a fight with a kid and quickly got beat up. After that embarrassment the taunts and viciousness just got worse. A few weeks later I got into another fight at school, and when it was discovered that I wasn't going to take this ass-whooping easily, one of my opponent's older and bigger friends jumped in and finished me off, all to the laughter and entertainment of everyone around. I discovered quickly that there was no fight I was going to be allowed to win one-on-one. So I just backed out of fights altogether and let them push me around whenever they felt the need.

It wasn't long before things just got worse. Now the girls whom I went to school with participated in the daily taunts, verbal barrage and abuse, safe in the knowledge that any retaliation on my part would be met with swift punishment by the boys. I was by far the favorite target of the class bully, who infrequently would harass me into giving him my lunch (fortunately he had other targets to pester). Even the older and bigger kids in the fifth and sixth grade were daily tormentors, as if I could be of any threat to them. By fifth grade my classmates weren't even hiding it from the teachers and school staff anymore. They were now saying clever things such as "You wanna white eye?" and "Smile so we can see you". To add insult to injury, they would do this in class, in full view of the teachers, without any fear of reprisals. My teachers would just watch all this going on and do nothing.

The torture reached its most degrading in sixth grade, when even my classmate's younger siblings in the lower grades were now part of the daily hit parade. And why not; they had older brothers who would reign terror upon me if I even deigned to protest. Have no illusions, just because a lot of these kids graduated to junior high didn't mean that the status quo wasn't going to be maintained. I found that out the hard way when on my way home from school one day an eighth grader decided to throw me up against a tree and wrap me into a full neck lock while his younger brother, in fourth grade, proceeded to harangue me with all sorts of racial venom.

In the three years I spent at that elementary school I had exactly one friend, and that was in sixth grade when he moved in, but his family stayed only one school year. The rest of the time I spent by myself trying to blend into the scenery, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible - and quite frequently failing. When it seems like everybody is trying to get you there is no place to hide. When I wasn't the target of misery I played by myself and ate by myself. I remember in fifth grade my mother came up to the school during one of those parent observation weeks, and at lunch time she saw me sitting at one of the benches eating alone, kind of off in my own little world humming to myself, trying to close out my surroundings. It was one of the few respites form the hell that was grade school I was able to have; my classmates were on their best behavior because she was there. My mother came up to me and asked me if I wanted to eat with her. I looked around at all of these groups of kids staring at us, waiting to see what I would do. Knowing that I would provide them with fresh gristle for the grill had I accepted her offer, I said no, I was fine. I could see the hurt look on her face as she walked away.

I was so happy when my time in grade school came to an end. But the euphoria and optimism of summer quickly turned sour on that first bus ride to junior high, where all the tormentors of grade school were now a part of my seventh grade class. They were now reinforced not only by a group of upperclassmen whom had graduated a year ahead of me and I didn't think would ever see again, but also by a new group of tormentors from other feeder schools. As I was being beaten to the only available seat (not coincidentally at the back of the bus and something that happened daily), I helplessly realized that junior high was going to be more of the same grief and anguish.

And it was. Once again my sister and I were the only African-Americans in the school. Unlike grade school most of the students pretty much left me alone, and there were a handful of kids who would at least speak civilly if not be my friend. But there was still a large enough group of kids who made junior high a daily minefield. The insults and ridicule now got even more imaginative: ridiculing my culture, talking to me like Amos and Andy or in broken English (what is now called Ebonics), and putting things like twisted rubber bands and chewing gum in my afro. And just like grade school, quite a bit of this took place in class, in full view of my teachers, who sat by a did nothing about it.

On many occasions both my book locker and gym locker were broken into and vandalized. I spent so much time in the administrative office having gum taken out of my hair or reporting the lockers vandalized that after a time the administrators didn't believe that all these attacks were unprovoked; that I caused all this (Lord knows these innocent little angels couldn't be doing this without a reason). At least in grade school I was able to avoid trouble with the school. Now when somebody broke a window or set a trash can on fire I was the first person whom the teachers looked to as a culprit.

The ultimate humiliation happened in the eighth grade when, after being caught cursing out one of my tormentors, a teacher -- without either provocation or threat of bodily harm to himself -- came up to me and with an open palm smacked me on the side of my head. I later found out that no faculty at that school was allowed to hit a student, and that no faculty had ever done so until now. I was the first, much to the amusement of my classmates. Emotionally that was devastating.

My sister didn't have it much easier during this period. While not the target of physical mistreatment she had to deal with as much of the verbal savagery as I did. But unlike me she was in desperate need of companionship, so she took the racial salvos from her female classmates, refused to retaliate and befriended them nonetheless. There was many a time when she would have a "friend" over at the house whom would cavalierly say something racially insensitive to my sister in front of my parents, and she wouldn't do anything about it. Much to the chagrin of my father, who would tear into my sister for not properly defending herself (my mother never said anything; she knew of my sister's desperate necessity for friendship and understood how she dealt with it). Nevertheless, I could tell that my sister was just as deeply grieved by this treatment as I was. Fortunately for her, she found God and developed a fierce faith in the power of religion and prayer as a way of dealing with it (that just didn't work for me). She didn't have a hateful bone in her body...

...I on the other hand was quite different.

If my classmates and teachers were determined to treat me like a disease my parents were just as determined that, like a terminal strain of cancer, I and my sister were not going to be eradicated (it would have been nice if Dad had asked me if I wanted to be a sacrificial lamb to the cause. At nine years of age I would have definitely said no if I had been properly informed of what would happen. But I guess at nine you don't get to be a part of the decision-making process; you just do what you're told and deal with it). I think early on they tried to do something about the "racial insensitivity" - to put it nicely - but they discovered that there really wasn't much they could do. These were supposedly good schools and they wanted the best education they could find. So my parents settled for making frequent unannounced visits to school to both make sure I and my sister were being properly educated and see to it that at least we were keeping our own noses clean. I wasn't a great student, but because I had a father who kept on me about my schoolwork my grades were decent. I don't really know if they would have been better had my school environment been less hostile.

I am certain of one thing, though. My social skills, self esteem and confidence would have been better developed at an earlier age had my circumstances been less malignant. Entering a new school and meeting new kids is frightening enough for a child of nine. I didn't think it would be easy adjusting, but I certainly didn't expect that from that moment on I would mentally, emotionally, and psychologically take a constant and excruciatingly merciless beating. There was nowhere to hide from the non-stop needling, bullying, pestering, insults, harassment, browbeating, and physical and internal aggravation that was a primary part of my life every day I went to school. And when it happens with the frequency, viciousness, and cruelty with which it was delivered to me, and is further condoned and ignored by those in authority, it ceases to be just playful childish mischief and becomes institutionalized mistreatment, harassment and abuse.

Try being a nine-year-old and taking this kind of daily anguish, humiliation, degradation and embarrassment for five years and see how well your psyche, self-esteem and confidence survives.

When all this first started in fourth grade, I was confused. What did I do to generate this kind of animosity? I thought everybody always wanted to meet the new kid in school. This isn't supposed to happen. Maybe if I'm more open and friendly they'll wanna be my friends.

Then when the callouts began, I was even more confused. Why do they want to fight? I don't get it. What did I do to them? I don't wanna fight!

After a while, when the taunts and racial insults began in earnest, I figured I was the problem. My self-worth had been diminished but I was still the gregarious, affable person I thought I was, so I thought I could still make friends with somebody. I did my best to adjust, to change. I'll ask them what they like to do. I'll do what they're doing, be more like them, act more like them. Act white.

When that didn't work, and even the girls made fun of me with impunity, I became sullen and surly, and turned inward and withdrew. I didn't want to know anybody. I couldn't get them to like me so I created my own little world where just I existed. I played by myself, throwing a ball against a wall, climbing the jungle gym by myself, and played imaginary football and basketball games with myself. If I leave them alone they'll leave me alone. Yeah, that'll work! They don't have to like me, but if I just stay out of their way they won't bother me, and we can get along, right? I can do this. I can still have fun by myself. When school ends I'll just run home and I won't have to get into any fights. If they would just leave me alone. Why can't they just leave me alone?

By fifth grade, when the older kids started having fun at my expense, I was certain I just didn't belong here, that I was the cause of everyone's distress. Self-doubt began to invade my being. Nobody likes me because I talk different, look different, act different. I'm weird! I'm not from here. And I can't do anything right. My teachers are right, I'm dumb! I'm stupid! I'm no good at football. I'm no good at baseball. Or basketball. I'm no good at anything! Who would wanna be friends with me?

By sixth grade, when it became obvious that the teachers were going to allow the tormenting to go unpunished, the self-doubt had turned into self-loathing, especially for my ethnicity. I'm ugly! I'm a freak! I hate my brown skin! I hate my thick lips! I hate my kinky hair! I hate my big, flat nose! I don't wanna be black anymore. Why can't I be like them? They're good looking. And I'm ugly! I don't wanna be ugly anymore!

I was a little less self-hurtful when grade school ended and I thought things would be better in junior high. However, when that turned out to be a graduated form of torment, their animosity towards me turned my self-hatred into outward indifference. And I realized that I was not the problem. I walked around with a chip on my shoulder. Even when somebody was civil to me I didn't give him or her the time of day. I ignored them. There's nothing wrong with me! I didn't do anything to these people. They're the ones who wanna fuck with me. Well, fuck'em! I don't need these ass-holes! They don't like me, so I don't like them. I don't care anything about them! I wanted to be nice, to be friendly, but nobody would let me!

Midway through seventh grade, when my classmates started vandalizing my lockers and putting chewing gum and twisted rubber bands in my hair, my animosity turned to anger. That I even had to look at these people, let alone live among them from 8 AM until 3 PM was repulsive and sickening to me. They don't mean anything to me. They're nothing to me. When they do something to me I don't even acknowledge their existence. They aren't even human. Real humans are civilized to each other. And they have the nerve to call me a savage. They are the savages and animals! Every last one of them. No wonder the people from the black neighborhood don't live here. If I had my way I wouldn't either. This isn't better, it's worse. I can't wait to leave this hellhole.

But as things got worse, and that teacher hit me and my humiliation had reached its nadir, my anger quickly mutated into absolute hatred. My soul had become so contaminated that my fury had become all encompassing and unconditional. I HATE THEM! I HATE THIS TOWN! I HATE THESE HONKIES! I HATE THESE TEACHERS! I HATE THIS SCHOOL! I HATED GRADE SCHOOL! I HATE MY DAD FOR BRINGING ME HERE AND PUTTING ME THROUGH THIS SHIT! I HATE THEM ALL!!!

Shortly after my hatred had crystallized, I saw the motion picture Carrie, and the fantasies about my tormentor's deaths materialized. Self-preservation dictated that I not be consumed with rage, but sometimes I just couldn't help it. I frequently walked around school with my head downturned and glowered at everybody, every moment satisfying myself with malicious and lethal thoughts: I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD! I'D STAB YOU AND MAKE YOU BLEED A HORRIBLE DEATH IF I KNEW I COULD GET AWAY WITH IT! I WISH YOU ALL WERE DEAD! I WANNA STAB EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU! I WANT YOU ALL TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME! I'D GO TO THE FUNERAL WITH EVERY ONE OF YOU LYING IN ONE MASSIVE GRAVE AND PISS AND SHIT ON YOUR DEAD CARCASSES AND LAUGH! I WISH AN EARTHQUAKE WOULD SWALLOW THIS SCHOOL AND THIS WHOLE TOWN INTO THE GROUND WITH EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU IN IT. I'D HAVE A PARTY! FUCK ALL OF YOU!!!

Fortunately for me the misery, anguish, anger and hate ended when my sister and I finished junior high. At around the time that teacher hit me my father had decided that his children had had enough at the hands of a school system that was dead set on making life miserable and unbearable for them. As he liked to put it, he had to get us out of there before we became "socially crippled." Which is exactly what would have happened had I attended the local high school in the same school district, where I am now convinced that the same mistreatment and indignity would have fueled my anger and hate to unhealthful proportions. So midway through eighth grade my father found a college-prep high school in another community that not only was better academically but was well integrated with a diverse array of ethnic groups, including over 200 African-American students.

That said, I accepted this news with a certain degree of wariness. After all, I had failed miserably at the social playground that was fourth-through-eighth grade. Now here were my parents asking me to make the leap to the social big time in an environment I wasn't familiar with. That was like asking a .150-hitting utility infielder from a rec league to make the leap to the major leagues without ever having the benefit of the home-field advantage.

Upon entering this new high school my sister and I, having suffered through five years as social pariahs, were quiet, introverted and cynical. I still had a chip on my shoulder and, being distrustful of anybody, went into any social interaction with a certain degree of pessimism, suspicion and doubt. It took the better part of my freshman year, but I slowly realized that in this new environment nobody was going to taunt us, make fun of us, call us names, make racist remarks or comments, or cause us mental or physical anguish. This is not to imply that there wasn't any conflict. As with any school you run into a few differences between youngsters, which may turn into animosity, which can result in a little conflict. But the few times this happened it was neither constant nor organized. Nor was it condoned by the administration, which at least minimized conflict, discord and hostility if they couldn't eliminate it altogether.

Cautiously coming out of my shell I began to make friends in high school, a concept totally lost on me before. By my sophomore year I had several friends and acquaintances at school, was playing school sports, and was a member of several clubs. By my senior year I couldn't wait to get to school so I could socialize. I wasn't popular or at the top of the social food chain, but I unquestionably felt much better off.

My sister, on the other hand, thrived. By her sophomore year she was a cheerleader. By her junior year she was rally commissioner and an officer on the student council. By her senior year she was the first non-white homecoming queen the school ever had. She was firmly entrenched in the upper class.

In short, we turned out to be anything but "social cripples".

As for my former classmates from grade school and junior high, I would see them around town on occasion. They said things to me from time to time, but I would just ignore them, never speaking or looking at them. As I became more settled into a positive routine at my new school my fury and hatred towards them subsided to the point where I just felt indifferent to them. After a time my former classmates stopped saying anything. I'd see them at the market, there would be a glint of recognition in their eyes, and that would be all. They no longer existed to me so I didn't bother to acknowledge their existence the few times I saw them. They just blended into the surroundings.

So what saved me from mentally devolving into a self-destructive misfit -- if not a violent, hateful miscreant who would have caused irreparable harm to everybody around me -- during my five years in Hades (from sixth to eighth grade I was the same age as Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden)? What kept me from being consumed by my hate and my rage, from being pushed to the breaking point and then beyond and then savagely lashing out?

For starters, I was the recipient of great parenting. As a child I use to think that my father did this to me for some malicious reason. That he didn't care what I was going through, that there was some greater lesson I was suppose to learn from this that was lost on me. That he was always up at the school because I was always doing something wrong. That he would yell and fuss at me because I didn't defend myself.

I learned in retrospect that Dad more or less wasn't really mad at me. He was mad at the world for doing this to his son. He was mad at the parents of those schoolchildren who poisoned their kids with venomous racial enmity, and he was mad at those schoolchildren who reigned racial terror on his children. He was mad at the teachers, administrators and school district for not doing anything about it. He was mad at the little suburban town we lived in for condoning this kind of institutional hostility. And above all else he was mad at himself for not being able to protect his children from the intolerance he had hoped to get away from when he moved us. Dad realized the error of taking two young children thousands of miles away from the large extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who provided his children with a healthy support structure not available in this new place. He had bought into the hope and optimism that the civil rights movement of the Sixties created for blacks, and was sorely disappointed and disillusioned when "the age of enlightenment" didn't come to fruition for himself and his family in the Seventies. Both he and my mother were pained greatly for what we had to put up with.

So what he and my mother did was try to create as loving and normal a home life as possible, to try to keep his children centered and well-adjusted. Most of all they tried to keep my sister and me sane away from the lunacy that was our school life. While my father was the provider of tough love my mother was the nurturer. Both of them always told me I was smart and good looking and I should be proud of who I am and to be an optimist and to keep a positive mental attitude and that I can do anything no matter who tells me I can't. They continually advised me that what I was going through really had nothing to do with the rest of my life and it didn't matter (of course, when you are a as young as I was you have no lengthy past and no real concept of the future, only what is happening to you right now, so all you know is that you don't like what's happening to you now and you want your pain to end instantly). What was torn down at school was built back up at home.

Secondly, unlike most weirdoes and freaks at the bottom of the scholastic social ladder who initially don't have any clue why they are leprous exiles, I had benefit of knowing why. After going through a long period of self-loathing, and beating myself up because I wasn't like my peers at school, I finally concluded that engaging in all this concerted reprehensible behavior for no better reason than I was black was just plain stupid. So obviously I was neither the one with the problem nor causing the problems - they were (of course, it's hard convincing anyone at the time that those in the majority are wrong about anything).

Thirdly, it's not as if I didn't have any friends at all during this tumultuous period. I had a small little nucleus of friends who lived on my street who either didn't go to the same school as me or couldn't acknowledge our friendship at school for fear of reprisals from those who were tormenting me. I didn't see them as much as I would have liked to - one of the reasons I became a loner and began entertaining myself - but I would play with them after school and on weekends.

Fourthly, upon moving to California my parents made it a point to find the nearby ethnic black communities such as East Palo Alto, East San Jose and East Oakland. Not only did it provide them with an enclave where they could associate with their own people and culture, it provided a "safe haven" where my sister and I could meet and befriend other black children. And my parents went out of their way to insure that we maintained our friendships. For example, I played youth football and baseball not in the community where I lived but in East San Jose. We went to parties and social gatherings in East Oakland. We got our hair done and found soul food in East Palo Alto. Virtually every weekend we were someplace other than at home in that all-white suburb. Socially we weren't getting along with our "counterparts" where we lived, and we clearly needed an outlet. If that sounds like a form of self-inflicted social segregation, so be it.

Fifthly, my sister and I were not allowed to watch television on our own or during the day. In the evenings we were only allowed to watch family programming during early prime time and always with our parents present with no exceptions. So we never really saw much violent television programming (not that there was much of it back in the early Seventies). There wasn't nearly the gargantuan array of violent or explicit music, books, magazines and games that there is now, and what little there was was strictly controlled depending on our age. Unlike a number of our counterparts we were not allowed to have our own television or tape recorder or record player in our rooms, so there was no escaping to my room to play with something without their knowledge. Not long after we arrived in northern California my parents began talking to us frequently about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and smoking. In short, they kept tabs on damn near everything we did; there was virtually nothing my sister and I were involved in -- either in or out of the house, be it in their presence or not -- that my parents weren't aware of...

...And there were no guns anywhere. Outside of the military K-bar my father kept stuffed under his mattress (a fact I wasn't aware of until recently), weapons of any kind, let alone firearms, did not exist in our lives (and do not even now). My parents didn't believe in them and, due mainly to our economic circumstances, did not see any value or benefit in their use. And they imbued me with the same values.

Like I said, a pretty damn healthy home life that positively countered my prejudicial and damaging school environment.

It's been almost 25 years since I endured that turbulent time, and I've found my own ways of long since burying those memories and my feelings about what happened to me. I'd like to think that I've come to terms with what happened, but I can never forgive it or the children and people who put me through it, however removed from it they are. I stopped blaming an entire race for the near-sightedness of a few Neanderthals. Most importantly, I stopped blaming my parents for doing what they thought was best for me at the time. In the early Eighties one of my tormentors from junior high met with an "unfortunate" demise when he overdosed on some drugs. And midway through the same decade my primary tormentor from grade school was incarcerated. I freely admit that at the time I enjoyed a certain amount of perverse pleasure in hearing about how both of them ended up. I believed God at least owed me that.

In 1983, because of Proposition 13 five years earlier and the lack of community children, the wrecking ball finally did to that grade school what I had once hoped an earthquake would do (fortunately nobody was inside). This was catharsis enough.

When I had reached the low point during this troubling time I was prevented from slipping further into an obsessive rage and hate. And there were none of the other aforementioned periphery forces enticing me that could further fuel this fury into a harmful and ruinous state. I don't pretend to know what pushed Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to snap, but as somebody who lived through this five-year turmoil I am certain of the long-term causes of my hatred. If the information presented from Littleton is accurate, then there appear to be telltale signs which points to a primary reason these two eventually became destructive individuals: Their perpetually agonizing existence at the very bottom of the high school social structure and their overwhelmingly obsessive desire to no longer exist there, even to the detriment of their own well-being.

Violent media, the Internet, the easy availability of guns, and the lack of a spiritual center were not the reasons Harris and Klebold were driven to kill. Blaming these peripheral forces for a murderous rampage is like blaming the gasoline, engine oil and coolant for a hit-and-run. It's like blaming the match for arson. There was a fire that burned inside them already. Doom, The Basketball Diaries, the TEC-9 semi-automatic weapon and Adolph Hitler just fueled that fire.

Furthermore, this burning hatred and blinding anger they had didn't just happen overnight. Whether Harris's and Klebold's torment and exile was real or perceived, this took time to develop. They weren't great kids one moment and possessed by evil (whatever that means) the next. I'll bet a dime against a dollar neither of them entered high school wearing all-black clothing and trench coats, spewing Nazi propaganda, listening to Goth music and making pipe bombs.

I wonder if anybody has noticed that while there are plenty of students of Columbine High who recognized that Harris and Klebold were outcasts, pushed around and shunned, not one person has either (1) identified any individuals or groups of students who teased or bullied them or (2) taken it upon themselves to admit they did. I also find it interesting that the administration of Columbine High and the adults and parents of Littleton have accused the press of fabricating fiction when it is even suggested that anyone among their youngsters could have been accountable for anything more than innocent teenage ribbing. It's funny how we all recognize that in any school there are bound to be even a small number of children who are the teased or bullied but we don't acknowledge who is doing the bullying. Is it so hard for people to believe that even a child, however "innocent" we consider him or her to be, can push another child too far?

It's easy to understand why Harris and Klebold had such enmity towards athletes and jocks. Columbine High was known throughout the state of Colorado as an athletic power. So its athletes were anointed winners. In a culture that is as sports mad and obsessed with winning as ours, the students who brought such widespread public attention to the school were the chosen elite. Not only do they glide through life while the rest of us plod through, but they are excused for their transgressions while the rest of us are held accountable for ours. So they begin to believe that the rules which the rest of us have to live by don't apply to them. And like any gang of kids without rules or supervision, they may have gotten a little mean (of course, since the massacre nobody who attended Columbine admits they were harassing anybody, and it follows that the school denies playing favorites). If Harris and Klebold were the constant victims of those athletes' misbehavior - however malicious or non-malicious the intent -- and nothing was ever done about it, then it isn't hard to understand what generated the ill will (it happened to me).

Both Harris and Klebold were characterized as youthful "charmers", able to con their way into the good graces of authority when they got into trouble. In the aftermath of the massacre they were illustrated as charming, charismatic, cold and manipulative. How else to explain why even adults and the professionals didn't spot the warning signs other? While this may have been true to a certain extent, I suspect that Harris and Klebold were more or less the decent people they wanted to be when they weren't at that school or came in contact with their schoolmates.

To illustrate, away from school during my five years in that all-white suburb, I was characterized by neighbors and other people in the community as gregarious, affable, courteous, fun-loving and funny, with a ready smile, a bright disposition and a witty yet off-the-wall sense of humor. However, once at school, I was identified by my teachers and school officials as sullen, withdrawn, surly, rude, angry and afraid; who didn't get along with any of the other students, didn't develop meaningful or lasting friendships, and always had a chip on my shoulder. This Jeckyl and Hyde transformation took no longer than the fifteen minutes it took to walk to school. In retrospect, while the latter portrayal was always upsetting to me and my parents (who at first and for a while didn't understand where this was coming from), it was nonetheless accurate. What my teachers were blind to, however - and my parents slowly came to comprehend -- was that I developed this behavior as a mechanism for coping with the daily persecution, stress and harm, and that this conduct was only enabled when I was at school. For those teachers, though, my bad disposition invited distress.

Were Harris and Klebold as filled with racist hate as they appeared to be? They may have been to a certain degree, but by the time they had marched into the school hallways blasting away their hatred had become so absolute and their fury so blindingly complete that they were grasping at any reason to hate anybody in order to carry out their lethal revenge. It is somewhat difficult to reconcile their seemingly obvious racial hatred with some of their actions, however. Before moving to Colorado three years earlier Harris was described as a well-like, precocious youth in Plattsburgh, New York, who had lots of friends whom were Asian and African-American. And according to one African-American classmate at Columbine, Harris would "help [her] cheat sometimes, pass [her] answers to tests and stuff." Does this sound like the actions of a confirmed Nazi?

No, I suspect that the attraction to Adolph Hitler and Nazism is a little more complex. The basic tenets of fascism or any fringe hate philosophy is to provide focus and form to hatred. Nazi dogma envelops all of one's rages and frustrations -- which are equal parts random, haphazard, indiscriminate and indistinguishable - and concentrates it at one point. Then once it simplistically identifies who and what is to blame for your problems it moves you to action, which more times than not manifests itself in destructive ways. It is no coincidence that the people on the fringes of society - the disaffected and dispossessed - are easy prey to fringe ideology. If you look at its early history you'll see that Nazism made heroes and patriots out of thugs, criminals and miscreants...

...And why not? Hitler himself was an outcast who as a youngster was made fun of, picked on and teased by his peers and whose teachers thought him strange, unsociable and not very bright. It's not a coincidence that his anger and unhappy childhood preceded his "tumultuous" adulthood. His youthful frustrations hatched an idea, which developed into a philosophy, that soon became a movement, and then quickly mutated into something far more cataclysmic and catastrophic, with monumentally tragic results that to this day universally manifests itself in some form in all of its ugliness. One can't help but think that as Hitler was putting that bullet into his own head he took comfort in the knowledge that he had done such a thorough job of screwing up the world to epic proportions.

How could Harris and Klebold not be attracted to somebody who so thoroughly took his revenge with genocidal finality on a world he thought was causing his problems?

And they had each other to revel in their common fury. What exacerbated their hate to a fever pitch was the one bond the inextricably linked them as comrades and brothers-in-arms - their common rage and hate for the same source. Harris's violent Internet web site, Klebold's dark and sad poetry, and the video they both created fantasizing about the mass deaths of their classmates probably did more to push these teens into violent action than any bullying student, see-no-evil teacher, video game, movie, television show or gun ever could. Like bloodthirsty carnivores they fed off of their shared passion for rancor and vindictiveness -

-- Which begs the question: If neither one of them shared this common vile disgust for the school, their schoolmates and the town, would they ever have become friends? Despite their till-death-do-us-part bond Harris and Klebold were distinctly dissimilar people. Harris preferred to stand apart form the crowd and keep to himself, needed antidepressants to keep more or less in balance, and was capable of violent outbursts and slow-boil intimidation. Klebold, clearly a follower, was shy and a little sad, had a sullen streak (sounds familiar), quietly had female interests, and seemed to be able to comprehend a future beyond high school in the way he looked forward to graduation and moving on to college. Was their lone mutual idiosyncrasy and purpose the only thing that defined their relationship?

Even as I was being tormented I was well aware of other schoolmates who were the recipients of as much aggravation and bother as I, but for different reasons. As I stated earlier, even those arbitrarily defined weirdoes and freaks at school who occupy the bottom of the social ladder are drawn to those who co-exist with them and create healthy friendships. In a lot of instances I tried to befriend those kids who shared in my turmoil, but in each case I quickly discovered that we just didn't have anything in common beyond our shared distress (and I had enough bad mojo working without these other outcasts dwelling on it). So without being mean I just stayed amicable with them whenever I saw them, but pretty much we just stayed to ourselves. Frequently I would be a witness to their harassment and abuse - and vise-a-versa - and I would feel sorry for them, but it was kind of understood that we had to deal with our own enemies on our own.

The Columbine blood bath was not about gaining infamy or notoriety or anything that complex. This was simply about cold-blooded revenge. The two shooters' simple objective was to inflict the greatest amount of pain, suffering and sorrow on the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. They were well aware even before they walked into school with guns blazing that for them there was not going to be a happy ending to their actions even had they lived through it - they knew this was going to end badly. In their minds they have been caused so much pain for so long that they wanted everybody around them dead more than they wanted themselves alive, however temporarily that would bring them a perverted sense of joy. Harris and Klebold were not able to conceptualize a future that was a lot easier -- where people treated them with civility and dignity and accepted them at face value and the childish games of youth would be long gone. They could only fathom what was happening to them right now. And they wanted the hell they were living over with right now. So they were determined to make their schoolmates, teachers and administrators, and the whole community, feel the same pain and anguish that they themselves were the recipient of for so long. And they wanted to make it last long after they were either captured or killed.

They succeeded.

Since then people have understandably been on edge, fearful of their children's well being while at school. That children should feel safe from guns and deadly violence while at school is true enough. But we should recognize is that there are many different levels of safety. It isn't possible to make any school an insular place for each individual student, but it should not be a hostile environment for those who are threatened, harassed, harmed or mistreated continually by other kids, especially when it is overlooked by those in authority. I don't pretend to know what Harris and Klebold went through. But if it was anywhere remotely near what my experiences where in grade school and junior high, then where was the concern for Harris and Klebold when they were being shoved into a locker or having a bottle thrown at them? Where was the even-handed justice when they were being bullied and browbeaten while their tormentors were allowed to get away with it? Even the popular youngsters need to be taught compassion for those around them who are different or achieve less (I guess at a place where winning is not only a regular but an expected occurrence, compassion is for losers).

Let me make one thing clear. I am not suggesting that getting picked on is an excuse for committing mass murder, but there seems to be a clear foundation for these two young men's hostility.

That having been said, if you are looking for somebody to blame for what happened in Littleton on April 20, look no further than Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They are the ones who walked into a school, set off some explosives, shot hundreds of rounds of ammunition, injured, maimed and killed scores of individuals and caused anguish, suffering and sorrow to countless others. Don't give in to the culture of vengeance to look for something or somebody else to be held accountable. That's exactly what Harris and Klebold did. I doubt that the twelve youths and one teacher they killed were even infinitesimally responsible for their torment. Their ire festered so intensely that they were incapable of distinguishing between whom was the direct or indirect cause of their perceived pain and who wasn't. They were so blinded by rage that they walked into that school and indiscriminately shot at anybody who was present. I am convinced that had I been a student at Columbine High -- and gone through the same mistreatment there that I had over 25 years earlier - neither Harris nor Klebold would have recognized me as the same kind of victim they were, and still shot at me.

The likely bullying, teasing and abuse - fueled by violent media, access to guns, and the possible lack of parental supervision - is responsible only for making these two the dangerous persons they became. Harris and Klebold still had control of their impulses, and with willful premeditation and depraved indifference nonetheless made the conscious decision to give in to those impulses.

Still, as a former victim who felt enduring persecution by my surroundings and tried my damnedest to suppress my urges for raging vengeance, I feel a degree of empathy for Harris and Klebold, their surface racism notwithstanding. Because I walked the mile I think I can understand where their hurt and wounds came from, and how their obvious obsession for revenge and retribution took root. In all of the pain and sorrow that followed the massacre, we must remember that even they had family, friends and loved ones who are going through their own personal torture and hell right now. Despite what these two youths did there are people out there who will miss them. I especially feel for Harris's and Klebold's parents, who can't reconcile what these two eventually did with the children they knew. Keep in mind that parenting is a continually full-time trial-and-error job that is learned on-the-job. Parents want their children to be happy, and it seems that nowadays when they aren't parents go out of their way to leave them to their own devices if that is what seems to make them happy.

It is true that children begin life as innocents. It's just too bad that we have to loose them on an unkind, violent and uncertain world and let their environment turn them jaded and cynical - or corruptible or even worse - in order to deal with their surroundings.

High school is tough enough. Teens are sandwiched between childhood and adulthood, so they are required to constantly balance fun & games with ever-increasing responsibility. Grades no longer determine whether you'll be grounded or allowed to watch TV for a month; now they determine whether you'll go to college and have a decent career. For the first time your future is in your own hands.

And to top all of that off are the overwhelming expectations of and pressures from your peers, balanced with the need to define and mold your own identity and individuality. Maintaining a balance that works can be like walking a social tightrope. Do you wear that Allen Iverson jersey because you truly like Allen Iverson and the Sixers, or because he's the hot sports star of the moment? Do you really like those platform pumps and that mini-skirt, or do you like the attention from certain boys? Are you in a school club or sports team because you really want to participate in that activity, or because that's what your friends are doing and it brings you a degree of notoriety? Are there certain classmates you have nothing to do with because you genuinely have nothing in common and nothing to say to them, or because none of your friends will have anything to do with them? Have you ever done something you knew in your heart was the right thing to do but your friends and peers at school were just as adamant was wrong?

For those of us who have forgotten how tough high school could be, ask yourself this question: During your four years in high school what did you consider at the time the most important test you would take? Any one of a number of college placement tests, midterms or finals - or your driver's test?

The Invisible Man is neither a movie creation nor Claude Rains. He was first publicly revealed through Ralph Ellison's now-famous novel. He most recently was among the 600,000 other obviously-invisible men that the Washington, DC Park Services failed to count during the Million-Man March.