The deaths at Virginia Tech have hit all of us like a big sledgehammer on it’s way down. All over the internet prayers, thoughts and good wishes are pouring in. However, there are several people who also seem fit to point out that more than 100 people have been killed in Iraqi universities, African conflicts etc. Compared to those numbers, 33 deaths is minor, and all this is just fodder for news channels.
Here’s why it matters to us: Virginia Tech has long been known as a close knit university. Virginia Tech students and alumni are one of the most loyal and fanatical fans in the country. Fans for every sport, for every thing that is Virginia Tech. When a student joins Virginia Tech he joins the family of Hokies, after he graduates he is still a Hokie. It’s home away from home. For me Virginia Tech has been life and home for the past 5 years. That’s why it matters, 33 people killed at home. 33 family members are no more in this world. 26,000 students and even more alumni of Virginia Tech lost family members.
I didn’t know any one of those 33 people but still I grieve. Hokies are my family, family for a lifetime.
We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech …
— Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist
Technorati Tags: Hokies, Virginia Tech
Rushi's Ramblings 
sad here in england. glad we dont have your crazy gun laws x
Lots of people are calling this a ‘senseless’ act. But actually it makes a lot of sense. Here’s how. Before we can keep stop these mass shootings, we have to keep kids safe at home. What I’m getting at is that people who commit acts of violence — school rampages, rape, child sexual assault and abuse — have more than likely been a victim themselves. I recommend the book “Violence” by James Gilligan for the best explanation of “why it happens” that I’ve ever read.
It is too bad that Nikki Giovanni is trying to use this situation as a platform to promote her own political agenda. It is supposed to be about the victims, not Giovanni’s political ideology.
I didn’t hear anything about her political agenda in there. What she said rang true to every hokie’s heart.
ALI G -Booyakasha, chek i’ out. I is here wif my main man, Nikki G, my bro from Staines. How is you become poet?
NIKKI G- We’re communicators, it’s in our blood.
ALI G: Blood, West Side. Now sis, you, I mean, sorry you is my bro now, you is get some edumacation. You went to America, right?
NIKKI G: I went to Fisk.
ALI G: Tell me about how you is expelled for crack…
NIKKI G: It wasn’t for smoking crack. I started at Fisk in 1960, was soon expelled, and later returned and graduated in 1968. I did enroll and quickly drop out of two graduate schools after that but I did complete that one degree, my bachelor’s degree.
ALI G: Wha’eve. You is still my main man. Now you has Tupac Shukar tattoo, right? Can I see that?
NIKKI G: Yes, I have said I would rather be with the street thugs than with the ones who complain about them.
ALI G: Now is you believe Tupac’s criminal record make him a better rap artist?
NIKKI G: Well, I don’t know about that, but…
ALI G: I like that poem you wrote about nigger can you kill, can you stab a jew, and you draw blood, can you kill a honkie. Ain’t that a rap!
NIKKI G: You’re talking about my poem “The True Import Of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro.” I wrote that a long time ago.
ALI G: But can’t you make a rap out of that? You is get the whole crowd to stand up at Virginia Tech with that one.
NIKKI G: No, that was my new poem We Are Virginia Tech.
ALI G: Wha’eve. That was my one an’ only main man, Nikki G, my big bro and big time poet, big shout out for Nikki G from VT.
Whoa… that was different. Ali G sure knows how to mix things up.