TODAY … WE ARE ALL VIRGINIA TECH. In the words of a poet:
“We are Virginia Tech.
We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile.
We are NOT moving on. We are embracing our mourning.
We are Virginia Tech.
We are strong enough to stand tall, tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again.
We are Virginia Tech.
We do NOT understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS; neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army; neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water; neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib, in the home his father built with his own hands, being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.
We are Virginia Tech.
The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.
We are the Hokies.
We will prevail. We WILL prevail. WE WILL PREVAIL!
We ARE … Virginia Tech”. ~~Nikki Giovanni Speech transcribed by Edna Barney
A SLIDE SHOW from FLICKR Photographers about the Virginia Tech Shootings this week in Blacksburg, Virginia.
