Shadowdance 008: Fitting the Profile
On Wednesday, September 13, 2006, a 25-year-old gunman walked onto the campus of Dawson College in Montreal and started shooting. Wearing a trench coat, all black clothing, and sporting a Mohawk haircut, the suspected shooter Kimveer Gill also maintained an online blog at a site called vampirefreaks.com that expressed his hatred and rage toward the human race.
Who can we hold accountable for influencing Gill’s actions? His social circle? The alternative websites he frequented? The heavy-metal music he preferred listening to? And what does this say about those of us who also listen to dark music, dress in dark clothing, or even rant about our dislikes online? Are we all time-bombs waiting to go off? Who should draw the line between healthy personal expression and troubled warning signs? Chris and Michelle tackle these hard questions and more, taking a sometimes brutally honest look at dark subcultures and the lines the rest of society draws between them and people like Kimveer Gill.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:33 am
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September 20th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Michelle, while I appreciate the rest of your treatment on this subject, you demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of both Canada’s health care responsibilities and capabilities. You would do well to take the effort to learn more before claiming that ‘there is no excuse’ as to why Canada didn’t spontaneously leap to the aid of a man who did not seek it.
The content of this podcast would have served better in a short twenty minute comment on recent events rather than the repetitive and occasionally misguided comments made here.
Best of luck in future podcasts.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Psyche — I think I mustn’t have been clear — I don’t think Canada should have been jumping to his aid. I think a Canadaian citizen has no excuse to put off health care when it is freely available. I know plenty of folks here in the States who try desperately to find alternate therapies for their ills simply because they can’t afford better. When living in a socialized health care system, this shouldn’t be such a hurdle. Sorry if that came off wrong — blaming Canada wasn’t exactly my intention. Although I will admit that I think society itself is more to blame for incidents like this than we generally like to think.
–M
September 21st, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Michelle I’m listening to this podcast immediately after hearing the Streamlink recording of you on Coast to Coast AM. I’m still impressed. I’m going to slow down and collect my thoughts on everything, but I think I might have that alternative word You were looking for…I’ll have to listen to you much more and take much more time for that particular thing.
As for everything else, Michelle you are a genius and I’m hooked. Also, this being the first time I have heard Chris, I am also very impressed with Him also.
Michelle I would very much like to hear your take on the “new” psychiatric drugs being heaped on society nowdays (this thought relative to the conversation about how Kimveer Gill maybe could have obtained mental healthcare)…Upon studying these drugs, You will find that a lot of them actually CAUSE people to WANT to commit suicide!!! If You haven’t read up on this, PLEASE DO!! You will be FLOORED. I do hope You have time to check this out Michelle, You won’t freakin BELIEVE this *&^#.
Anyway— just Avron
PS…OMG I was a LOT like Your BROTHER!!! I was smart yet an outcast…but still a lot like Your Mom (an Empath)…anyway…
September 23rd, 2006 at 7:31 pm
that is a good show I tell people on the internet to listin to showdowdance.com
October 1st, 2006 at 12:43 am
Hello -
As a first time listener, I’m extremely impressed with your podcast. Yours is the most lucid and intelligent commentary I’ve yet heard on this shooting. I’ll be passing this particular show along to others. I’m not quite a goth, but I do work in the video game industry, so I know a bit about being a scapegoat for violence.
Thanks - and keep it up.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
I’ve just come upon your podcast and have been listening to them a few at a time. just came up on the “Profile” episode. Michelle, you are so on the mark stating that these incidents are the result of possibly years of abuse in our public school system. Schools have changed radically in the 30 years since I attended; even then, if you were outcast, it was like running a gauntlet just to get through the day. These days, parents really seem to have no idea what they are sending their kids into; in some places it literally is a warzone. When those boys shot up Columbine, I told a friend, I could completely understand how those boys could do such a thing, and that I didn’t know how I made it through school without doing the same thing. It’s time to stop pigeonholing our kids and give them some effective outlets for their rage, and stop the culture of silence that has developed among staff and teachers. We know that a huge percent of the rest of the student body did nothing to defend any of these shooters, because then they would be painted with the same brush; they would be outcast by association. I can understand that fear, and we cannot hold them responsible. We CAN hold responsible the students who engage in the cruelty, and we MUST hold responsible the faculties in these schools, find a way to make them accountable for what happens in their classrooms, adn the halls beyond. Until that happens, kids like Kimveer, and all the other school shooters, will continue to act out their rage with deadly force.