The tragedy at Virginia Tech reminds me of a comment in a story I did on the murder of a man in Central Park by two private school kids in 1997. A kid who knew the killers told me, “It’s always those people who get harassed and picked on who flip the fuck out.”

Kids are really mean these days, but it isn’t their fault. Our society is mean. Bush and Co. are mean. Imus is mean. Coulter is mean. Public policy is mean. Whatever happened to helping the have nots? Whatever happened to “a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too,” as Jefferson Smith says in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

That all went out with Ronald Reagan, who told us that poor people just didn’t want to get jobs; that hunger in America was a myth perpetrated by bleeding heart liberals; that “liberal” was a dirty word.

You can teach kids that people who aren’t rich are losers, but don’t be surprised if one day one of those losers flips the fuck out. Gunman Cho Seung-hui reportedly “left a rambling note complaining about debauched women, religion and ‘rich kids’ that said he had no choice but to kill,” according to the Daily News.

Cho was clearly a sick young man who probably should have been hospitalized a long time ago. (Why didn’t Virginia Tech suspend him on some kind of medical leave after he reportedly wrote a play featuring chain saws and rape?) My heart goes out to the families of his victims, and his family as well. I am so sorry for your loss. Still, his rampage was an American rampage, and any analysis of it should include not only the dissection of a crazed killer but the society that produced him.

Look at his face, America. What do you see? Do you see a kid who has a good chance of being embraced by his classmates, popular? Well, no, you don’t. He isn’t particularly handsome, the first strike against him in a country where the paper of record has a special Beauty excerpt on Sundays, featuring the latest on laser treatments.

He’s also not white—and this isn’t suggesting that non-whites run a greater risk of becoming mass murderers, because we all know it’s the other way around—but one can only imagine that in a land where accomplished young black women get called “nappy-headed hos” on the radio, it’s a little more difficult living as a young Asian man, especially in the deep South of Blacksburg.

Oh, and look at that haircut. And those glasses. Tsk, tsk. No, Cho doesn’t look like he'd made his pact with the Devil who wears Prada. Young people are already painfully self-conscious, imagine how much more so in a country where every little bit of one’s self-maintenance is evaluated not only on aesthetic but economic grounds.

One of the hallmarks of fascism is conformity to a physical ideal—here in America, we've niftily linked this to the marketplace; think of the brand labeling that extends from our clothes to our home décor to our cars, even food. The sort of “rich kids” Cho railed against know all about that, and outfit themselves accordingly. They better, lest they be harassed and picked on within their own social circle too.

Cho also looks a bit timid, lost, confused. (And can’t you do something about that oily skin???) Not acceptable here in militaristic America. We are the strong, brash and loud! And if somebody fucks with us, they better fucking watch out or we might rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat like JohnWayne FittyCent Army Navy Marines and the Terminator! We know exactly who we are and what to do and never apologize, semper fi!

Well, Cho Seung-hui, American, will never have the chance to apologize now.