Saying Good-Bye to Psych of Violence

Today was my last Psychology of Violence class. We did our group presentations on historically significant acts of violence. Our group did the Attack on Pearl Harbor (which I titled "A Date That Will Live in Infamy") and I think it went very well. We had one member who didn't send in slides and I was late for class because he was emailing me asking me if he could send stuff in....20 minutes before class. He never sent me anything and I pointed out to him that he had plenty of time to speak up if he needed help. He also didn't show up to class until the very end. But I spoke to the professor, who is utterly reasonable, and she allowed us to just present without him without the loss of points.

One of the groups did the murders of Tupac and Biggie...and it was fantastic. They did a great job at both describing the series of events that led to the East Coast vs West Coast feud as well as detailing the effects that make the event historically significant. They talked about the atmosphere in LA at the time and how two unsolved, but very public, murders fed the existing problems with the LAPD and the potential government involvement. It was a really fascinating presentation.

Unfortunately, less fascinating was the group who did a collection of events, some which were less historically relevant. They used the Rodney King beatings (which is historically relevant) but they tried to tie it to Trayvon Martin and say that these were both examples of white cops beating up black people. The professor corrected them since the Trayvon situation wasn't a cop and the situation isn't unique, so it's not historically significant.

The other one I saw (I missed the first one) was on the VA Tech shooting. Fascinating stuff, especially considering that the shooter was apparently insane. The video he sent to the police was pure crazy talk. It was a cool way to end the class.

For those who are interested in some of the stuff that we discussed in this class, the professor has a youtube channel (which I think I've mentioned before). I'm not sure how long it will be active, but there's great stuff there if you want to check it out.