The University of Richmond Collegian 09/08/94

Staff Editorial

by Jeffrey Carl, Opinion Editor

What We Think

an Opinion from the Collegian Staff

“The Bubble Bursts”

Welcome to sunny Richmond, Va., where the city is bustling, the countryside is gorgeous, and the murder rate per capita is second in the United States of America.

Does this alarm you?

If you’re like many University of Richmond students, it probably doesn’t.

It’s a downtown problem.

It’s a gang problem.

It’s a poor problem.

It’s somebody else’s problem.

It doesn’t happen here.

It doesn’t affect me.

It could never happen to me.

Does any of this sound familiar?

If you’re like most students, you – let’s be honest now – probably don’t worry much about AIDS.

I don’t have it.

Nobody I know has it.

It would never happen to me.

Do you really worry about Rwanda? Or overpopulation? How about Plutonium hijacking?

Probably not, really.

Well, you probably should.

The most faraway problems are really a lot closer than you think.

A recent study showed that, on average, one in 500 college students carries the HIV virus. The odds are that several people you see walking by you every day – real people, not abstract government statistics – has it.

Thirteen of the 121 people murdered in Richmond this year were killed in the district that includes Carytown and the Fan.

And everything else that seems so “It could never happen to me” could.

This is not The Collegian’s Official Alarmist Liberal Media Call to Panic.

This is a request – to think about what you can do to protect yourself before all those faraway problems come knocking on your door.

Don't think that all the world's problems are somebody else's.

And let’s be careful out there.