As many of you know, Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old student from UVA, died in a coma. Warmbier visited North Korea over a year and a half ago in hopes to explore North Korea as a tourist. Suddenly, and tragically, his tourist days were over and he found himself begging for his life.
As an American, I am overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, sorrow, and frustration. Questions fill my head, leaving me speechless. Where were we when a young man needed us?
After being caught trying to steal a propaganda banner from his hotel, Warmbier was arrested by North Korean officials and sentenced to a hearing. His hearing lasting only one hour. One hour of Warmbier crying out in hopes for forgiveness and a chance to return to America. Instead of returning to his family, he received 15 years of hard labor and was kept in North Korea. Hard labor was only a fraction of his experiences. He was starved, was beaten, was tortured, and in the end, Otto Warmbier was murdered.
For months, fellow Americans have been following the story behind Otto and many politicians and news programmers have reported and spoke about this incident. Yeah, we may have spread information to others based on what was going on, but why didn't we do more? Talking may have gotten us somewhere but we needed action to take us there.
I am ashamed that we, Americans, were unable to help a young college man in an isolated country. Instead, we sat back and watched the story unfold in front of our eyes. I am guilty of it, too.
What's worse?
Ever since the news reported Otto Warmbier's death, many people have commented and posted their opinions on social media platforms. Things like "he deserved it" or "he shouldn't have gone there in the first place" or "it's because of race" flooded the internet.
It does NOT matter what color he was, what social class he was, or what gender he was; this young man died too soon and a family lost a loved one because of another nation's maltreatment. The "talk" shouldn't have been about a white privileged man "deserving" to die, but instead, about how an innocent man's life was taken too soon over a "crime" that is taken so lightly in America. I mean, there's plenty of college students who have stories about "stealing" something from a frat house and using it as pass downs, right?
The bottom line is that we should learn from this tragedy, just in case a similar situation arises in the future. We, as proud American citizens, should work together in an effort to help out our American people.
