"Guns Are an Idea Whose Time Has Passed": Nikki Giovanni on Anniversary Va. Tech Massacre

Democracy Now 

Amy Goodman sits down with activist, poet and scholar Nikki Giovanni at Virginia Tech, where Giovanni is a distinguished professor of English. Giovanni recounts her experience of the 2007 massacre and shares her thoughts on gun control. She briefly taught Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho poetry before demanding that he leave her class over disruptive behavior. In a memorial address the day after the massacre, Giovanni told mourners: "We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness."