Disbelief, shock, sadness, horror, grief mix together in thinking about the murders at Virginia Tech. And the 32 victims who family, friends and strangers mourn, 32 innocents.

The people identified by Va Tech to date are Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Christopher James Bishop, Brian Roy Bluhm, Ryan Christopher Clark, Austin Michelle Cloyd, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Kevin P. Granata, Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, Caitlin Millar Hammaren, Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, Emily Jane Hilscher, Jarrett Lee Lane, Matthew Joseph La Porte, Henry J. Lee, Liviu Librescu, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, Lauren Ashley McCain, Daniel Patrick O’Neil, J. Ortiz-Ortiz, Minal Hiralal Panchal, Daniel Alejandro Perez, Erin Nicole Peterson, Michael Steven Pohle, Jr., Julia Kathleen Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Joseph Samaha, Waleed Mohamed Shaalan, Leslie Geraldine Sherman, Maxine Shelly Turner, and Nicole White.

These are the people that will be remembered by their loved ones. But the rest of us, those who don’t know them, will forget their names. They will become, for most of us, “the victims” or the “people who were shot.”

I don’t know if there is anything that we can do about that. But there is one thing that I have decided to do. I refuse to learn the name of the man who took their lives. I won’t let him become part of my memory. I won’t let him be like murderers before him–people who ruthlessly killed hundreds in Oklahoma City, boys and young men in Chicago, or our brothers and sisters in New York, D.C., and Shanksville Penn., on September 11, 2003. I don’t care if they are “infamous“–they have more of our brain space than they deserve.

I am very angry that NBC–followed rapidly by their disrespectful media siblings–have given the wicked shooter time. I can’t stand that they promoted his pathetic tapes, pictures, ravings. I am not going to be an accomplice to his narcissistic desires for people to know who he is.

I don’t care about him. I don’t care to know about him. I don’t want to aggrandize this shooter. We don’t have to give him what he wanted. Leave him a place in the history books, but just call him the shooter.

The names, the histories, the hopes of the victims are what we need to remember. Google them. Find their Face Books. Learn about them. Leave the shooter in ignominy.

You can leave your condolences here. My thoughts and prayers to the entire and extended Virginia Tech community.