Tag: school shootings
Honor Thy Children (to save humanity)
by Kathie MM
Cloe Axelson in a WBUR Cognoscenti article tells us, “The kids have something to say, and we should listen.” And she’s right.
Axelson’s article focuses on student activists who survived last February’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 died.
Parkland was not the first example of a mass school shooting in this country; given that the United States has become a nation in which nearly 100 people die daily from guns, it is unlikely to be the last. [I hope you are as horrified to read these words as I am to write them and are thinking of ways to fight the NRA’s deadly work for the arms industry.]
One of the highlights of Axelson’s article is her reminiscence about another young student, Mary Beth Tinker, who was suspended from her middle school in Iowa in the 1960s for wearing a black arm band to school to protest the Vietnam War. The ACLU took her case on behalf of student rights to free speech all the way to the Supreme Court, where she won her case in a 7-2 decision.
I have same hypotheses about the child-rearing Mary Beth and other student activists experienced. I believe that in general, they were not bullied and beaten by their parents. They were not sent off to military schools to straighten them out. They were not told to shut their traps, mind their own beeswax, watch out or they’d get what was coming to them, obey…or else.
More likely, young activists like these are allowed to ask questions, wonder about injustices, read widely, educate themselves about society’s ills, and even speak out about problems they see in their communities and beyond—nurtured rather than suppressed, taught to love rather than to hate, urged to strive for a better society rather than become bullies themselves.
“Beating the devil” out of kids is not a path to a better world. Corporal punishment can beat out a lot of potential for developing a universal ethic and sense of justice—and perhaps destroy our only hope for survival of the planet. If you want to stop violence in and to the world, work to end violence in the home.
And inspire yourself! Hear Mary Beth today in this brief video.
I was there, Marching for Our Lives
By Sarah Mensch
Yesterday, I marched for 2.5 miles with an estimated 50,000 people in Boston. As a student, I stood toward the front, and when I looked around I could see so many of the children I wrote about protecting late last week walking next to me. They looked tired; this was their Saturday morning, intended for soccer practice or Girl Scouts or watching cartoons, and they were spending it pleading for legislators to make school a safer place
The March for Our Lives did not maintain the level of pride or excitement I’ve felt at other rallies I’ve attended; at the Boston Women’s March in 2017 I felt solidarity in my womanhood, and at the Deaf Grassroots Movement rally I felt admiration for my Deaf professors and classmates. But at the March for Our Lives, I felt anger, grief, and most importantly, determination.
The walk-outs at high schools all over the nation and demands from students in Florida specifically have already resulted in Governor Rick Scott (R) signing a new gun bill into law that raises the minimum age to purchase a gun, ends same-day gun licensing, and bans bump stocks.
I and the hundreds of thousands of others who marched yesterday have a new obligation today, one that is much more uncomfortable than our duty to be good adults and protect our children: we have to hold on to our anger and our grief. We have to maintain its magnitude and it’s momentum, because without any emotional charge, change in the way states handle guns doesn’t start with the Florida gun bill, it stops there. And until no child or adult dies at the hands of gun violence, we have not done enough.
Given that I’ve just given anyone who reads this a hefty call-to-action, I want to make it clear what organizations Engaging Peace readers can support to make gun safety in the United States a reality:
Tens of thousands marched. I was there.
By guest author Deborah Belle
Such a mixture of pain and joy to see so many marching today. Joy in the incredible strength, wisdom, and commitment of the young people leading this social movement along with their equally passionate elders. Pain is the very reason for and topic of the march. Children with signs wondering if they will be next, or pleading, “Don’t shoot!” Teachers who did not sign up to be soldiers and carry guns. Reminders of the young people lost recently in Florida and also the young father killed only days ago in Sacramento, shot 20 times by police officers in his own backyard.
What a crazy dystopia we are forced to inhabit. When will we awaken from this nightmare? Along with the emotion today there was a focus on the future and on the next steps to take. Activists were out registering marchers to vote and reminding us that voting will be our best hope of purging our national political life of the deadly influence of the NRA.
Note from KMM: Please help with the voter registration process.