On March 14, 2018 at 10 a.m., students in many schools across the country walked out of classes for seventeen minutes in order to pay their respects to those who lost their lives in the Marjorie Stoneham Douglass High School shooting in Parkland Florida just a month before. Victims included students and teachers alike.
Students engaged in the March protests were sincere in their desire to commemorate the dead and call for reforms. However, televised coverage of the walk-out and interviews with some of the students revealed an altered agenda with emphasis on harsher gun laws and, especially, a desire to hold the National Rifle Association responsible. This was a blatant distortion of the intended message for the day.
The swift and efficient organization of these events, especially in major cities, coupled with the equally well coordinated revised message is curious. Is it possible, as some suggest, that what had begun as a grassroots effort may have been co-opted by better-organized and funded groups who exist to take aim at conservative strongholds, like the 2nd Amendment?
My high school in New Jersey was no exception. However, because I have a brother still attending, I was privy to a student-wide e-mail chain of discussion leading up to the walkout they were planning. These students are well-educated, accepted into top universities, and well-versed on many subjects, but the chatter pertaining to the walkout was nothing shy of pathetic. The more outspoken ones were embarrassingly incorrect about the original purpose of the seventeen minutes. Additionally, they called for demonstrating in a manner that had already been forbidden by the administration.
To their credit, the administration had no interest in censoring students who wished to be heard. However, they did insist that students NOT walk out to the front of the school – for security reasons. The Department of Education issued a warning that students demonstrating in full view could, themselves, become targets of some crazed person.
In righteous defiance, the students at my former high school marched out to the front, against the advice and direction of administration. There will be consequences.
We all want our voices heard – especially when we are so passionate about a topic. We all want to believe we are relevant. I understand because I am no different.
It is imperative, however, that we understand the platforms on which we stand. Some are made for those moments of speaking out, and some are not. March 14 was not initiated in order to promote anti-gun rhetoric. There have been subsequent opportunities for that, as we saw last week; the March 24 March for Our Lives was a more appropriate forum.
For the record, I am not a member of the NRA, and I am not especially skilled with a gun. However, I think students who came out swinging against guns and gun advocates were out of line on March 14. It was a day of remembrance, of reflection. It might better have served as a reminder that we are responsible to and for one another. If you sense someone is troubled, reach out, solicit help. Ignoring unsettling signs assumes someone else will deal with the problem. The buck stops here, with every one of us.
Sam Fisher is a sophomore majoring in political science. Her column runs biweekly.
