We Will Be Heard
February 14, 2018: the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School left seventeen dead. Each time such a tragedy hits, the country reels in shock for a moment, but that moment becomes shorter as we become desensitized. We are the mass shooting generation. We have witnessed Parkland, Las Vegas, Pulse, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook. We know the script of events, know the thoughts and prayers, the gun control debate that goes nowhere, the forgetting. But right now, the students at Stoneman Douglas are refusing to be forgotten. And on March 14, 2018, one month later, high school students across the country walked out of classrooms to pronounce enough is enough.
My school in California was one of them, and I was a volunteer coordinator for the event. Before school, I handed out wristbands and posters, encouraged students to make their voice heard. At 10:00, nearly three-quarters of the school stood up and walked out. We held a memorial in the quad, honoring each of the seventeen victims in Parkland. Students read speeches, walked flameless candles, flew orange balloons. Some held posters, some held each other. After a moment of silence, hundreds of high school students joined together in a chant of “Never again,” voices ringing and echoing.
And yes, one school walkout isn’t going to stop mass shootings from happening again. But in that moment, we were united as a student body, as a nation, as part of a movement bigger than any I’d ever known. Let it be known that this was only the beginning. Words are turning into actions. In the days and weeks since, we have set up voter registration tables, consumer information stations, venues to contact government officials at my school. As teenagers, as high school students, we are finding our voices which have long been consigned to silence. And we will scream, whisper, demand, debate, and advocate until we are heard.
