He looked straight into the camera, as a reporter held the microphone, an hour or so after the school shootings and said, with a voice filled with anger and resolve, “We’re just kids. Do Something! You have to Do Something.” The students have been doing many things since February 14th when a gunman entered their school and took out 14 of their fellow students and 3 staff members in a matter of minutes. Those minutes changed their lives and those of their families forever. And now because of what they’ve been doing, and are continuing to do – they are changing us.
The students of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School are doing a big something this Saturday as they march on the nation’s capital. Like the suffragettes, marching for the vote (their school is named after one,) and Martin Luther King’s March on Washington for civil rights they follow an honored tradition. Like social justice people before them, they are taking their case to the people who make the laws of the land, and to the American people.
Many factors have contributed to this historic moment, the fact that these students weren’t even born when Columbine happened, that school shootings have continued to happen their entire lives, that innocent law-abiding US citizens continue to be gunned down in their places of worship, at shopping malls, and rock concerts by instruments of mass destruction, that the students and all of us are disgusted, sick and tired of being sick and tired, of the “thoughts and prayers” but no action to prevent these atrocities.
As an expert on grief and loss I watched in amazement as these students began turning around the cultural wisdom that “this isn’t the time to talk about guns,” answering that“this is exactly the right time”, while the blood is still on the school’s floorboards, while the smiling faces of the slain are still intruding into our troubled sleep, and before we move on to the next frenetic news cycle.
By exercising their generation’s special skills with social media, speaking to the media in sound bites, connecting swiftly to one another, and others of their generation, and beyond, they created a national movement in a few days and weeks. The students refused to stop at mourning the dead with tears, candles, and hushed voices. They would honor the dead by acting to ensure that this insanity will come to an end.
When one student passionately looked a senator in the eyes and asked, “Are you willing to stop taking money from the NRA?” I thought, “Now there’s a good idea – if politicians stopped taking money from organizations like the NRA this movement could end up impacting how campaigns are financed. That could return the power to the people and save our democracy.
They have made a strong beginning taking a bus to their state capital to demand changes in Florida’s gun laws, and they got some. Critics say the changes were small, raising the age to 21 to buy a gun and instituting a 3-day waiting period to purchase one but it’s the first crack in the refusal to come to any kind of bargain on the gun issue. acting to make certain that good would come out of this tragedy.
As the students prepare for the march on Washington this Saturday the leaders are receiving death threats. let’s tell them what a song from my women’s spirituality retreat describes – “We wrap you round with infinite love and wisdom.” These courageous young people need our protection and support and our willingness to follow them where they are leading us.
