This story is syndicated from the ODYSSEY Newsmagazine of Clarke Central High School in Athens, GA. The original story ran here.
Let’s start by addressing the obvious: we, the millions of students in American schools, are not safe.
This September’s shooting at Apalachee High School, 26 miles down the road from my school, Clarke Central High, proved that once again.
At least four died, at least nine others were injured, the remaining students pressing their heads to the walls, waiting for the yells to go away. Photos, in The New York Times and on CNN, of parents rushing to the school, anxious to protect their kids, when their guardians don’t know if they, themselves, are moving into danger. It’s the single deadliest school shooting in Georgia history, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith called the situation “pure evil” in his on-site press conference, and though I’m generally a believer in shades of gray, it’s hard to argue with his assessment: America is experiencing an epidemic of gun violence.
Only now, it’s spread to Athenians’ backyard.
And even still, the familiar phrase: “We’re lucky it wasn’t us.” It’s the “Great American Lie” we, those directly impacted, tell ourselves in lieu of a solution. Even after news of the shooting’s end hit the halls and classrooms of an on-edge CCHS, I saw more relief than worry, heard more jokes than reassurances – a giddy, guilty novelty in the air.
It’s disgusting.
Because what makes Apalachee different from Clarke Central, from Cedar Shoals, from any school in Georgia or beyond? Because for what other disease, what other epidemic would a string of events like these – from Columbine to Sandy Hook to Parkland to Uvalde to Apalachee and beyond – seem unrelated? Because why can’t we acknowledge the pattern?
And for us, the students? Spare a thought. I’m a CCHS senior, and I still can’t vote on this issue.
Because the vast majority of us can’t vote on the very issue that impacts us most, K-12 students have the least political say-so of any age group in the U.S. How can we expect pre-schoolers to stand up for themselves when they’re still learning to walk, or high schoolers to fight for our safety when we’re mandated to be in the very place we know is dangerous?
Because we can’t protect ourselves, we ask our guardians, our advocates, our leaders to do so. And, to a person, we’re being failed.
Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. As a coping mechanism, they’re one thing, but as a response, they’re pathetic. There can be 360 million minds thinking about ending gun violence, but it only takes one to pull the steel-gray trigger.
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock put it succinctly in his statement following the shooting: “We can’t pray only with our lips. We must pray by taking action.”
But for us, America’s students, the worst part is this: we have no guarantee any action will be taken. Shades of gray, I said earlier, but as I look to our leaders, the people who can enact change on behalf of us as students, I struggle to find evidence for dove-white hope.
I would say that we, as students, need something to change, and that’s true. But it’s been true since long before yesterday’s events, and frankly, it seems like it will hold true after.
And so, I won’t ask for the change I know we won’t receive in the halls of Congress or the halls of Apalachee. I say this bitterly: we students know there’s no point in hoping for what we won’t receive.
Lawmakers, leaders, anyone – for the sake of America’s future, please prove me wrong.
