I had planned not to strictly sacrifice anything for Lent but to take up blogging each week. Aaand I didn't do it last week. I was on spring break, and - as my inability to easily return to classes has proven - I had what I am calling Spring Break Brain. It's a thing where I just can't even. Very specific diagnosis.
So, I didn't blog last week despite having a million topics in my mind, but you can catch up on the series by starting with my Ash Wednesday post.
Sometimes things are a bit more difficult and a bit more sensitive about which to talk and write and discuss. This week, the issue of gun violence is heavy on my heart.
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Six years ago, the shooting of Trayvon Martin shook up my world. I thought of how often I had walked around with my hoodie up and with candy and a bottle of sweet tea in my hand. Yet, I was never murdered as an innocent teenager. I had never before considered a life in which my country would allow the murders of people of color or mass murders in public locations, but that is what has followed.
Four years ago, the shooting of Michael Brown was literally close to home as it took place in Ferguson, MO which is exactly 152 miles from my hometown. I was nearby as the protests caused an uproar of activity over the injustice in the suburbs of St. Louis.
Two years ago, the shooting of Philando Castile was an astonishment when he was fatally shot during a traffic stop. I was pulled over for speeding this past weekend and released with only a written warning, yet he doesn't get to continue living because of bullet wounds.
On January 23, a student at Marshall County High School in Benton, KY killed two students and injured others when he brought a weapon to school. This incident that happened 55 miles from that same hometown which felt so close to Ferguson affected me, as I know some current and former students of the school. I was worried about them and their safety while grieving the losses of the families who did not have a child come home from school that day.
On February 14, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL murdered seventeen students. When I first heard the news, I was almost insensitive to the event because I was and am still dealing with the loss of lives at Marshall County. The survivors of Stoneman Douglas have worked together well to speak out against gun violence, and I continue to assert that wise teenagers who use their collective power well are my favorite.
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This has to stop. I dream of a day in which mass shootings and any form of violence against others are a moment of the past and not a frequent occurrence of which to become desensitized.
I don't have all of the answers. I barely have any answers. I know that guns can be used for good to provide for families and to be used for sport, but they have to stop being used for murder. I can't allow myself to be silent about it again as a position of privilege.
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Tomorrow, students are calling for a national school walk out at 10:00 a.m. local time.
Honestly, I wasn't going to participate when the initial news of the walk out was spread just days after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School. I don't have a class on Wednesday mornings, and that is typically time that I spend alone to recharge which would be especially useful in the week following spring break. It would be much easier to forget about it and stay in bed a few extra minutes. My sister, a freshman in high school, called me out on this laziness and lack of care.
Why would I stay in bed and not participate in a walk out?
Why wouldn't I take action against an issue that could just as easily affect my sister as gun violence has affected too many other families in the United States?
Why wouldn't I take action to stand for my former students who could end up as the next national news story?
Why wouldn't I take action on the campus where I am a graduate student in a theological school where I could be the next victim?
Why wouldn't I?
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Tomorrow, I will be part of Enough: National School Walk Out at Drew University in Madison, NJ. I am proud to be part of the Theological Student Association which has partnered with the undergraduate College of Liberal Arts to host the event. I am proud to be part of a seminary institution in which the deans have given their full support of this activism. I am now proud to take part in this event, and I ask:
Why wouldn't you?
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