WALKING OUT MAKES A STATEMENT; STAYING OUT MAKES CHANGE
I’ve experienced four threats and two lockdowns at my high school in four years.
Others across the nation — whether in Aztec, N.M., or Parkland, Fla. — have sparked a plan to instigate change, encouraging a national walkout for 17 minutes Wednesday.
But to me, a walkout will not make a lasting, significant difference. A walkout makes a bold statement, but what happens when you come back to class?
We just return a little bit more angry, a little bit more upset and a little bit more annoyed. But, we still return. We still takes notes in Mr. John Doe’s history class, and we still prepare to take that test on American history on Thursday. We still hustle between hallways Friday, and the movement may be forgotten by Monday.
The point is, if we walk out for a chunk of the school day, we aren’t really putting anything on the line or pressuring school leaders to do anything. We aren’t proving we are serious, and something that could have been written in textbooks or as an amendment to the Constitution can easily be dismissed as another “millennial attempt” at civil disobedience, and we’ll be seen as “those teens with short attention spans.”
Good luck making a lasting statement if we don’t show we care about gun control more than a 4.0 GPA or the Burger King vouchers we get for perfect attendance. So what should we do? Sports teams should refuse to play, because schools generate revenue from every $4 Frito pie Jane sells at concessions. The district loses money if you abandon the bus to the track meet, and the NRA loses backing if we boycott its corporate partners.
We’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to civil protest, and we need to seize the peak of participation to make lasting effects. In the 1960s, people protested segregation by “walking out” for over a year. Segregated bus systems nearly ran out of business, and when a capitalist entity is faced with the potential loss of money, they respond. Bus systems were forced to desegregate, but I’m not sure that would have happened if the movement only lasted a month.
So, walk out with me. Walk out to show your solidarity with students across the nation, but do not stop there. Don’t just update your Facebook status or post “one like = one prayer #Pray ForParkland” on Instagram. Text, call, write and constantly pester senators and Congress members. Walk out and stay out, because safety means more than passing with an “A” or qualifying for state. Stay out of NRA-endorsed outlets, stay out of school, and stay out of the expectation this movement will somehow die out. Walking out makes a statement. Staying out will make change.