The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
March a start in closing gap between the privileged and the underprivileged
CHICAGO — The crowd at the March for Our Lives in Chicago was overwhelmingly white.
But the message was not. The privileged kids would not allow it.
It could have been a day devoted entirely to remembering the 17 people slaughtered with a semi-automatic rifle at a high school in Parkland, Fla., last month. But the privileged kids in Chicago knew that would not have been enough.
Saturday could have been a day to rally the nation around the single issue of school shootings — a phenomenon that thus far has primarily targeted white students. But the predominantly white student organizers in Chicago would not let it stop there.
A stream of privileged teenagers from the city and suburbs could have taken to the stage to demand that such a school massacre never be allowed to happen again. But the privileged kids knew that the underprivileged kids also needed to be heard.
The day could have been devoted to simply bashing the National Rifle Association for its uncompromising stance on guns. But the privileged kids knew it would not put an end to the shootings - certainly not all of them.
While planning the Chicago march, the privileged students came to realize that a “March for Our Lives” could not only be about keeping children safe at school.
In a city where nearly 500 people have been shot this year, it had to also be about protecting kids who face violence every minute of the day.
We should take a moment to thank the privileged kids for understanding that and for yielding part of their platform.
The local organizing committee was made up almost entirely of white students from Chicago and nearby suburbs. It’s not that black kids weren’t interested in standing up against the handgun violence that disproportionately affects their communities. It’s that they have gotten so accustomed to being ignored.
Black and Hispanic youths have been speaking out against gun violence for years. They have marched in streets and lobbied in Springfield, but never drew a crowd.
Their voices have long been muted. But now that white kids were talking, the whole world seemed to be listening. Some young African-American youths felt dejected.
Lauren Flowers, an 18-year-old Oak Park and River Forest High School senior, wasn’t comfortable watching from the sidelines. So she joined the organizing committee, though late, and began working hard to make Chicago’s march more inclusive.
She was not alone in her commitment, though. Many of the young people on the organizing committee began to see the importance of broadening the mission, just as organizers were doing on the national level.
For Flowers, who has lost relatives and friends to gun violence, it felt personal. The biracial Oak Park resident was born to a white mother and an African-American father who grew up in Chicago public housing.
“At first, people weren’t really acknowledging how much people in the inner city are affected,” Flowers said in an interview prior to the march. “It’s frustrating when people from affluent communities don’t connect with poorer neighborhoods. It’s unrelatable for most people.”
But as the planning progressed, the emphasis changed. The group began reaching out to Black Lives Matter and community-based groups that focus on issues affecting black and Hispanic youths. And on Saturday, the effort paid off.
Though there were smaller numbers of blacks participating in the march, the rally held beforehand included a diverse range of speakers from across the city. At one point, the issue of urban violence seemed to drown out all the others.
But that seemed fitting for Chicago, where at least 87 people have been shot and killed this year, 33 of them ages 25 and younger.
On Saturday, I took the train to Union Park on the Near West Side. The crowds stood shoulder to shoulder, in lines that formed down the steep metal steps of the Green Line “L.”
Privileged young people had forced privileged adults to join an audience to hear from the underprivileged.
While gathered in this place, some for the first time heard the voices of young African-Americans and Hispanics screaming out. What to some always had seemed so distant now seemed more immediate and real.
It was the first time some privileged adults had ever heard young blacks and Hispanics tell their personal stories of losing friends, siblings and parents to Chicago’s gun violence. It was the first time some had heard the raw emotions spill out in poetry and music.
And the words of these underprivileged youths were powerful.
The privileged adults nodded in agreement and applauded when the underprivileged teens demanded more social services, mental health services and resources be designated to fight the violence on Chicago’s South and West sides.
But what will happen now?
We can’t say yet whether the young people’s decision to share their privileged platform will change the way privileged adults react to young African-Americans who are dying so frequently. But we do know this.
The young people have begun to listen to each other. That’s at least a start in closing the gap between the privileged and the underprivileged.