Last night in a post about the various proposed student marches/walkouts, I stated:
"it's important to note that the [3/14] walkout doesn't appear to have started with the Stoneman Douglas students themselves, but the Women's March folks. Or perhaps it was suggested to them by some students, I don't really know."
Well, it sounds like there may have been a bit of message co-opting, well-intentioned though it may have been. Apparently there's a third date being touted for a different event: #MarchForOurLives, on March 24, nationally...and this one is officially endorsed/touted by the students themselves, which I think is critically important:
Not one more. We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a firing assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our schools are unsafe. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives.
March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now.
On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets of Washington, DC to demand that their lives and safety become a priority. The collective voices of the March For Our Lives movement will be heard.
School safety is not a political issue. There cannot be two sides to doing everything in our power to ensure the lives and futures of children who are at risk of dying when they should be learning, playing, and growing. The mission and focus of March For Our Lives is to demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be immediately brought before Congress to address these gun issues. No special interest group, no political agenda is more critical than timely passage of legislation to effectively address the gun violence issues that are rampant in our country.
Every kid in this country now goes to school wondering if this day might be their last. We live in fear.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Change is coming. And it starts now, inspired by and led by the kids who are our hope for the future. Their young voices will be heard.
Stand with us on March 24. Refuse to allow one more needless death.
MARCH FOR OUR LIVES!
Listen carefully to Stoneman Douglas student Cameron Kasky, especially one critical line I’ve highlighted below:
"My message for the people in office is: You're either with us or against us. We are losing our lives while the adults are playing around. And we have received endless support from your generation, and we thank everybody for that immensely, because...we really appreciate it...we don't need you. On March 24th, you are going to be seeing students in every major U.S. city marching, and we have our lives on the line here, and at the end of the day that is what's gonna be bringing us to victory, and to making some sort of right out of this tragedy. This is about us begging for our lives. This isn't about the GOP, this isn't about the Democrats. This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.
"We appreciate it...we don't need you."
I think Casky's point here is that the older generations are the ones who have put the children in danger in the first place, so it's a more than a bit presumptuous of us to try and take control of the movement which they're now building, even if it's to clean up the mess that we've made for them. We can help in various ways, of course, offering advice, suggestions (upon request), funding, infrastructure, legal assistance, etc, but ultimately, they have to be the ones in charge of it.
To be honest, Kasky's "we don't need you" statement reminds me a little bit (but only a little) of a scene from "Malcolm X":
As an aside, I should note, as Kevin Cassell explains here, that while this incident did happen pretty much as depicted in the film, it had a lot more impact on Malcolm X later in his life as well:
...Then a young firebrand, Malcolm X railed against all white people, including “white liberals” who sought to integrate themselves in the struggles of black people. Add white cream to black coffee, he analogized, and you weaken it. But as he grew older, and especially after his life-transforming trip to Mecca, Malcolm abandoned such separatist views. In a later chapter, he wrote: “I regret that I told her she could do ‘nothing.’ I wish now that I knew her name, or where I could telephone her, and tell her what I tell white people now when they present themselves as being sincere, and ask me, one way or another, the same thing that she asked.”
In any event, while I don't know what's going on with the 3/14 or 4/20 events, it's the one endorsed by the students themselves which I'll be promoting going forward:
UPDATE x2: OK, it looks like I was making something out of nothing; apparently all three events are happing and are supporting each other after all:
UPDATE: WOW. These kids aren’t fucking around:
EMMA GONZALEZ: Well what we have set up right now we have a website, March for Our Lives. We're going to be doing a march in March on Washington where we get students all over the country are going to be joining us. These kids are going to make this difference because the adults let us down. And at this point I don't even know if the adults in power who are funded by the NRA I don't even think we need them anymore because they're going to be gone by midterm election. There's-- there's barely any time for them to save their skins. And if they don't turn around right now and state their open support for this movement they're going to be left behind. Because you are either with us or against us at this point.
CAMERON KASKY: We are giving a lot of the politicians that we feel neglected by a clean slate because that's the past and we understand that. But from here on, we are creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA. It is a special interest group that has most certainly not our best interests in mind. And this cannot be the normal. This can be changed and it will be changed. And anybody who tells you that it can't, is buying into the facade of this being created by the people who have our blood on their hands.
NANCY CORDES: David, a lot of people saw the reporting that you did from inside the school while the shooting was taking place and I'm truly sorry that that all of you had to live through that. But I want to read to you what President Trump said last night. He said that it's actually the Democrats that have let you down because they didn't pass legislation when they controlled Congress. Does he have a point?
DAVID HOGG: President Trump you control the House of Representatives. You control the Senate and you control the executive. You haven't taken a single bill for mental health care or gun control and passed it. And that's pathetic. We've seen a government shutdown. We've seen tax reform but nothing to save our children's lives. Are you kidding me. You think now is the time to focus on the past and not the future to prevent the death of thousands of other children. You sicken me.