Aside from the deaths of 17 beloved individuals, the thing that has struck me the most profoundly following the most recent manifestation of madness in our culture, has been the poise and eloquence of the surviving students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Within just a few hours last Valentine’s Day, these students went from studying history to being a part of it. They have made this transition so quickly and seamlessly that they have revealed themselves to be the right-wing’s worst nightmare: an intelligent, informed, articulate, compassionate group of potential voters, capable of analyzing a situation to delineate truth from fiction and act on their conclusions to challenge a status quo which they have been told over and over cannot be changed.
Because of the involvement of students, it recalls a seminal book on education in this country, Lies My Teacher Told Me, by sociologist James W. Loewen. Written in 1995 and updated in 2007, it is a scathing critique of how American history was being presented and taught in America’s schools. But, based on the example of MSD students, it is clear that at least some of the changes Loewen identified as necessary to address the failures and deficiencies in our education system have occurred in some places. What I take from Loewen as one of the most important considerations is to realize that history is not just a set of facts someone has picked and presented. All too frequently, these “facts” are nothing more than convenient interpretations and half-truths which, through the power of repetition and appearance of authority, become accepted as “fact.” But history can also be shaped and reshaped based on the questions about it that are asked. The events of Valentine’s Day 2018 present the perfect opportunity to ask the questions which have either not been asked, or have not been answered in any meaningful, truthful sense.
There is no way I can properly present all the details of all the mass killings this country has endured to this point. Parkland was either the 18th or 19th such event in 2018, alone. Neither can I outline all the arguments used to justify the circumstances which allow these things to happen — overwhelmingly — in this country alone in the world. There is not the space, time, or patience, and most of you are more than familiar with these events, anyway. But the point I do want to make relates to the status of these events and the questions that must be asked to put them into perspective. Then, to be able to address the underlying conditions which allow them to occur over and over again in America.
What I see as the major challenge for MSD students and others as they go forward with their efforts to eliminate mass murder in our schools, is for them to recognize that these events do not happen in a vacuum. They are only a symptom of the larger problem faced by this country and our current policies and politics. They must reshape the history by asking the question, How is it that virtually no student’s or teacher’s life is worth as much as the ability of corporations to make a profit? The elucidation of the answer will echo through every other major issue which threatens our health and safety as a people, and probably our very existence as a species. The culture which allows the NRA to dictate what is and is not acceptable in the regulation of guns and ammunition, is the same culture that limits, or totally precludes, our abilities to effectively address a multitude of shared threats. We will not be able to effectively change the environment that fosters the gun culture unless we change the entire system which makes the common citizen, and common sense, prisoners of narrow, special interests.
I am optimistic that the students of MSD, as well as all the other anti-gun violence organizations are now at a point where they will not be “losing interest” (code for no longer being covered by the media) and disappearing from the national conversation. And I am also hopeful that the path to changing how guns and ammunition are controlled will transform the entire road map of how virtually everything in our society is impervious to changes for the common good of all, while maintaining the benefit or enrichment of a very few.
You change the world when you change your mind.
Cyndi Lauper — Raise You Up/Just Be