We’ve seen it all over the news for the past few weeks. Walk up or walk out? If you’re not sure what those are, here’s a little summary of both. The walk out is a peaceful protest and/ or walk out of school in memory of the lives lost due to gun violence in the US, specifically the seventeen in Stoneman Douglas High School a few weeks ago. The goal for the walk out is to raise awareness of the tragedies that guns have helped caused and try and stop those things from happening again.
The walk up is a way to make students and teachers feel like it is their fault when a gun related tragedy happens to turn focus away from the real problem. You could argue that the walk up is a good thing and teaches kids to be kind to one another no matter who they are. They want to end shootings just by being told to be nice. But there is no reason why you can’t just be a decent human being without being asked to. It should be a given that you shouldn’t bully or harass classmates to the point of breaking. But telling kids that it is their fault that these shootings happen because of their actions toward their peers is just cruel. It is not the student’s fault that their classmate killed people. The people to blame are the ones who sold a gun to a kid with a history of mental illness, the people who chose to not address his needs for proper mental health care, and the shooter themselves.
There is nothing wrong with young people trying to make a change in their country. They aren’t hurting anyone and they are showing the country that their voices can be heard. If I were in school on March 14, I would have walked out with the rest of the kids in heartbeat. I think it brings young people together for a common problem and they work together to end gun violence.
These kids are walking out and they are the ones making a real difference in this country.