Northwest Indiana students: Florida activism was a ‘wake-up call’
March 10, 2018 by admin
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Following the latest mass shooting in Florida, several Northwest Indiana students are participating in school walkouts and protests for gun control.
Most said they were horrified to watch the latest school shooting in Parkland, Fla. There, they saw Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Sarah Chadwick and others use social media and television appearances to openly challenge politicians.
Seeing students their own age with a public platform was a “wakeup call” to find their own voice, many said.
Several are planning to participate in high school walkouts for 17 minutes on 10 a.m. Wednesday — a minute for each victim on the shooting’s one-month anniversary. Others will join protests on March 24 — including in East Chicago, Highland and Chicago — on the same day as the national “March for our Lives” organized by Parkland students in Washington, D.C.
Others will participate in protests on April 20 on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine shootings in Colorado.
The Post-Tribune spoke with high school students participating across Northwest Indiana about their own safety fears and hopes for their activism.
‘Paragraph typed’ for mom in case of shooting
Part of their desire to speak against automatic weapons lies in the fear a shooting could happen at their school, said Crown Point High School students Janiya Johnson, 15, Sophia Espinoza, 16, Katya Halstead, 15, and Sokna Kelly, 17.
Halstead said she was inspired by her father’s activism, which took her to multiple protests as a child. Others had also participated in protests, such as the Women’s March last year.
When you see “brutal gun violence that could have been prevented in so many ways,” said Crown Point sophomore Johnson, “it just makes you stop and ask how is this still happening?”
Right after the shooting, “I was paranoid to go to school. I was sad,” Johnson said.
A report released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded shootings killed or injured at least 19 U.S. children each day between 2002-2014, with boys, teenagers and blacks most at risk.
Congress has prohibited the CDC from using federal money to advocate or promote gun control. CDC spokeswoman Courtney Lenard said the congressional directive “does not prohibit CDC from conducting public health research into gun violence” and the agency continues to do so, according to the Associated Press.
Kelly, who said she had extensively researched gun violence as a public health issue, was disappointed she felt politicians were unable or unwilling to examine root causes of why mass shootings happen.
Their frequency in recent years was a missed opportunity, she said.
“I think it’s really sad. I already have my paragraph typed out to my mom in what I want to say” in case of a shooting, Kelly said.
Halstead said she hoped to hold a walkout to the football field on March 14. Crown Point Principal Chip Pettit said Friday plans were still under review.
“We are still working with our student leaders relative to any student protests. We intend to communicate with students and parents early next week,” Pettit said in an email.
‘What if it was me?’
East Chicago Central senior and class president Nia Hurt, 18, plans to speak during a Youth Speak Rally scheduled at Unity Plaza in East Chicago on March 24.
The rally will have several young speakers including Hurt. A planned march starts at 11 a.m. followed by a ‘Youth QA’ at noon at a Boys Girls Club, 2009 E. 138th St.
The Parkland shooting “became a big deal to our school … because I go there every day,” Hurt said. “What if that was me? What if it was our school? How would I feel if … my friends were the ones that got killed?”
“I think the older kids really understand,” Hurt said. “When it happened, it was talked about a lot.”
I was ‘not freaked out … and that’s what scared me’
“I think the scary thing is that I felt completely numb towards it,” said Valparaiso High School senior Ollie Grcich, 18. “I was so completely not freaked out in the worst way. And that’s what scared me.”
“I am a very sensitive person,” she said. “The fact that I felt so numb to it — there was another mass shooting in another school — that freaked me out.”
Seeing Parkland students — specifically Gonzalez, whose outspokenness has amassed 1.2 million followers on Twitter — was a spark to realize she could be even more vocal on social justice issues, Grcich said.
“It just kinda took my whole body by storm,” she said.
Students are planning a walkout at 10 a.m. Wednesday. In addition, Grcich is currently working to organize a protest on April 20 in Porter County with students from multiple high schools.
In a letter sent to parents, Valparaiso High School Principal Veronica Tobon said the school also was “offering an opportunity for interested students to attend a convocation” just before 8 a.m. Wednesday to memorialize victims of the Florida shooting.
“This event is optional, and students will be asked to express their intent to attend the event through a Google form survey on Monday morning,” she said. “The purpose of the survey is so that we can provide enough staff supervision to ensure the safety of our students. All students, regardless of participation in the event, will receive a handout of educational resources in their period two class.”
“When you walk out, you give up something,” Grcich said. “That’s kinda the point. Raise our voices against the laws that we have now.
“In the end, we are giving up something for a greater cause,” she said.
‘We all have this ability and I needed to take part in that’
Since the start of high school, Lake Central junior Gabriella Hay had an interest in gun issues. Seeing fellow high school students vividly on social media react to a terrible tragedy was eye-opening, she said.
“It was heartbreaking, following all of their posts, watching videos (of students) texting their parents,” Hay, 16, said. “That would be the last time they text their parents, that was really upsetting.”
Before the Parkland shooting, she had already been politically active, helping labor organizers during an internship and participating in multiple environmental and political protests.
She will be participating in the Lake Central’s walkout to a school parking lot set at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Principal Sean Begley sent a letter to parents Friday stating the school had swapped schedules for a study period to fall during that time with additional police there. Officers would shut down access to the lot.
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March 10, 2018 by admin
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