“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through.”
-David Bowie
May, 1999. 8:30 a.m.
What a time to be alive. America was at peacetime, the internet had just become a viable hangout spot, and almost any radio in existence at the time blared “Backstreet’s Back, alright”, as if to imply an alternate universe where boy bands weren’t everywhere. Back then, this kid’s only priorities were schoolwork, a clean room, and an impending eleventh birthday.
Not that any of these things were of much concern on this morning, though. The air was tense, freighted by question marks. You can tell a lot about a situation by the volume of a school bus full of fourth graders. What on any other day would be a furious exchange of words was on this day a low murmur as our bus drove us in the opposite direction of our school.
We were one month from advancing to the fifth grade, and yet only weeks removed from the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. I imagine this to be why many sat on this bus ride silent, having no language to express the general sense of confusion we all felt on this day, a day in which we would learn that a bomb scare had been called into our elementary school.
19 years later, I stand reminded of the words of French critic Jean-Alphonse Baptiste Barr: “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”, which loosely translates to, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Though a recovering cynic, I couldn’t help but feel this upon hearing of the news of the shootings at Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida just a few months ago. Yet, with as many school shootings as have happened of late, this one was particularly striking, not only because of the shooting, but because of the students who stepped up and spoke out in response.
First, I must voice my great admiration for these kids who have leveraged every opportunity afforded them. They have been bold. They have been strong. They have given me great hope for the next group of young thought leaders in America. In acknowledgement that the “right time” would never come, they used their voices, and everyone took notice. And eleven-year-old me couldn’t have appreciated it more.
That said, I’ve found myself a mess of contrary emotions here in these subsequent weeks. Pride, in the students for speaking out, and yet guilt in that now, at almost 30 years old, I was the adult these kids demanded answers from.
It’s true, the response to Parkland has highlighted a great disparity between youth and adults. Now, there have been many like me who are 100% on the side of these kids who are completely justified in their frustrations. However, there are some adults, many well older than me, who have taken a difference stance. Take for instance, 70’s rocker Ted Nugent, who recently referred to the survivors as “soulless.” Or Frank Stallone, who also recently went on a Twitter tirade against one of them, an act even more sobering in the age of cyberbullying.
This is, however, not unlike the late journalist Andy Rooney, who oft used his time on 60 Minutes in the 90’s to find new literary ways to tell kids to get off his proverbial lawn. And as always, the spin cycle was on heavy over at the NRA, who seem to perpetually make it their primary mission to preserve the sanctity of a Second Amendment that was ironically enacted for the purposes of human protection.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Oh, what dark inheritance, when the kids who once fought for a voice are now the adults who won’t listen. What tragedy when the cries of children who watched their friends text their parents goodbye become nothing more than bullets in a partisan gun battle on Capitol Hill. However you slice it, it is clear that over time, we have cultivated an environment here in America where the pained opine of the young is invalidated and the words of the old are celebrated and revered without question, as if our Founding Fathers came out of the womb in their 30’s.
Perhaps it is not guns we have made more important than the children, but rather our feelings, as though opinions belonged solely to those of taxpaying age. Regardless, no amount of malcontent can silence the obvious. There is revolution afoot, and it lives inside this next generation. And we adults would be wise to come alongside them, listen to their concerns and tell them of our failures as well as our conquests.
After all, it is not irrational, at least not to this writer, to think that school shootings happen because properly allocated attention does not.
