Students, among other supporters, will march all across the country on March 24.
The Valentine Massacre – Why This School Shooting Is Different
By A. Kay Oxendine
The seventh generation has been awakened.
Through tragedy comes promise. The Valentine Massacre that happened in a small community was felt across Turtle Island with a thud. Violence is not new to our Native communities — but this movement needs all of us to makes sure these stories end with this generation.
Through our leaders’ lack of security or answers, the young people that were witnesses and survivors to the carnage began their outcry to stop such violence.
Considering the families of the deceased and those affected by the incident, the students of Stoneman Douglas High School organized The March of Our Lives, which is scheduled for March 24 in Washington, D.C.
Because of the attention this march has gained, there will also be satellite marches held in other major cities that day, including Chicago, IL, Raleigh, NC and London, UK.
Our Native Youth should be visible during this march.
Broken Hearts
On Valentine’s Day of this year, Nicholas Cruz awoke with the idea of murder and complete carnage dancing in his head. When asked if he was ready to go to school that day, he told his friend’s parents, “It’s Valentine’s Day. I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day.”
And with that, this young man called an Uber driver, and was delivered to the same school where he had been expelled the year before.
Without notice, Cruz walked into a specific building, one that he knew well, and pulled the fire alarm. Once the students came out of their classrooms, he opened fire with his assault weapon, an AR-15, spraying bullets on his own peers and former teachers. He smashed windows and showered three classroom with gunfire, without ceasing. To be sure he had created total devastation, he walked back and continued to spray these particular classrooms with gunfire.
The children of Stoneman Douglas, the school that was voted the safest school in Broward County before this happened, witnessed their lives, as they changed forever.
The students that were able to escape, did. They ran as instructed, toward a safe zone at the local Walmart. Cruz apparently saw this and attempted to knock out a window, with the intention of shooting the students as they ran, similar to the Las Vegas tragedy. The window did not break, however, because it was built as a “hurricane” window, due to Florida building code.
The gunman then ran down the stairs, and blended in with the scurry of students running away for safety, and carried on his day as if nothing had happened. He ventured over to Walmart, got a drink from Subway, and then walked over to McDonald’s, where he sat for about 30 minutes. He then casually got up and just walked down the streets of Parkland, as if nothing had happened.
Almost two hours after the shooting, he was arrested without incident.
But during those two hours, the school did not know who he was or what had just happened. The children, our children, crouched under teachers’ desks, in closets, screaming out in fear as to what in the world was going on. They were not allowed to move or get up, because the police, who arrived swiftly, did not know if a live shooter was still on campus.
Initial reports came out that 14 people had been shot, and that there were fatalities, but they didn’t know details. Not until after the smoke cleared and the students were rescued by SWAT, did the truth come out.
There were 17 dead, and several were fighting for their lives at the hospital.
There were 14 children, a security guard, a geography teacher and the Athletic Director among the dead. Evil had entered their school, and the community, as well as the entire world, was in absolute shock.
How could this happen? Again? What triggered this killer, who many of the students knew? How could the world not protect them?
Revolutionary Tweet
While suffering in the aftermath of the tragedy, a tweet came across the internet that changed students’ emotions from sadness to anger. It later would be known as the tweet that started a revolution.
Our 45th President, Donald J. Trump, tweeted the following:
“My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.”
In times of strife in the United States, we have always looked to our leader for words of comfort and to tell us that everything is going to be alright. But to state the obvious, without offering a solution, this only angered the almost 3,200 student population.
It wasn’t immediate. At first, their shock of the gunman, turned to the shock of leadership. The students, these young adults, wondered how their leadership could be so naïve as to not know how this happened. Where was their leader’s outrage? Where was their protection?
In the following days, the world watched the anger grow, until it became a movement.
The students refused to be added to this new group of victims. They refused to allow their classmates’ and teachers’ deaths to be in vain.
They watched as their leaders blamed mental illness. They listened as grown men blamed the FBI. They discovered that several reports had been made to law enforcement about this young man, but they all knew he was touched, so that was not news to them. They observed as the NRA had apparently been very generous in its contributions to many, many politicians.
Their light bulbs went off, and they had their “a-ha” moment.
The students began to realize that many of these politicians could not stop this violence because they were bought by a gun company. These politicians could not speak against the weapon, because that weapon had earned many of them millions.
That’s when the fury took over the anger.
Voice of Youth
Students of Stoneman Douglas High School of Parkland, FL, made a decision that they would do their best to be the last school massacre. They held a rally on Saturday, February 17, where they began chanting, “I call BS!” They were angry that the president of the United States came to their area, but did not visit the slain children’s parents. They refused to meet with him for a “photo-op.”
The president did not try to change their minds. He instead retreated to his million-dollar home, only 40 minutes away, where he spent the weekend laughing with friends, and tweeting. In his tweets, he blamed everyone else for everything that had ever gone wrong.
The youths watched, disgusted by this.
After realizing that the world’s strongest leader was not going to help this situation, the students decided to organize a march in Washington, D.C., after the burial of their friends and family.
To be sure that the world knew they were serious, several buses took the Stoneman Douglas High School survivors to the capitol of Florida on the day before the remaining funerals, Tuesday, February 20. The students stayed overnight, and they confronted their legislators the next day. One by one, they stepped up to the microphone to share their stories and demand action.
A town hall meeting was broadcast on February 21 on CNN, where several politicians and the NRA were invited. Earlier that day, President Trump held a listening session in Washington to honor the Stoneman Douglas Students and let them know he heard them. He even wrote that exact phrase “I hear you” on a piece of paper to remind himself to say those words.
A message to our Native youth: This is your time to march. March for school safety. March for our missing and murdered women. March for our broken treaties. March for the injustices that have befallen our communities. March in Washington or in another satellite city.
The world is watching — it is time to join the students from the Valentine Massacre to make sure these atrocities end with this generation.
It just takes one spark to start a wildfire. May this fire burn until change comes.
To find our more information concerning March for Our Lives, go https://www.facebook.com/marchforourlives/.
