In a little over six minutes, 17 of our friends were taken from us. Fifteen were injured. And everyone - absolutely everyone - in the Douglas Community was forever altered.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the profound impact of a tragic event on a community and its individuals.
Emma Gonzalez's quote conveys the devastating effects of gun violence on a community, highlighting how a single moment can irrevocably alter the lives of many. Through expressing the loss of friends and the trauma experienced by survivors, she emphasizes that such tragedies create lasting scars that affect not only the victims but the entire community.
In practice
During a speech at a memorial service, I reflected on how our community will heal and change after this horrible event.
What matters is that the majority of American people have become complacent in a senseless injustice that occurs all around them. What matters is that most American politicians have become more easily swayed by money than by the people who voted them into office.
Mental illness and gun violence are not directly correlated, but when the two go hand in hand, Americans - often children - lose their lives.
If I'm able to communicate one thing to adults, it would be this: it should not be easier to purchase a gun than it is to obtain a driver's license, and military-grade weapons should not be accessible in civilian settings.
Get out and vote. If you can't vote, then register other people to vote. Get people to the polls; make sure that people who need to vote can vote.
You might not be a big fan of politics, but you can still participate. All you need to do is vote for people you believe will work on these issues, and if they don't work the way they should, then it is your responsibility to call them, organize a town hall, and demand that they show up - hold them accountable.
If you want to help arm the schools, arm them with school supplies, books, therapists - things they actually need and can make use of.
Conversations create change. It's easy to call someone 'enemy,' but there's more to it, right?
You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.
Perhaps if we could popularise through the techniques of branding and consumerism, a different idea, a different narrative, perhaps the world can change. After all it changes constantly and incessantly, it's just the perceptions that we have are governed by people with self-interest and are not inalignment with the health and safety of us as individuals or as a planet.
The only fight worth fighting is to give all children equal opportunities regardless of race or gender, to judge individuals on their qualities and not their backgrounds. The victory won't come when nobody feels able to voice racist abuse, but when nobody thinks of doing so in the first place.
The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the beginning.
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters β whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
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