By: Marcia King-Gamble
www.lovemarcia.com
On February 14,
2018, when a troubled, former student,
opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing 17 people, and injuring 17 in
Parkland, my life, like so many others,
was irrevocably changed. I live
in a town just a sneeze away from Parkland, and the Stoneman Douglas High
School massacres affected me in a very personal way.
No, I did not have kids attending the high school where the
shootings took place. In fact, the closest to knowing any of the affected kids,
is my friend’s, daughter’s boyfriend, who told
a harrowing account of spending 3 hours in a closet, praying for his
life.
For days after that event, people were in such shock, they
remained frozen in their homes. Local
establishments had a downturn in business, as strangers mourned the loss of innocent
lives, and neighbors feared for their safety. It took months for some sense of
normalcy to return to our area. Life as we knew it was forever changed, and we no
longer took our safety for granted.
For those readers who know little about Parkland, it’s an
affluent city in Broward County, Florida, and the last place anyone would have expected
something like this to happen. The median
income in 2016 was $131,340, and median home prices were close to $600, 000. The community is primarily residential and
labeled suburban living at it best with vast expanses of greenery. Every first
and third Sunday during the winter season (yes Florida has winters,) people come
from all over to buy fresh, organic products and flowers at the popular Farmers
Market.
But back to the superhero theme that is this month’s topic.
Some good did come out of this devastating tragedy. Out of the ashes came the
Never Again Movement. The organization is best
known by the Twitter hashtags #NeverAgain, and #EnoughIsEnough. It was the brainchild
of twenty students surviving the Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School, massacre. They’d decided enough was enough.
These are my superheroes. The folks I celebrate in this month’s blog.
This
initially grassroots operation, staged
protests demanding legislative action be taken to prevent similar shootings in
the future. These young voices vocally condemned U.S. lawmakers who received political contributions
from the National Rifle Association (NRA,) and won a stunning victory
against the NRA in the Florida legislature when both houses voted for various gun control measures. As a result, the law increased funding for school security and raised the
required age to buy a gun from 18 to 21
Kudos to prominent members like Alfonso Calderon, Sarah Chadwick, Jaclyn Corin, Ryan Deitsch, Emma González, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky,
and Alex Wind.
You are my superheroes! You made it happen!
Flash forward almost two years later, while the group hasn’t been
able to stop mass shootings. (There have been more than 300 since
then, leaving more than 300 people dead, and more than 1,300 wounded.)
That doesn’t mean they’ve failed. The important thing
is they took a stand. They made news and they did
not back down!
Because these students spoke up and marched, the old guard
was shaken up. Small as progress may seem, they made a difference. They proved that raising your voice forces you to be heard.
These are the qualities that make them superheroes in my
book, especially in a world that labels today’s youth as the “Me Generation.”
About
Marcia King-Gamble
Romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble
originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the
same mesmerizing shade of blue. This travel industry executive and current
world traveler has spent most of life in the United States. A National
Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. Her free
time is spent at the gym, traveling to exotic locales, and caring for her
animal family.
Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com
or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS
Be sure to join her mailing list.
5 comments:
Oh Marcia, I'm so grateful you wrote this post! These young people certainly are Super Heroes and Heroines. Their voices have been heard well-beyond Florida's state boundaries. It seems a life-time ago that I turned on the news to learn of the Parkland Massacre...two years? And over 300 mass shootings since then? The movements #enoughisenough and #neveragain are still alive and well and making a difference. Not as much or as rapidly as I'd like but it is progress.
Thank you, Judith! So proud of our young activist who spearheaded this movement and would not allow themselves to be silenced!
Awesome post, Marcia! I've admired these brave young people from afar.They had the courage to refuse to be silenced. They pushed for change and achieved it. True Superheroes!
Thanks Sarah. I totally agree. Those voices made the world sit up and listen.
The continued shootings across this country are a reflection of how we've prioritized individual gun rights over the public good. I am glad it was the students who spoke up, because they were the ones impacted. Like all children, they weren't held back by the adults who always think things like: there's nothing we can do, it's always been this way, we have no power, we just have to live with it, or the it will never happen in my backyard.
Young people haven't had the time in their life to experience so much defeat, so they move ahead anyway. It is these students who are heroes as are the students standing up for climate change and the students standing up for diversity in schools and towns.
Now if the adults would all take notice and recognize not only the young people but try seeing a new perspective on all these issues and actually pushing for change too. Young people give me hope for the future. Let's hope we all take notice and vote for that future too.
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