Truly, I don't. I'd rather discuss just about anything else, even the pettiest points of small talk or the most insufferably boring mechanics of how plastics get made. "Politics" raises my heart rate immediately. I had to cut off "political conversations" with my dad entirely several years ago as by the end of each of them, one or both of us would be in tears. I couldn't watch the debate on Monday, knowing the kind of vitriol and disinformation that would be spewed live to over 50 million potential voters.
I don't want my platforms to be a place where my community has to engage with all the negativity and pushback against our government's worst offenders. I don't want to be asked about my opinion nor judged for the beliefs I do choose to share. I don't want to debate. I don't want to "get political" in any way.
And of course, I have a choice. I don't have to make anything about my life or work political. If I really didn't want to engage, I'm in a relatively fortunate enough position to see my way out. I could keep my head down and ignore it all like so much of our population does - or at least like I'm lead to believe, as over 80 million registered voters did not cast a ballot in the 2020 election. I could be one of them this year.
But I'm a woman, and a teacher, who cares deeply about other women, other teachers, our students and their diverse needs. I care enough to never, ever make the choice of complacency.
I don't want to get political, but gun control has been a major debate on the political stage for decades. School shootings break the news almost weekly at this point, with 28 events having occurred in 2024, two of them just days apart last week. One of them less than 50 miles from the district I work in. Much more frequently, these acts of terror spark threats and rumors and jokes spread around on social media, which leads to community fear and outcry. There is a correlation here, and there is something that can easily be done to stop it, if only so many of our citizens weren't more concerned about the safety of their weaponry than the safety of their and their loved ones' children.
I've noticed two attitudes from the teenagers I work with, after monthly lockdown drills, numerous non-drill "shelter in place" calls each year, and endless reminders of our country's frequent mass shootings: either they stay home every time there's even a community announcement of a potential threat for fear of their safety, or worse...complete apathy and indifference.
This is their normal, now. They expect it will happen to them one of these days. How fucking sad is that?
And as a teacher, this is our normal, too. Every teacher you know has kept themselves up at night thinking through their classroom setup - where the kids will go, where the blind spots are, where the light comes in, and what could feasibly be pushed up against the door if need be. What could we use in self-defense? Where will we relieve ourselves if we're stuck in the room for six hours? How will we keep thirty kids quiet for that long? Every single teacher you know has thought through every morbid detail of a plan.
Every single last one of us.
So when I hear politicians like J.D. Vance say that school shootings are "a fact of life," I ask, "where else but in this country?" Since 1999, Mexico has had eight. Canada has had two. The United States has had over 400. It simply does not happen in other countries as it does here. And again, there is something that could easily be done about it.
But suddenly, this isn't a political issue. Tim Burchett said last year that "we're not gonna fix it." Trump said last week that "we have to get over it." Most Republican politicians still push the narrative that enforcing stricter gun laws means that the left will literally take away your personal property, even though there is not a single person in power who has ever seriously suggested this, nor could it feasibly be carried out. Most Republicans are more afraid of "porn in the libraries" and indoctrination from teachers than they are of their kids getting killed in the place they go to learn and socialize. And I'm not trying to generalize - I know not everyone thinks this way - it's just hard not to mention the fears of the right when one of my colleagues got an email earlier this week asking about her plan to "keep porn away from [their] daughter."
I don't want to get political, but guns are the leading cause of death for children in this country. That is, of course, children who have been born and exist outside of a womb. The same politicians who don't want to make guns political have a certain obsession with making wombs very, very political, which I find ironic and fervently hypocritical. The sanctity of life inside of a woman's body is of utmost importance. So much so, in fact, that they would sooner have the woman risk her own life to maybe, hopefully save the life of her fetus. Afterward, though? If the child dies at school or in a gun fight, it doesn't matter so much anymore.
If the child is poor? Well, the parents shouldn't have had a kid.
If the child was the product of rape? Well, the mother probably brought it upon herself.
If her birth control failed? Her fault.
If the child is seeking asylum in this country? They'll be profiled and looked down upon to the point where our former president can convince his worshippers that the child will grow up to sell drugs and eat innocent people's dogs. I can't believe I just typed those words, being neither a joke nor an exaggeration.
There's nothing any politician can do about it, supposedly. This is just the way things are. And in a way, sure - this is the current reality of our political landscape. But to believe that there's no changing it is maddeningly defeatist. Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, enacted an Arms Amendment Bill that made ownership of semi-automatic and assault rifles illegal after a major terrorist attack on a mosque in 2019. The bill was passed less than a month after the event. Before that, both the party dynamics and the gun control debates of the country largely mimicked ours. There is no excusable reason why this can't be done here, too.
There is equally no reason why anyone, regardless of political affiliation, should consider the amount of violence and weaponry obsession we have in this country as normal.
If you've gotten this far and assume I'm just another leftist urging you to vote for Kamala as the lesser of two evils, please allow me to introduce some nuance into this conversation. She is just as guilty in the complacency of America's gun/weaponry/military problem. Just weeks ago she ensured that should she be elected as our new president later this year, "the country [will always have] the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world." Though this was aimed more toward potential threats from other countries, it still raises a major red flag. It blatantly showcases our lust for violence on all sides.
What if I don't want "lethal" to be our legacy? Why do we want the connotation of our country to be one of "death" and "killing?"
What if, instead, we strived to be the harbinger of peace on this world? We certainly have the means to lead by example. We certainly have the funding and the support. What if, instead of being lethal, we were generous? Not with our weapons - which have killed ten times more children in Palestine in the past year, mind you, than all of our school shootings since 1999 - but with medical aid, food, hospitality and asylum? Why spend $842 billion dollars in one year producing weapons that destroy populations and flatten cities overseas when we could provide healthcare, food and housing to our own citizens?
We certainly have the means.
I believe that the educators who really value their work are doing what they can to provide the care we aren't seeing beyond those walls. Even in districts as affluent as mine, kids come to us needing guidance, support, and sometimes even basic necessities. Most educators I know keep snacks, toiletries, supplies and first-aid on them if they can afford it. Most of us do pay for it all ourselves out of love for the kids we teach (and often the ones we don't, but come by our rooms anyway). This pattern alone shows me that we know how to model care for others on a larger scale. Adults show it to the youth, and hopefully the youth grows up remembering it and paying it forward.
While the hope persists, it takes more than that to calm the nerves of educators and students alike who live with the prevalence of gun violence every day. Every time it happens to a school, it ripples out to us all. With the event in Maryland last week being so close to my district, rumbles of threats and hearsay echoed into many nearby counties, causing some to cancel school for the day altogether. There was increased security in nearly every school for the counties that stayed open. What are we supposed to do with that knowing? Proceed as per usual? How can we expect our educators to do their jobs well when we're constantly waiting for the call to lock down? How can we expect students to perform at their best when every time I check to make sure my door is locked, they all look at me with fear in their eyes?
A fellow educator asked me to write this week about how to stay sane within this reality. I really don't have an answer, other than to hold on to hope. In the meantime, make sure you have a plan. Make sure you take care of yourself - run off the energy of the day in a hot shower, journal about the grievances, find a supportive group who gets it. But that's all I can offer. This reality simply isn't sane, and until real changes happen at the federal level, it will continue to descend into chaos and terror.
I don't want to get political, but I do want more people to understand the stakes of this election and the current political system we have. I want people to know what atrocities fund our privileges. I want people to consider what's on the line for the women and children and queer folk and people of color in their lives. I want people to believe that change can happen. I want people to think beyond what the news and social media feeds them.
I want us all to give a shit.
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