What does it mean to protest? Why is the March for our Lives gaining so much popularity? Is it rightfully deserved?

Donald J. Trump has been president for 15 months and in those 15 months, there has been an outpouring of protests ranging from March for Science to March For Our Lives. Adults, businesses, students, and others have been forced to move beyond their social media feeds and group chats and start following their complaints with sustainable action. For movements like #neveragain or #metoo, that means numbers of protesters have quickly hit the millions and celebrities like George Clooney and Steven Spielberg are throwing their money like it’s on fire. It needs to be seen as problematic that people like them only feel the need to donate when students that look like their children are at risk for being harmed.

Gun violence for an African American student and other students of color is different than for a white student. For POC, gun violence also means police violence. Gun violence is an abusive use of guns to target specific groups of people. “Our lives” matter is similar to saying “all lives matter,” it has the connotation that activism against gun violence takes one form of unity. Students can be united against gun violence, but this unity shouldn’t mean that only one type of legislation or policy change is being advocated for. Twenty-first-century activism can only be successful if it recognizes the white supremacy and privilege that current marches and walkouts are filled with.

“I don’t know why it’s gaining more popularity now, it could be because it’s mostly white students leading it, but I do think that any change right now is good change,” senior Sorcha Ashe said.

The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an African American teen, that happened in February in Sanford, Florida. The initial organizers of the activist movement are Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Black Lives Matter has never had the scale of support, praise, and positive media coverage that the March for our Lives attained in a matter of days. This is not the first time that students have pushed policymakers to pass new legislation and change the way that schools look at anti-gun violence measures, it’s just the first time that all white students have. There is some diversity in who is participating in the March for our Lives movement, but they are mostly token black stuents so that the movement can pass as being representative of all people. There have been students like Naomi Wadler, an 11 year old student at George Mason Elementary, who spoke at the March for our Lives rally in Washington DC about the impact that gun violence can have on African-American girls. One or two African American students in a group of ten speakers is still not enough of representation considering the high number of African-American teens that are shot each year.

Not all of the March for our Lives protests happening around the country are the same. There are some students, like in Minnesota, that are trying to have people of color be in leadership positions. But the movement has become a white student movement and organizers who are trying to approach it differently should let that be publicly known. There should be no shame in denouncing a movement that has thrived on purposefully ignored marginalized groups from the moment it was established. Large-scale celebrity movements like this demand that people use their voice when their moral conscious tells them that there are inherent problems.

“I think engaging people more than once is important because we are often able to forget if it’s not our lives at stake then it shows that we are truly committed to this movement,” senior Sylvie Schifsky said.

An article by Jamila Mitchell published on the Black Youth Project described what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas as the celebrated protestors gained popularity. Black students at MSD held their own press conference and voiced their concerns. The social aftermath of the MSD shooting is the most recent instance of a prevailing trend of white activists only noticing or caring about a mass shooting when it affects a part of their identity. This is a privilege that white students have. Black students don’t get to choose when and if they want to protest because gun violence has been a concern for them long before the 21st century.