Here’s what I learned at school last week: How to walk down Market Street, block traffic, make a statement, and be surrounded by people I love and support.
The day after the election was quite emotional. Every class I had ended up into a big discussion about how we felt, why he won, and what we want to do to help. By he, I mean the infamous Donald Trump, who is currently our president elect. It is scary. It is very scary to live in a country that will be under Republican rule. It’s especially scary to realize how far we’ve come as a country, and how much this will set us back.
I am so incredibly lucky to live in such an amazing place. We live in one of the most liberal areas in the world — and everyone here is upset, confused and scared. But we live in a place that will always continue to fight and stand together.
That’s one of the reasons I decided to walk out of school Thursday. I was not alone – at least 3,000 high school kids left classes and took to the streets. Like many of them, I was feeling upset and irritated and I just wanted to be in a big group of people going through the same things I am. We wanted to shout out our frustrations. I don’t think shouting in the streets will make Donald Trump become an educated, kind person, but it was amazing to combine our voices and share our opinions.
My swim coach came up to me after school and asked my friends and I why we cared so much, because Trump is not going to have a super huge impact on us –we’re young, and young teenagers aren’t supposed to care. But I do care. We all care.
We don’t want to live in a world that will die in 30 years. We don’t want to live in a world where people of color get oppressed and shot down (literally). We don’t want to live in a world where we’re going to pay off debt our entire lives. We don’t want to live in a world where our friends and family get split up and taken away. We are scared. We are confused. We feel a bit hopeless.
No one wants to listen to us, no one takes us seriously. We got so many glares walking down the street. There were a lot of annoyed adults who thought they were better than us. There were very few adults with us in the street.
But that’s what made it so amazing. Kids that don’t even know each other were laughing and screaming and being together.
Some people thought it was stupid to protest. But we were not just protesting. We live in a society where we never get to share our opinions and we wanted to let the world know that we are upset. We just wanted to let everything go, and show how united and strong we are.
We really are stronger together. Teenagers are this county’s future. Trust me, we care.
Vivian Redmond is a first-year student at Gateway High
