Shots Fired The Voices of Our Youth

march 14th

of 2018 is where my story begins

this was the day of the national student

school walkout where students from all

across the country

protested the ongoing gun violence that

occurs

every day in the united states

my fellow classmates and i walked out of

our classrooms and made calls to

representatives

these calls consisted of us stating our

name and the demands

that we would like to see taken to

mitigate the threat plaguing our

schools for a lot of individuals this is

just a very simple

service it’s a minor interruption in

your coursework

to create change but for me

it wasn’t so simple i like to think of

myself

as a really good student i had great

grades i was in a ton of clubs

and i was even on the student council

but it wasn’t until i was in a room with

my principal

signing a suspension paper that i began

to question who i was as a student

and whether or not i had rights in

school

now you see one of the representative

aides that i spoke with on the phone

called my school and said that i spoke

inappropriately which was enough of a

reason to get me suspended

and stripped of my position on student

council i was devastated

i remember going home crying because who

i was was a student

and to think about all of the effort

that i put into that school

to just get suspended and i never even

had a detention

prior to that

for a bit of context when i care deeply

about something

i might say a word or two that aren’t

the most appropriate

yes i said the f word

no the word was not filibuster or

finance fraud

but it was the f word the big one the

queen mother of dirty words the f

dash dash dash word

now i get it i could have said something

a little bit differently

but at the end of the day i didn’t and

because of who i am

i couldn’t just accept being suspended

over such a minor offense

especially considering two things the

first being if you’ve ever stepped foot

in a high school

you’ve heard worse things let’s just be

honest and the second reason is that we

use our anger and frustration to voice

our opinion over such needless death the

fact

that children are dying in hallways of

their schools

so we should be able to use these words

especially when we’re frustrated

and it’s really no surprise that

students live in fear

of being punished for speaking up about

their beliefs

whether it be students today or students

years ago we’ve constantly been having

to fight

a pretty good example of this is with

the court case tinker versus

des moines this court case goes all the

way back to february of 1969

and it consisted of students wearing

black armbands to signify an

end to the vietnam war and as you can

see

these individuals weren’t really

distracting it was just something that

they wore to sort of

signify an end to that war and the

principal

didn’t really view it that way the

principal said you all

should get suspended so they all got

suspended and these individuals were

questioning

why they got suspended they thought that

they had rights in school they thought

that they were able to speak their minds

freely

so their small court case eventually

made it all the way up to the supreme

court and the supreme court ruled on a

seven

to two decision on behalf of the

students

this was an amazing thing it set a

precedent for students rights it shows

that students have voices

that when you step on your school

grounds your rights don’t just dissipate

but rather you still have your voice

and these individuals set a precedent

for people like me today so fast forward

to

my uh situation i ended up calling the

american civil liberties union

and because like the students in tinker

versus des moines i felt that something

was very very off about my suspension

so i ended up meeting with a lot of

lawyers and these lawyers

sat me down and they asked me every

small detail what did your principal say

to you

how do they treat you when you’re in

that office what did you exactly say

and of course i answered all these

questions and then in a matter of hours

my local newspaper published some small

little thing about

my situation and i didn’t really think

much about it until i saw articles from

the la times

new york times huffington post and cnn

that i began to realize that it’s kind

of a big deal

and as all of you can kind of see this

flattering image of me will forever be

online

i was now part of this this narrative

this narrative consisted not just of

students like me

but of students all across the nation

you probably have heard of students like

david hogg

emma gonzalez cameron caskey and others

who all sort of led and created

something called a march for our lives

this march was to protest against this

ongoing gun violence

and these students eventually made it on

the cover of time magazine

and i really like the word enough

because

enough is enough one school shooting is

too much

i was inspired by these students which

allowed me to go out and want to

talk about gun violence and to call my

representatives and to walk out of my

classroom

and they created the march for our lives

so i always just wanted to participate

but it was really amazing and incredible

when the city organizers of the march

asked me to lead it so that’s what i did

it was an incredibly

amazing experience just looking out into

a sea of people

thousands of people and telling them my

story how i think that we can help

mitigate gun violence to the united

states

and the craziest part about all of this

is that

people were listening to me a high

schooler someone who had been suspended

so for the sake of this speech i just

put in a little

screenshot of it and as again all of you

can see

a flattering image of me yelling into a

microphone will also forever be

on the internet now

afterwards i had people walk up to me

they were asking me questions

how do you think that we could help

mitigate the problem some had me sign

stuff

which was kind of cool i guess and then

other people had a picture of me on

their

protest signs and some of the most

emotional experiences i’ve really ever

had

was when people were crying to me on my

shoulder about a person that they had

lost

to gun violence it was

it gave me a moment of clarity i should

say it gave me a moment of clarity

because i began to realize that

this whole movement consists of people

who support it

even though they don’t even really know

me they were asking me questions even

though this is the first time they had

even

heard about me now

it’s not just students like me like i

said it’s also

students from parkland and we as

individuals

continue to move forward so just because

i made

you know some national news and i helped

lead a march i still had to get that

suspension

off of my back and i had to get my

position on student council

back so i kept moving and pushing

forward after

i had served my suspension i went back

to school

i remember sitting in class one day when

i got called down to the office

so of course i’m nervous i’m walking

down i’m like which representative did i

call today

what word did i say and i ended up going

to the office and i said okay

what’s that what’s the deal and they

handed me a stack of envelopes so

i was very confused i put these in my

backpack and waited until i got home

and i got home and i opened these

envelopes and they were from people

all across the country people from new

york and

l.a and people who were telling me about

how much of a leader i am and how much

of an inspiration i was to them

so i have a couple of them and a couple

lines that i really like a law office

from los angeles said

you’re the kind of leader that we need

right now while you’re on your

suspension

get yourself something nice at starbucks

and then they threw in a gift card

that coffee was really good

and then another individual said

um they wrote my representative a letter

and then sent that letter to me so they

said

i was disturbed to read in the news

about you getting a student suspended

because you did not like what he said

you are a representative in a state

where the worst mass shooting occurred

58 people dead and 500 injured

i have given my information below in

case you want to get me suspended too

these letters gave me hope and i ended

up calling these individuals and

asking them why did you send me a letter

you don’t even know who i am you don’t

know who

i am as a person or anything you just

read some news article

and they told me well in the midst of

all the hate that you’ve been getting

it’s sometimes nice just to go grab a

drink at starbucks and relax

and i agree with that and i was truly

thinking about that because

while people may have read an article

about me in the news they didn’t

understand the

massive amount of hate that i was

getting in my dms and my private

messages

things like that people were calling me

ugly people were calling me

unintelligent

they said i looked like i had a mental

illness people were telling me

and sending me pictures of their

firearms asking if i was scared of them

and this isn’t just a singular incident

this was people

repeatedly doing this and different

people people that were young

that weren’t even of the age of 18

showing me pictures of guns that they

had and

people who were even in their 40s asking

and telling me

if we wanted to meet up so we could

square up so i was really confused

as to all this and it really beat me

down a lot i remember going home

just like i hate all of this hate that

i’ve been getting

but getting letters like this inspired

me it pushed me to move forward

but it wasn’t just letters like this it

was emails that were given to my school

so the huffington post

later released another article about all

of the emails that people had sent

to the school so i put a couple of them

in here

right now because that’s not working

i’ll just read off the screen

the first amendment allows anyone to

exercise it a public official

withers a word spoken by a student to a

staff member and i like this word

how quaint i thought that was kind of

professional

and then this individual a professor

said

why don’t you care it is rather clear

where the leadership resides in your

district

among the students themselves mr

christensen’s application to columbia

university more or less writes itself

and i wanted to include this one because

i truly feel that someone in the

education system standing up for me

is truly incredible it was someone who

engages with students on a day-to-day

basis someone

that wants to talk about the issue of

gun violence and who’s willing to write

an email to a school

and this person i also really like they

said

i ask you i ask that you imagine

yourself in the shoes of a parent

who lost a child to gun violence at the

school in parkland florida

if we do not allow our young people to

take a stain for the things that they

believe that

believe in that most people believe in

then what are we teaching them

we are teaching them that their voice

doesn’t matter so

these are just a couple of the dozens of

emails that people

sent to the school and these gave me

hope

it allowed me to keep moving forward it

pushed me to

want to be a better advocate because

people who didn’t even know me

were standing up for me

which is truly incredible eventually

the school published a letter that you

can find online that says mr

christensen’s

suspension has been overturned and he

gets his position back on student

council i was like

this is amazing i got it back this is

all that i wanted

it was something that that i was working

so hard to get

it was it was incredible having that

feeling but people would ask me

what now like you got it back like

you got your position back you you know

your suspension’s off your record what

are you going to do and i i paused

because i was really thinking about this

and

i realized that this wasn’t just a

one-time event for me

but rather it lit a fire underneath me

where i wanted to keep going

it was something that now i want to be a

better advocate i want to stand up for

more individuals

i want to keep fighting in this fight

but at the end of the day this fight may

include a punishment

but that’s the reason as to why we

protest we know that we might get in

trouble

sometime so we want to keep moving

forward and pushing

through that so for all of the students

in the room

know your rights tinker vs des moines

shows us

that we have rights in school that we

when we step onto school grounds

our rights don’t just disappear we still

are able to speak freely that we have

political freedom that we have the

political expression

to talk about threats plaguing our

schools

and even if you do get in trouble you

can do what i did

call the american civil liberties union

be able to talk to someone

be able to talk to a lawyer and ask them

did they violate my rights

if you are unclear and then you can

continue to push and move forward

there are dozens of examples of student

leaders

such as greta thundberg’s climate

movement putting pressure on politicians

to pass successful environmental

policies you can look at the hong kong

student protesters fighting for their

democracy every single day

you can also look at a video of a girl

on tick tock who

did a makeup video but the makeup video

uh also was spreading awareness

about the uh china persecuting muslims

in their country

or you can do what the parkland students

did like i referenced

earlier you can lead a march you can

call your representatives you can write

letters to your representatives

you can share a message because at the

end of the day it might be fun

to go on facebook or twitter and be like

you’re wrong

but that doesn’t really do anything

because at the end of the day it

probably just makes you more upset

all of the people that were threatening

me didn’t really get anywhere

because look at where i am today see so

by being able to push past that hate

push past that punishment you as an

individual can

create the change necessary and engage

now for all of the

adults in the room you should be willing

to listen

and i understand that you have a lot of

years of experience trust me my parents

tell me all the time

but we still have a voice too

because the difference when i grow up

and the difference when you grow up

grew up is that i have to do shooter

preparedness drills

i’ve had to push tables in front of

doors

i have had to hide in closets

i have had um

i’ve had to do these things and it’s

really sad because i have younger

siblings and they have to do these

things too

whether it be in elementary middle and

high school and even in college

so we all should listen to one another’s

opinion

and everyone has one so maybe

we should listen thank you

[Applause]

you