An open letter by Sagar Patel, an 11th grade Buford High School student,
In recent years, a problem has begun to rock American youth, and, by extension, the future of our great and glorious American society. As children wake up in the mornings and head off to school, they are left with the unfathomable question, “Will I come home safely to my family?” Parents watch their kids go to school thinking, “Will I ever see my sons and daughters again?” Teachers are faced with the unthinkable, “How will I be able to defend my students from such an evil?”
The threat of school shootings is real, and every day, threat after threat is revealed to the public, making students fear for their lives in the areas in which they spend the most time.
Even beyond that fear, school shootings crack into the foundation that makes up the core ideals of our venerable country. Schools have been turned into military complexes, patrolled by heavily armed officers, who are there to keep the peace from a misguided and fiendish student armed with a gun and vengeance.
Recently, Apalachee High School, a mere 20 miles away from my own beloved Buford High School, came under a vile attack in which four people, two students and two teachers, were martyred and 30 more injured.
The massacre here was the despicable act of a mere 14-year-old student. At this time, the shock and horror of this situation is not lost on me. The fact that a 14-year-old, judged by society to be young and innocent, can commit such a demonic act of violence within a temple of learning and knowledge is shocking and saddening.
I can only imagine the pain of those who lost loved ones, and even those who bore witness to this violence feel as if their school became a shooting gallery to satisfy the evil intentions of a child lost in his mind.
Yet, we are forced to accept this trauma as a continuation of a legacy of mass violence that has rocked one of the most, if not the most, important institutions in any society – our education system.
On a broader scale, this issue has reared its ugly head time and time again, seemingly only affecting our country. On a global scale, our great country is mocked and stereotyped for the murder of children participating in their studies. Time and time again, we are reminded of our country’s flaws with another headline announcing the martyrdom and ascension of more students and teachers on the altar of our right to learn. Time and time again, I open my phone after such an attack and scroll through social media, seeing a variety of posts mocking my beloved country for failing to protect its most valuable asset, the future. Time and time again, I am ashamed of what has happened. Yet, I have no idea how to find a solution to put an end to this depraved, contemptible offense, and from what I see around me, no one else, not the lawmakers or media pundits, has answers either.
When we look at the issue of school shootings, what seems to come to mind is not the death of dozens, if not hundreds of students. It’s not the loss of a son or a daughter, a grandson or granddaughter, a teammate or a friend, but it’s instead just a number and picture that fails to capture what is really at stake when we discuss such an atrocity. After that number and picture scrolls by on the TV, it is almost immediately replaced by a series of TV personalities, politicians, and reporters who offer their condolences and transition this issue into something that can advance their partisan agendas. Both of the major parties of the country, no matter what they claim to do to end such violence, have done nothing. In addition to that, they refuse even to look each other in the eye and work together for the good of the country. They use the death of children for their advantage, calling it a travesty while committing the sin of using such an incident to further their ideologies. Politics in our country wasn’t founded based on a self-serving, partisan agenda. It wasn’t meant to be a self-serving, soulless machine that takes tragedy and respins it as a partisan dilemma. As our fellow countrymen, our brothers, and sisters, suffer at the loss of their sons and daughters, the politicians of this country are doing just that, using loss and tragedy to push political points that fail to effect real change. We must change that, for that is the responsibility of every self-respecting, patriotic citizen of this country as that is the foundation of our political system, the free discourse of views and opinions to enact real change for the benefit of our lives.
Now, I know without a shadow of a doubt that the words I have written will come across to some as aggressive and unfair, even partisan to some who want to analyze this humble work deeply. For that, I apologize to those who may see shades of bias in my writing.
My goal with this piece is not to advance some partisan goal or agenda nor to solve a problem I’m inexperienced with. While I do have my own political leanings and worldview on how I feel an issue like a school shooting should be solved, I want to step above that version of myself and embrace my identity as an American citizen.
In my case, this identity is that of a young man committed to protecting and preserving our great union and serving the community that has given him so much. In my opinion, that is the spirit of our great country, the value system upon which our Founding Fathers sacrificed so much that we may call these United States our home.
As such, I hope those who read this article find solace in its words and do the same. We should open our closed minds, swallow our bitterness for the other side, and come together as committed members of the community and work together to find a solution that stops this issue for good.
We should advocate for our elected representatives on both sides of the aisle and beg their help to come together to preserve the sanctity of our schools, these temples of knowledge and development. Let us come together and take the first step towards our goal by utilizing the rights guaranteed by our First Amendment. By coming together to discuss this issue, we create an opportunity to participate in the political process and make our voices heard.
Our glorious Nation’s beloved ideals will survive only if we all work together and take the first step to advocate on behalf of the students of this great country, the future leaders, entrepreneurs, and game changers of our beloved nation. We owe it to this generation and those that follow us to secure the right to protection in classrooms so that we may not cower behind our notes and Chromebooks, afraid of a teenage maniac, but instead stand firmly in our resolve for a chance to better ourselves through the power of education.
