March 22, 2018
Convent of the Sacred Heart HS • San Francisco, California
Volume 24, Issue 6
Gen Z rises
Teens stand up for gun reform Claire Kosewic & Asha Khanna Editors-in-Chief
Following a deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school last month, teenagers across the country have decided that “enough is enough” and have begun taking advantage of social media influence and peaceful protests to advocate for stricter gun control legislation. “With the growth of social media, we’ve all become activists in our own right,” Delaney Tarr, senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said over FaceTime. “We’ve all become outspoken [and] we’ve all become politically involved to the degree that we have not before.” The National School Walkout made headlines across the country last week, as hundreds of thousands of students left their desks at 10 a.m. to participate in a nationwide, student-planned protest — Convent & Stuart Hall students among them. “Awareness is a big fight in this battle,” senior Rosie Morford, who helped organize the walkout on the Broadway campus, said. “Walkouts like what we did may not change the mind of the
[National Rifle Association], but they make a point that we will not sit and wait for another 17 kids to be shot in school.” Tarr and her classmates planned the protests to kindle national attention, which she says she hopes will inspire people to “vote for their lives” after they march for them. “There’s a lot of people saying to us, ‘This feels different,’ and yet they’re not sure why,” Tarr said. “But we’re the victims this affected, we won’t be pushed aside and we’re outspoken and passionate. We’re literally a bunch of 17-year-olds and we’re not going to shut up about this.” The MSD students have successfully grabbed the nation’s attention with Twitter and other social media, repeatedly sharing their stories, and refusing to let their classmates be forgotten. “I feel like the news reaches kids in a different way,” SHHS senior Will Kahn, who is organizing a presentation about upcoming marches for the student body, said. “Not all kids spend time reading newspapers on a daily basis, but if we are scrolling through Snapchat and we see
something on the news stories, it’s going to catch our attention.” Because the teenagers participating in and organizing these movements are the voice of the 21st century and are the ones who will be responsible for voting for regulations like those proposed for gun control, they have a unique responsibility to step up, according to Morford. “Right now, the government isn’t doing anything to change the reality of guns in schools,” Morford said. “It’s now our obligation [to change that reality].” Teenagers are undeterred by the idea “it’s not the time” — a common refrain by legislators following mass shootings — and take seriously the obligations of what it means to advocate for necessary legislative changes, according to Tarr. “High schoolers are the ones that will eventually become government leaders and become the next wave of politicians,” Kahn said. “We have the most persuasive voice out of all the communities in the nation right now. I feel like people will actually listen to us and hopefully take our words for what they are worth.”
Cat Webb-Purkis | THE BROADVIEW
Laura Mogannam | THE BROADVIEW
SPEAK UP Junior Kiki Apple encourages other protestors to chant
“Enough is enough” during the walkout and March on March 14. The 10 a.m. protest lasted for 17 minutes, one minute for each life lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a month earlier.
INSIDE
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3 happy
100!
Sister Mary ‘Be’ Mardel celebrates her birthday.
4 do it for the
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Participants of online trends potentially risk their lives.
9 march madness
Students and teachers watch the craziness unfold.
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