When #IfIDieInASchoolShooting Is Trending, We’ve Failed as a Nation
#IfIDieInASchoolShooting was trending yesterday, and that fact says more about the United States, guns, and the state of youth today that almost anything else. The kind of despair and defeat that so many have in the prevalence of school shootings (‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens) and government inactions (sorry, “Thoughts & Prayers”), has lead to a kind of hopelessness. In an interview, a 17-year-old girl who survived the Santa Fe High School shooting said, “It’s been happening everywhere. I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”
And when we keep preparing students for a shooting with drills, assemblies, and clear backpacks, instead of promising them we’ll make things better, why wouldn’t that be the case?
A scroll through #IfIDieInASchoolShooting shows students (including shooting survivors) asking for people to do something, and not let them die in vain. They write about the people they would leave behind, the parents that would grieve, the dreams that will never be fulfilled. These are children, and this is happening at an average of once a week this year.
#IfIdieInASchoolShooting or any shooting, I want to be buried right next to my brother.
— Zion Kelly (@zionkelly18) May 20, 2018
#IfIDieInASchoolShooting I can only pray that people will stand up and give me a voice the way that @manueloliver00 valiantly has his son making noise all around the country.
every day I wish I could be lucky enough to trade my life for one of those taken at my school.
— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) May 20, 2018
#IfIdieInASchoolShooting politicize my death. It’s not too soon to talk about guns. It’s too late.
— Sofie Whitney (@sofiewhitney) May 20, 2018
#IfIdieInASchoolShooting
My projects wont be finished.
My boyfriend will be all alone.
My parents will have lost another kid.
Friends will be abandoned.Politicize my death. Make it mean something. Cover my grave with daisies and stuffed animals. I live to make a difference
— boo (@Boo4Change) May 20, 2018
#IfIdieInASchoolShooting don’t say “it’s too soon to talk about it” because it would be too late to save me. #fixit
— Jose Iglesias (@Joseforchange) May 20, 2018
#IfIDieInASchoolShooting dump my body in front of the White House.
— john barnitt (@John_Barnitt) May 20, 2018
#IfIdieInASchoolShooting my parents will become daughterless. i’ll never live my dream of becoming a mother and a writer. if I die in a school shooting, please honor me by never ceasing to intensively advocate for safer gun regulations. cover my grave in Forget-Me-Not flowers.
— claire 🇯🇵 (@claireecash) May 20, 2018
#IfIDieInASchoolShooting please politicize the fuck out of my death. please use my death as activism to prevent others from dying. please put my body in the NRA parking lot
— ian quick (@ianquick_) May 20, 2018
#IfIDieInASchoolShooting deliver my heart to dana loesch on a silver platter because she’s a heartless woman and clearly needs a new one.
— jordyn #NEVERAGAIN (@jordynzoe_) May 20, 2018
This is not the first time a political hashtag exposed some of the most awful, tragic, and violent aspects of our country. Much of the rhetoric and foundation for speaking against school shootings came from the movement against police brutality and the gun violence faced by the black community. #IfIDieInASchoolShooting follows the path of similar hashtags, such as #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, which was started following the death of Michael Brown. New outlets, as they often do in these cases, chose a photo of Brown specifically aimed to demonize the victim. In response Twitter users posted different photos of themselves with the hashtag to show how these decisions in media reporting matter, and contain damaging biases.
After the death of Sandra Bland, who was found dead in her Houston jail cell under suspicious circumstances (she was jailed after a simple traffic stop) and Anthony Ware, who died after police officers chased him into the woods and pepper sprayed him, the hashtag #IfIDieInPoliceCustody emerged. Using the hashtag, users called for individuals to question these stories and fight against the cover-ups and silencing.
“If I die in a school shooting” shouldn’t be something that children have to think about. They should be learning, spending time with their friends, and planning their futures—not their funerals.
(image: Jim Young/Getty Images)
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