Screw the Status Quo

We had a shooter in the building drill today at school. I was lucky in the sense that I did not have to deal with students during it because I wasn't teaching that period.

We live in a world where I, as a high school teacher, have to be worried about someone coming in and trying to kill my students and myself. I will do everything in my power to protect my students and those around me. My students are my number one priority and they will always come first. That isn't what bothers me.

What bothers me is this: That as a society, we preform these drills willingly because this is the type of world we live in, but no one seems to want to change that world. They are complacent with the possibility that someone could come in and shoot up a school.

Every time I have expressed outrage over this, the response is always the same. "Well, it is the sad reality that this is the world we live in. So we have to do it."

I don't want to live in this world.

I don't want to live in a world where I have to have the fear of getting shot. That it is even a possibility for this much violence in my school. In my student's safe haven. In the one place where no matter what is going on in their lives, they should feel safe.

When I retort with that, people will do one of three things:

1) Sigh and shake their head because apparently I am being naive

2) Say the same thing again as if to convince themselves there is nothing they can do so I should go along with the status quo

3) Say to me "I agree with you but what can you actually do to change it?"

There is plenty to do to change this atmosphere. But it has to be a society wide effort.

Make teenagers realize that violence is not the solution to problems. This is easy to say but, when every single hero they look up to uses violence to solve their problems, what do they expect?

Our super heroes used to be "let's try peace first." Now it is, "We have an aircraft carrier that can fly so we're going to blow your ass up."

In movies, talking or negotiating never works. Only when the hero tortures or shoots their enemy is there any "success."

I'm not sitting here blaming violent video games. I'm blaming society for allowing children to view these violent people as acceptable role models.

I'm blaming society for pushing the image that in order for a woman to be sexy and strong, she needs to be able to physically kick ass and shoot a gun. That in order for a man to be desired by woman, and not be the "goofy guy" he needs a gun (or needs to sleep with a lot of woman but that is a completely different story).

Besides super heroes, who don't need guns because they have different powers, I challenge you to find someone, in popular culture, that is looked up to as a role model that doesn't use guns. If it is an actor, an actor that has never needed to shoot a gun on screen.

You may say that popular culture doesn't impact society's values. But it does. Why else would this stuff be popular if not for the fact that society views it highly.

Almost every single American drama involves the military or police force. Which means that it involves guns to make the characters popular. The exceptions are the medical dramas which somehow always involve a shooter in the hospital at some point or some other massive act of violence. Without these mass violence parts, America would most likely stop watching.

Drama = guns in America

Have you watched a British drama? The top five drama's don't involve guns, in their main characters' personas, AT ALL.

Have you seen their gun related crime rate?

Very low.

Again, not blaming popular culture, I'm blaming what popular culture represents. It represents our values. Our ideals. What is important to us.

It represents the status quo.

How do you change this? Well, it takes a huge effort. The first is to make society stop being obsessed with guns. I have always been weary of guns. I will always support common sense measures like banning automatic rifles, background checks, and mandatory gun training for gun owners. Just like we make mandatory training for people who want to drive a car.

We make cigarette companies do PSA commercials on the dangers of smoking. Why can't we force gun manufacturers to do the same thing? I'm aware that it is a person using a gun to harm someone else, but, chances are, they have no idea the real harm that it can do. Hollywood doesn't do a real bullet wound justice.

Fight for those changes. Speak up. Vote on these issues. Write to your Representative expressing your feelings. Hell, run for office.

Do something. Even just speaking your mind is doing something. Don't let your voice be drowned out by the status quo. By people to afraid to make change.

Don't be afraid. Those great leaders, the ones that went down in history as great leaders, were afraid. They just overcame that fear and spoke up.

They challenged the status quo.





As George Carlton famously said, "The status quo sucks."

I couldn't agree more George.






I couldn't agree more.



~We're all in tears for a world that's broken