I Cannot Live Without Books

23 School shootings in the U.S. this year

22 school shootings since 2009 in Mexico, South Africa, India, and Afghanistan combined

21 weeks into the year

20 injured in Sutherland Springs, Texas

19 years since Columbine

18 year olds can own guns in this country

17 lives taken at Parkland

16 killed at the University of Texas

15 minutes of gunfire in Las Vegas

14 lives taken in San Bernardino, California

13 lives taken at Columbine

12 lives taken in Aurora, Colorado

11 years since Virginia Tech

10 lives taken in Santa Fe

9 lives taken in Red Lake, Minnesota

8 lives taken in Omaha, Nebraska

7 year olds at Sandy Hook

6 year olds at Sandy Hook

5 students killed at Red Lake High

4 months since Winston-Salem State University

3 months since the Parkland shooting

2 years since Orlando

1 life lost to gun violence is 1 too many

0 has been done by the U.S. government to change this

I’m so angry. All the time. I can’t understand for the life of me why Sandy Hook wasn’t the end of it.

Something has to change. My generation is fighting for change, and we are being backed by sensible adults. But we don’t have the power to make laws that will stop the death toll from rising.

We have the vote. But November is far away. We have to change something. Right here, right now.

We have to fight. We have to win. We have to resist.

I stand on a single, rickety, red bench looking out over the grassy field. Behind me on the shining silver bleachers there are 17 backpacks spread out in a line. My fingers are frozen as I look down to read the sign I’m clutching.

“Protect kids, not guns!”

Then, I look to my left and it’s a sight to behold. A stream of students are slowly making their way up to the football field where I and the other speakers stand. Students of every size, shape, color, and creed are flooding out of the building that we once felt was safe. Students of all sorts decided to walk out.

When the blaring bullhorn gets everyone quiet, the speakers begin. First, a senior with the task of telling everyone why we’re here today. Then another girl reads three names. Then I do.

Those three names will forever be engraved into my head. Their faces. What they did. What they did in both life and death.

All of their names. All of their faces. I see little six-year olds waving goodbye to their moms and dads on the bus to school. I see fourteen year olds reluctantly hugging their parents goodbye in the morning, and then never hugging them again. I see seventeen and eighteen year olds with their whole lives ahead of them, only to have them snatched away in an instant.

All of these people, all of these children that we lost… we lost because of one thing. Guns. It always comes back to guns. It comes back to assault rifles, assault rifles in the hands of mentally ill eighteen year olds. Yes, we can blame mental illness. We can blame bullying, society, and the individual who was behind the gun. But that individual is powerless without the gun itself.

I walked out because I believe we need stricter gun legislation. I walked out because I believe I can have a voice and make a change. I walked out because I’m scared that I will be murdered in the halls of my school.

Schools are supposed to be safe. And we can make them safe. It just always comes back to the guns.

Protect kids, not guns.
Protect transwomen, not guns.
Protect black lives, not guns.

Protect life, not guns.

Last night as award season continues, the world once again tuned in to “music’s biggest night.” However, this year’s Grammy awards could be described in one syllable. “Men.”

Last night, only one woman went home with a major award despite the countless talented women who were nominated. SZA, a woman of color, who has had a dominating year with her album “Ctrl,” went home with no awards, despite her five nominations. But women not winning hardly any awards was arguably not the evening’s biggest issue.

Another large controversy was the fact that Lorde, the only woman nominated for Album of the Year, was also the only nominee in that category who didn’t get to perform onstage during the show. The other four nominees, all men, each got a slot to perform. Fans were furious that artists who weren’t even nominated this year were given priority over Lorde.

While both of these issues are frustrating, especially with the progress of the Time’s Up movement so far this year, this next part was the last straw for me.

Today, the Recording Academy President Neil Portnow blamed the lack of female winners on- yeah, you guessed it- women. Portnow stated that women in the industry need to “step up” in order to win. He claims that the industry as a whole is “making the welcome mat very obvious, creating mentorships, creating opportunities” for women and all creative people. It is here that I would like to point out that Neil Portnow is a rich white man who is the president of an enormous organization in the music industry. In his own words Portnow admits, “I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face…” Despite Portnow’s statements that say otherwise, women usually have to work twice as hard to receive the same opportunities as men. This is even more true for women of color, who must overcome obstacle after obstacle to bypass the white men that have such a head start.

Now that I’ve stated the facts, it’s opinion time. I find Portnow’s statement not only insulting, but untrue. This year the music industry has seen some incredible work from all sorts of women in all different genres. The idea that we, as women, are at fault for our lack of opportunities is absurd. The idea that we, as women, are to blame for the way society underestimates us is unfair.

So I have a message for Mr. Portnow. Women in every industry, in every field, in every nation have stepped up. And we will continue to step up, time and time again. We will continue to make and do incredible things despite the fact that the work of men will always be prioritized above our own. We will continue to work harder and harder to become equals with men, just to get less credit and less pay then men in the same field. We will continue on. We will continue to step up, rise up, and stand up… because time’s up.