In 2024, we should generally feel a sense of comfortability and faith in the progress of our government. It is the 2020s, not 1920s, right?
Right?
One sure would think so.
But the truth is that we are nowhere near that.
Right now, the American government has its hands steeped in multiple genocides, pulling strings to make the average American dumb and numb to it all. Every day while children are senselessly slaughtered for the crime of being a child of color or being queer, the government decides we need to focus on viral subjects such as TikTok because that is definitely going to protect children rather than working to stop the staggering number of 13 THOUSAND dead children in Gaza from climbing any higher.
Hopefully you are sensing my sarcasm here.
Not to sound like the obnoxious “radical leftist” I know I am, but the government does not care about us, especially those of us below the age of 18. It is terrifying for them to know that we will slowly begin to take their office places to undo the insurmountable amount of damage they have caused. Generally, aside from my focus on queer liberation, I try to navigate away from an intense focus into politics in my school published articles. I do not want to stir a pot better left untouched. Despite this, the fact of the matter is that every aspect of American life has become political. It feels like you cannot point out the obvious truths of our world without someone combatting you and defending the shredded remnants of our “great nation.”
I cannot say that American children have to face the very real threat of gun violence in schools every day without someone making the issue out to be a trivial worry. Am I, as a student, overly sensitive for fearing any loud sound in school because of the possibility that it is going to spiral into bloodshed? Why is there a debate about monitoring and controlling gun violence in schools? Every day, a bang in the hallway sends a classroom of students’ heads spinning to look at the door. Everyday, each student is acutely aware of chatter in the hallway, just in case someone sounds threatening.
School shooting rates are practically non-existent in other developed countries.
One look at this graphic published in 2018 shows the mind-boggling comparison of the amount of school shootings in America versus other countries that are just as large. Between 2009 and 2018, just a nine year stretch, the United States of America had, at minimum, 32 school shootings a year. Compare this to Canada and France, two countries tied for second place after America. The highest number of total school shootings in 9 years following America’s 288 is two.
Every day 12 American children die due to gun violence, making guns the leading cause for death in American youth. Guns are more lethal to children than cancer.
At what point do “thoughts and prayers” cease to be a viable answer to gun violence. Thoughts and prayers only get us so far and do not create progress. The politicians who use “thoughts and prayers” as their condolences to the families of dead children are the very people who their prayers are directed at. When they pray, their prayers go to people who can change it and the people who change it ignore it. Thoughts and prayers to a denominational God to end gun violence are not going to magically stop it all, and surely God will push these prayers to those in positions of power to act upon. Instead, the people in positions of power being pressed to act are praying to their God to take the issue out of their hands, rather than make them face the truly harrowing reality for American children.
Despite the rampant gun violence numbers, in the name of protecting the American people, the U.S. House of Representatives has decided to push forward a ban on Tik Tok, an app used by millions of Americans to keep up to date on world affairs. To protect the American people, politicians believe barring us from the larger world will help us.
I have never been a big TikTok user. I go on maybe once a week, and scroll until I am redirected to a new fixation. My issue with the TikTok ban is not focused on the app being banned, but rather the inaction that the ban signifies. It is proof to the American people that politicians can act, but they choose not to.
The Equality Act has been circulating in the U.S. government since 2019, vowed to be signed into law by Biden in his presidency. Yet, despite his assertion to pass the bill in his latest State of The Union address, the TikTok ban has moved to the Senate.
The Equality Act would put an end to the barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ laws circulating through the states, and though this bill has been around longer than the idea of a TikTok ban, it has not been passed nor reached the house.
With Indiana’s sudden and immediate gender-affirming care ban for youth and nearly 530 other anti-trans bills circulating in our country, The Equality Act is needed now more than ever before. As a transgender minor who relies on gender affirming care, it is terrifying to suddenly have that stripped from you.
The passing of the gender-affirming care ban sent me into a weeks-long depressive slump, one where I pushed the world away and kept to myself. The trans experience is something no one outside of the trans community could understand. It’s such a complex and isolating feeling. Each day, I walk into class and feel eyes over me. The insinuation of gender sends eyes darting towards me. We are alone out here. We are drowning and there is no one willing to pull us out of the ocean.
I am a strong-willed man. I do not let things get to me like they used to. So imagine how this feels for those of us who have not built up this hardened shell towards trans-targeted hate. I wish I could look people in the eye when I say this but we are dying. Trans crisis lines have seen a steep increase in calls as of late. So many trans teens are desperate to end the misery that is being trans in America.
The Equality Act has been something so many teens like myself have clung to as Republicans burn queer books and alienate us as less than human.
But in the American government, TikTok is a priority over the American trans population.
Indiana passes a ban on phones in classrooms when we still need our phones to call for help when we inevitably go into lockdown. The House racially profiles a Singaporean man on the nature of a Chinese app while a child in Oklahoma has their head bashed into the tile for the crime of having a bladder. The U.S. cannot contain its hatred to its own country so they kill Palestinians to quench their thirst for bloodshed.
I am a teen in America and I am angry. I’m angry that it has gotten this bad. Embarrassed to don the title of American because it associates me with an uncaring, ruthless system.
I’m a teen in America and I am angry. You should be too.
