We have been talking about the censorship of Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert’s talk shows and the death of ultra-right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, but why are we not talking about the horrors that will actually end up in history textbooks one day?
Over 1,000 detainees in Florida’s internment camp, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz, have disappeared. I think they’re dead. ABC, CBS, NBC, and, of course, Fox News have all failed to report on this. Parker students, we need to wake up—disturbing incidents like these are becoming increasingly more common. Stop focusing on petty drama over whether your classmate posted on their 24-hour Instagram story about Charlie Kirk, and think about what is happening around us. Families are being brutally torn apart, children are watching their parents get beaten by ICE “officers,” our government is crumbling by the day, and the war in Gaza has started to have irreversible, multigenerational effects on the Palestinian people.
The lack of empathy is astounding. Across the nation, people are turning war crimes, the imprisonment of innocent individuals, gun violence, and other blatant factual points into political statements. Sure, Charlie Kirk’s memorial certainly didn’t harm anyone, but I found it unfathomable that millions tuned into his memorial service, yet the vigil for the 8 and 10-year-olds who died in Minneapolis didn’t receive half of the support or empathy he received. The man who said, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other god-given rights,” received more support from Americans and our President than children who were brutally assassinated in front of their classmates.
Our mission states that Parker aims to “educate students to think and act with empathy,” but if students are scared of getting an incident report, attacked by their peers, and silenced by our institution, this cannot be true. Why does printing posters with information about the Israel-Palestine conflict lead to a meeting with Upper School administrators? “Parker stands as a progressive school, dedicated to the growth and development of the whole person…on behalf of our democratic society and the wider world,” our mission states. But a whole person cannot develop if this is the school community that’s being fostered.
I ask myself: how can Parker students truly engage with our tumultuous society? I don’t actually know. However, I believe it starts from within. If you don’t feel a pit form in your stomach when watching shackled, innocent immigrants get loaded into an internment camp, then I think you know the root problem. Don’t self-pity, just change. If you are one of the people I described, just know that the White House TikTok account posted a “satire” video of immigrants being loaded on a plane to Central America in shackles to the Jet2 holiday sound—so lack of empathy isn’t uncommon in today’s world. Though our community has its flaws, which I believe are an abominable fad, we are still in a transformative educational community where you can develop empathy and your whole person by making educated and based decisions.
After hearing a song from “The Sound of Music” playing over the radio, I began to wonder what our “Edelweiss” will be. For those unfamiliar, “Edelweiss” is a song from the musical that symbolized the freedom and perseverance of Austria after they were annexed by Nazi Germany. Please, do not think I am comparing Nazi Germany to our current government, but I was simply thinking. I imagine the day when a new President who believes in democracy is elected. Will we listen to “This Land is Your Land,” or, perhaps, “The Rainbow Connection?” I dream about how our country, which I was taught is a melting pot, will bring us out of this period of tumult.
Fascism is seeping through the cracks of our world and is becoming deeply rooted in our society. We will be cleaning up the horrors of this time period until the day we die, and our kids will be asking what it was like to live through this period when they learn about it in school. If you believe your answer will be “I went on like normal,” something must change—and it starts from within.
