Editor’s note: This commentary is by Emma Bauer, of South Strafford, who is a student at the University of Vermont and serves as the director of Vermont Youth for GunSense, the student wing of GunSense Vermont.
[T]his is in response to an opinion piece by Rob Roper, I write as a student activist to debunk the myth presented by this commentary and elsewhere that student activists are being manipulated into action by adults and special interest groups — and that this is worsening our mental health.
I serve as the director of Vermont Youth for GunSense, a group of students across the state participating in gun reform activism. I regularly see comments on our social media saying that we are being manipulated by adults serving their own agenda, including some comparisons between us and Hitler Youth. I find this ironic because I am a 19-year-old Jewish student, and I can avow that all of our actions are due to our own free will.
Roper’s commentary is rich in condescending remarks questioning the power of student activism and why we are doing this. I’ll give you a concrete response to both of these statements: Student activism has always been and always will be a powerful force for change, and we are doing it because our lives and futures are at stake.
Students have been agents for change for decades. You’re hearing us more now because our voices are louder due to social media. We’re more educated due to our access to the internet, so adults can’t shut us down with calls of ignorance. And we’re calling out systems of oppression because our ability to talk to others of different backgrounds through the internet allows us to build empathy and compassion. Why wouldn’t we fight for change when we know it’s possible and we see the world’s problems every day?
I appreciate Roper’s concern about the high rates of mental illness in students. Activism, however, is not the source of our mental health problems. We are growing up in a country with little to no resources for our health and wellbeing. Our futures scare us, as we know as adults, we will have little social and financial equality and will live in a world with severe environmental degradation. Our present circumstances aren’t much better due to competitive school environments and few mental health resources to get us through them. Students are not dying by suicide because of activism — they’re dying because there is no significant infrastructure to help us out. The system is not built to save us; it’s built to work us until we burn out.
Yes, activism is a lot of work, but for those of us in the thick of it, it serves as the only thing giving us hope for our future. For while we have little faith in adults, we know we can be our own solution. Personally, I’d rather be stressed out in my 20s if it means we can mitigate the climate crisis. I’d much rather be stressed out right now if it means five years from now students can go to school without being afraid for their lives — because at the end of the day, if we don’t fight, it’s our lives and our children’s lives at stake.
If you actually listened to what student activists were saying instead of theorizing about political manipulation, you’d know that we literally don’t have a choice. And that’s exactly the problem — adults aren’t listening to us. In fact, in my experience, those in special interest groups are the only ones taking a step back to give us a voice. I find the idea of adults manipulating us into calling for political action laughable because adults rarely seem to care about what we think anyway. If the adults in office actually cared about what students thought, we’d have a very different world to grow up in. For example, if Gov. Phil Scott actually cared about what students thought, he would not have vetoed S.169, a law intended to reduce rates of firearm deaths by suicide — in turn, reducing the rate of teen suicide in the state. If we’re going to ask how we can reduce teen suicide rates in the state, don’t shame us for our activism — listen to us and follow our lead in taking comprehensive political reform to protect our present and future with bills like S.169.
No, I know that activism isn’t harming teens. It is our answer. And yes, I wrote this entire thing myself.
