Thursday, March 22, 2018

Jason Thomas on last week's #NationalSchoolWalkout: "It was constructive rebellion on a grand scale."



Civilized discourse is dead, and I don't say this lightly, but some of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen uttered on social media greeted last week's student walkout.

Kudos to Jason Thomas. Another excellent column. Maybe there's hope for this newspaper yet.

THOMAS: A revolt is at hand, with gun violence in the crosshairs, by Jason Thomas (Hanson's Just Gotta Hate This)

 ... Another rebellion is at hand.

Twenty-six years ago social media consisted of passing hand-written (some even in cursive!) paper notes during class. What would the reaction have been like on Facebook and Twitter to the Revolt of 1991?

I shudder to think about it.

Flash forward to last week, when students across Southern Indiana joined peers nationwide and walked out of classrooms to protest gun violence that has shaken schools, and our children, to their core. Some students defied orders from school administrators and walked out of school for 17 minutes to honor the 17 students and staff killed in a mass shooting at a school in Parkland, Fla., last month, while others participated in planned events to commemorate the shooting.

Either way, it was constructive rebellion on a grand scale.

In 1991, we protested the taking away of our after-school activities. In 2018, students protest the taking of their lives.

The reaction on Facebook to our story about the walkouts was, unfortunately, predictably overwhelmingly negative toward the students ...

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