{"id":63581,"date":"2018-04-20T04:40:37","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T04:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=63581"},"modified":"2018-04-20T04:40:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T04:40:37","slug":"parkland-survivor-urges-thornwood-students-to-be-voice-for-change-on-gun-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/parkland-survivor-urges-thornwood-students-to-be-voice-for-change-on-gun-violence.html","title":{"rendered":"Parkland survivor urges Thornwood students to be voice for change on gun violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parkland survivor urges Thornwood students to be voice for change on gun violence<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

tanding Thursday before a room full of students at Thornwood High School, Mei-Ling Ho-Shing asks how many of them have been impacted by gun violence, and several of them raised their hands.<\/span><\/p>\n

A junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed Feb. 14, Ho-Shing said she lost her friends that day and might also have been among the victims if not for one small thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lock on the door (to her classroom) saved my life,\u201d the 17-year-old, who wants to one day become a computer scientist, told them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ho-Shing spent the day at the South Holland school, visiting classrooms, talking about her experience and fielding questions from students, telling them they need to be vocal about gun violence and be a force for change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tired, I\u2019m tired,\u201d she said. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be burying our friends.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The day accused Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, a former student at the school, began firing, Ho-Shing said she and other students hid in their second-floor classroom, \u201cholding their hands in a corner, praying we would be OK.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The locked door prevented him from entering the room, although in other classrooms he sprayed bullets after firing through glass in doors, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked by a student about her feelings toward Cruz, Ho-Shing said \u201cmay God have mercy, that\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not long after the February shootings, seeing classmates, primarily white, speaking through the media about what had happened, Ho-Shing, of Jamaican-Chinese descent, said she felt they were \u201ctalking on behalf of black and brown communities,\u201d but that students of color were not having their voices heard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the students \u2014 Thornwood\u2019s student population is 85 percent African American \u2014 acknowledged to Ho-Shing that, based on their exposure to media coverage of the Parkland aftermath, they assumed she was white when they heard she was visiting the school.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ho-Shing told students that \u201cwe can\u2019t keep holding stuff inside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your story, it\u2019s your reality,\u201d she said. \u201cTalk about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She told them that young people, \u201cneed to put the focus on the people in charge,\u201d which might start at the local level with approaching school board members as well as writing to their representatives in Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMake them sick and tired of your face,\u201d she said of those in authority positions. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to take you seriously at first, but make them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ho-Shing said she is not anti-2nd Amendment, but that there \u201cneeds to be restrictions\u201d when it comes to access to guns.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to close the loopholes,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople fall through those loopholes and people die.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the mass shooting at her school, Ho-Shing said that security has been \u201cbeefed up like times 10,\u201d with heavily armed security personnel roaming the schools and students required to tote clear backpacks.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said that some of her peers feel safer, but that \u201cI didn\u2019t feel good about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are just more guns on campus than ever before,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier on Thursday, Ho-Shing talked to students in Walter Altmann\u2019s career prep class, where the issue of armed security in schools was discussed.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Thornwood has staff posted in hallways to monitor student behavior and there is a school resource officer, students said they couldn\u2019t envision the idea of several armed officers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything we\u2019ll be walking around scared,\u201d Trevon Smith, a senior, told Ho-Shing. \u201cBeing a black male, I\u2019m already at risk just walking outside the school or walking anywhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wearing a maroon Marjory Stoneman Douglas T-shirt with the words \u201c#MSDstrong\u201d on the front, Ho-Shing told students in Altmann\u2019s class that she\u2019s \u201cbeen in some trenches since this all started, and I\u2019m fine with that,\u201d but acknowledged she\u2019s missed a lot of school as a result and it\u2019s not unusual for her to still be doing homework at 4 or 5 in the morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been balancing,\u201d she said. \u201cI call myself a part-time activist because I still have work to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her day at Thornwood was arranged by the Illinois Education Association, which represents teachers outside the city of Chicago. On Friday, Ho-Shing will speak at the IEA\u2019s annual Representative Assembly in Rosemont.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the afternoon Q and A session with the large group of students, Ho-Shing\u2019s mother, Vikki, said the beefed-up security at her daughter\u2019s school hasn\u2019t made her feel safer, noting that Cruz \u201ccame in as a chameleon\u201d that day, dressed like any other student at the school.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I do feel better about is the whole nation is looking at security at schools,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ho-Shing\u2019s mother said that she is \u201cvery proud\u201d of her daughter\u2019s decision to be an advocate for change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of speaking out, her experience \u201ccould have turned to anger, it could have turned to rage,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of those students who raised their hand when asked by Ho-Shing if they had been personally affected by gun violence was Nicolette Sales, who had been instrumental in a school walkout at Thornwood in March in support of the Parkland students. Sales, one of the students Ho-Shing shadowed on Thursday, said she had lost a cousin in Chicago to gun violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The president of a youth leadership organization at the school, Sales said there was a definite connection between Ho-Shing and students, and that the Parkland student \u201cdidn\u2019t act like she was here just to tell her story and go home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/suburbs\/daily-southtown\/news\/ct-sta-parkland-student-thornwood-st-0420-story.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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