Students hold a ‘peace rally’ before school to promote love and equality.
A peace rally held by Northwest students was met with some political objections.
In response to the incline of discriminatory acts that have occurred after the announcement of the new president of the United states, a few Northwest students decided to hold a protest, or peace rally as participants like to identify , before school on the 14th of November.
“We don’t really like the term ‘protest’. We used the word ‘peace rally’ because protest just has a lot of negative connotations,” said junior Hailey Colborn. “It was a rally for unity, positivity and peace.”
Alongside many others, Colborn doesn’t understand why the rally received backlash.
“[People] should understand an event before [they] automatically take a stance,” said Colborn. “Because if they would’ve listened, the only thing we were trying to do was promote equality.”
Colborn even claims that while some parents honked at them for support, others flipped them off while being visibly annoyed. Junior Emerson Ross was also a participate of the peace rally that supported the idea of spreading equality.
“It was basically something to show people that everyone should learn to love each other and not hate,” said Ross. “Although we are minors and we can’t vote, we are still affected by discrimination and we are showing [others] that we do have a voice.”
He too does not understand why the rally, that was suppose to promote peace, received negative comments.
“It didn’t make sense, because if you don’t like a protest against discrimination that’s basically saying that you are for discrimination and that’s terrible,” said Ross. “Why would you want to belittle someone over the way that they are, over the way they’re born?”
Senior Keaton Fish states that he is ‘not against a group of students standing up for what they believe in’ but does believe that the peace rally was slightly inappropriate.
“Driving into the school and seeing all those people, just knowing that it was more about the election than what they would like to say it was,” said Fish. “It kinda felt like they were trying to call us out and say that we were racist or homophobic.”
He believes that the protest date was ‘conveniently’ right after the election and that the protestors should have postponed the rally until the drama revolving around President elect Donald Trump died down.
“If they would’ve waited I, myself, would’ve gladly stood out there with them and supported [their cause],” said Fish. “But because of what has been going on at the same time, it felt more like it was an attack politically than it was a standup for peace.”
Fish turned 18 during the spring and took the opportunity to vote for Donald Trump. And although Colborn was an organizer of the peace rally she claims to not have a stance against either presidential candidates.
“I’m not taking like a pro-trump or anti-trump stance on anything,” said Colborn. “Quite frankly, I don’t even know what party I’m in because I’m only 16 years old.”
Although the peace rally did receive some objection, so have a few Trump supporters. “[Donald Trump] has made very racist comments, he has made very sexist comments,” admitted Fish. “But because I don’t agree with what [Hillary Clinton] was saying, people automatically think that the words that he said came out of my mouth.”
Many students who are Trump supporters still believe that this peace rally was more of a political protest than what the participants would like to admit. While on the other hand, protesters believe that they were just showing everyone to spread love not hate.
Regarding the question if Ross would participate in future rallies he says,
“The fight’s not over in ending discrimination. And until that fight is over, I want to make sure that I’m a part of that fight to spread love.”
