A Message From Our Publisher
One way to get your voice heard is to run for office
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
Two parents of the Parkland, Florida, massacre proclaimed their candidacies for the Broward County School Board, on the platform of, that no mother or father should ever experience losing a child to a school shooter.
What platform should parents of any child whose life is taken away to the violence of a system gone haywire…. Should it not be the same? Why, then, is there any difference to this?
Abby Freeman of District 4 will be challenged by 43-year old Lori Alhadeff while Ryan Petty, 48, declared his run for the at-large countywide District 8 seat held by Donna Korn.
Alaina Petty and Alyssa Alhadeff were among 17 people slaughtered when a gunman went on an assassination spree February 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“But I never could’ve envisioned what happened Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland when my daughter, Alyssa Alhadeff, and 16 others were murdered and so many others injured,” said Alhadeff, who has two sons in Broward County Public Schools and who founded the nonprofit, Make Schools Safe.
Count the lives of those whom the system failed, and in many instances where the system was the perpetrator of death.
Where are the voices? They’re there! Can’t you hear them?
Why not?
Does sound have color?
Petty said his and Alhadeff’s worlds flipped that day, and they became dedicated to changing a system that allowed the school gunman “to fall through the cracks.”
And so did a lot of other people, yet these two parents have chosen to get totally immersed into change.
Did not other parents, brothers, sisters, and a whole lot of other people stop traffic, closed down businesses , questioned the Supreme Court and bring the world to attention on Black Lives Matter?
At a news conference in Fort Lauderdale Petty said, “I can represent parents all over the district who deserve to have their children come home to them every afternoon after school.”
Petty and Alhadeff said their priorities will include transparency, accountability and ensuring tax dollars are spent effectively in the classroom along with school safety.
Where is the transparency, accountability and where are the tax dollars for the others…?
Not satisfied with answers she’s received from NRA and law enforcement officials and others, Alhadeff states, “I’m still not satisfied with the answers to the questions that I asked back then,” and I’m extremely frustrated at the lack of progress that has been made to fix the problems that we all know exist.”
Petty, too, who is not thrilled by the answers received from authorities states: “Our message is simple: We must be the last families to lose loved ones to mass murder in school,” he said. “This time must be different and we demand action.”
We must stand and say no more voting as usual, no more just because, no more…
It is a sin not to love.
If we can learn anything from these parents, let it be, let it be that if we want change, we have to get involved ALL the way to make an effort to change it.
We can begin to make a change. Primary elections for the school board will be held August 28, 2018, and the general election is scheduled for November 6, 2018.
RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION: BUT SIN [IS] A REPROACH TO ANY P
