‘Embarrassed’ and ‘ashamed’: Kansas City area students sound off on U.S. Capitol riot
Bryan VanOsdale’s social justice class at Kansas City’s East High School went long on Thursday, and discussions kept going through Friday.
His students just “couldn’t stop talking” about the violence that erupted in Washington, D.C.
Rioters’ takeover of the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday prompted unplanned civics lessons across the area. And for the remainder of the week, teachers say, their students have had much to say.
“I was traumatized seeing a mob carrying a Confederate flag and taking down the U.S. flag to put up a flag of Donald Trump,” Nejmadin Ahmed, 19, a senior at East, said Friday. Ahmed, who immigrated with his family from Sudan to Missouri 10 years ago, said the images of rioters filled him with fear. The closer the country gets to unity, he said, the harder opponents “fight to disrupt the progress.”
“I saw arrogance, “ said Caeden Brown, 18. “These people just busting through the halls of Congress with not much resistance at all. “
Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters marched to the Capitol at his direction and stormed the building, breaking windows, vandalizing offices and forcing Congress to suspend discussions to approve Electoral College votes and confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
MacKenzie Ammons, 17, felt let down: “I could not believe what I was seeing. I was so embarrassed and beyond disappointed in my country and the people who are in charge of it and who I trust my safety to. I just couldn’t understand how someone could feel so strongly about the outcome of an election that they would invade our Capitol and think that was OK.”
MacKenzie and other students said they were glad VanOsdale had tossed his intended lesson for the day and seized on what he called “a teachable moment” to discuss the Capitol melee.
“I wanted them to see and hear from their peers, to share their feelings and thoughts,” he said. “These are young adults with varying opinions.”
Embarrassment was the common sentiment shared by students in VanOsdale’s class and around the area.
.jpg "20200714_180217279_iOS (2).jpg")
”My feelings were of horror and disbelief,” said Harper Howze, 15, a sophomore at Sumner Academy of Arts and Science in Kansas City, Kansas.
“I am embarrassed to be an American,” said Dejlah Deah, 14, a Sumner freshman. She and her family immigrated to Kansas from Liberia in 2009, “for a better life, for the American dream. This was not it,” she said. “I want to be proud to be an American. Isn’t this the land of the free, the land where all men are created equal?”
Dejlah said she also felt angry because law enforcement at the Capitol did not do enough to stop the rioters, who were mostly white, from entering and vandalizing the building, a stark difference, she said, from what she saw during Black Lives Matter protests. Media accounts of those protests during the spring and summer showed protesters being sprayed with chemical repellents, shot with rubber bullets and arrested in large numbers, Dejlah said.
She said she’s been talking with friends about the Capitol incident and was surprised that only their debate teacher, Jamelle M. Brown, gave students the chance to discuss it in class on Friday. This year’s national debate topic is criminal justice reform.
“These students are living this year’s topic,” Brown said. Dejlah said she sent emails to her other teachers to tell them she was disappointed that the riot was not brought up in class.
Experts in child psychology and K-12 education said children definitely have a legitimate opinion about such national events and want to talk about their meaning and how that fits into their world.
Dave Anderson, a clinical psychologist with the Child Mind Institute, told the Washington Post that we need to assume kids are internalizing their emotions after the events at the Capitol. “We are delusional if we’re thinking they don’t already have stress. … It’s affecting them and making them think about, ‘What does this mean about the world we live in?’” Anderson said.
Zaynab Zlitni, 16, a student at Bonner Springs High School, first saw the riot on Twitter and then watched the Capitol invasion unfold on TV while working as a host at a Shawnee restaurant.
“My initial thoughts were there was a lot of hypocrisy going on,” Zaynab said. “I saw people wearing the American flag on their clothing and at the same time storming our nation’s Capitol. It just made me ashamed.” She sad the adults there “basically were setting an example for my generation of what not to do.”
Zaynab said she talked on Zoom for more than an hour with friends and classmates, fellow members of a school diversity club. “We talked about how it is so painful to see this happen when all you really want to see is social justice. I do understand why some people are angry, but rioting is not the answer.”
Students said that while most of them are not old enough to vote, they feel a responsibility to stand up in some way.
“We are going to be the ones who will have to keep advocating for change to push for a better future,” said Anna Kasindi, 18, a student at East High School.
“I think we need to educate ourselves, our friends, our families, be open to listening and have the courage to speak up,” said Dejlah. “Right now maybe we can’t make our voices heard in the White House, but we can make our voices heard in our communities.“
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 6:25 PM.
