The OC Voice is a portion of the OC Report newsletter where local residents may have a platform to talk about local issues they care about. Thea Barrett is a senior at East Chapel Hill High School, communications director for the Durham-Chapel Hill March For Our Lives chapter, president of East’s March For Our Lives club and co-president of East’s Youth Against Rape Culture club.
My name is Thea Barrett, and I am an activist. For a long time, I didn’t feel like I earned that title because frankly, being an activist is a lot of work.
I got involved with gun control because I was tired of being scared, of feeling overwhelmed and useless in this world. Like everyone else, I thought it couldn’t happen here — but it happened in Parkland, it happens in Durham, it happened in Charlotte and it’s almost happened here and in Raleigh.
I was in calculus class when one of my best friends texted, “We’re on lockdown. There have been threats to shoot up the wing I’m in. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I just want to say I love you.” That cuts a person to their core. Everything turned out OK, but the pain I felt that day — and I feel a little bit every day — is why I fight.
And I fight because of the anxiety I felt at the start of senior year when my school went into lockdown. My mind raced: My phone is dead — how will I tell my friends and family I love them? My toe is severely broken — how will I run away?
I know I am not alone in this fear. But too often, my peers give in. They post one remembrance photo on an Instagram story and move on. Or they post about various movements because it becomes the “thing to do” or to get more likes or attention, or they go to one protest to put it on college applications. But no big movement in this world has created change that simply. It takes people who go to the legislators and the media and the powers that actually control society.
So, I do the work. I refuse to let this fear become the norm. I will yell, and scream, and then do everything I can. I will stay up late writing to representatives, doing research, sending emails. I will walk the streets till my feet hurt registering voters. And I’m just one of many pouring their hearts and time into fighting for change.
I am proud to have grown up in a town that cares so much about the world, one another and creating change. But we feel stuck. Like we’re waiting for something huge to happen right here so we have a reason to get upset. But gun violence impacts communities of color and low-income communities around the nation every single day. Today, about 310 people will be shot. So stop waiting for this to happen here before you raise a ruckus.
We each have a moral responsibility to stand up for the people whose voices have been silenced. Don’t wait for someone else to take the lead, or show you the way. Don’t wait for a post you can retweet and go back to scrolling through your feed. Act. Now.
