Was the Walkout Worth it?

By Alex Ostrovskiy and Echo Robbins

Echo Robbins – Anti-Walkout 

The facts are this: first amendment rights protect a student in a walkout from any punishment greater than any other unexcused absence, and a person with an unfinished high school education shouting on the sidewalks achieves about as much as punching a brick wall. 

January 20th witnessed 25 EHS students (plus, apparently. one townsperson and a dog) standing outside for an hour downtown, organized by a national socialist activism group to protest… what, again? Right, Trump’s year in office. No, the duly elected king. Wait, ICE! I recall now.  

Last year, the Denver Post reported that these absolute brutes had deported a 21-year-old Venezuelan man. Poor guy! He was just living his life and completely interrupted by deportation- right after posting bail as a sex offender against a 14-year-old girl here in Jefferson County. In fact, Jeffco has hundreds of tragic deportations happening to immigrants who had just been arrested for things like domestic violence, human trafficking, attempted murder, and car theft. The question EHS forgets to ask is: How easily could that girl have been one of our freshmen? 

ICE is not a task force of cold-blooded citizen-killers. ICE is the boy you went to preschool with who wanted to be a police officer, who jumped for joy at his acceptance to  the academy, who wrote you thank-you notes for your graduation gifts, and who started his career proud and excited to help his community. Now that boy is forced to watch his hometown march against him and call for him to be crushed, melted, and condemned. It doesn’t matter that Jeffco has been freed from criminals or that this hometown boy is doing his job. 

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which organized the EHS walkout, claims to “fight for thriving working class communities”. It must have had a field day planning protests in Evergreen, where the median home price is twice the rest of the country. According to its website, the DSA’s immigration mission is to “demilitarize the border, end all immigrant detention and deportations, immediate amnesty for all immigrants regardless of current immigration status, and provide access to jobs, labor rights, and social services to all immigrants”.  

Presumably, the DSA wants to eliminate all restrictions on immigration, and doesn’t want us to discriminate against violent immigrants, either. 

Which is why, the DSA’s walkout portrays ICE as a violent, inhuman group, and urged EHS students to add “F**K ICE” instead of simply “LOVE IMMIGRANTS”. And, truly, America couldn’t have its melting pot without immigrants. But it can do without illegal sex offenders. 

Alex Ostrovskiy - Pro-Walkout

Last Tuesday, January 20th, marked the completion of the first year of the Trump administration. While notable for many things (inexplicably wanting Greenland, for instance), one of the most prominent and controversial changes has been the significant ramp-up of the scope and size of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE has expanded its purview to the seizure of suspected illegal immigrants on the streets of our cities. 

Of course, an agency whose budget almost tripled last year can’t be expected to even conduct its job properly: many people who were seized were in the country legally, and some had Green Cards or citizenship, with due process being ignored. ICE has admitted to using racial profiling in their searches and recently shot and killed a mother of three who was peacefully protesting in Minneapolis. 

On the 20th, EHS students conducted a walkout at 2 p.m. as a protest against these actions. The walkout was organized by sophomore Jay Weiss, the charter leader for the school of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). They said that while they didn’t agree with all of the policies of the DSA, but they were dedicated to opposing “ICE kidnapping people in our community”. The DSA organized similar walkouts across the country at 2 p.m. local time. 

25 people participated in the walkout, marching first to the Evergreen Library and then to downtown. Many held signs and a few wrote things on their bodies -- a common theme was “F**k ICE”. Downtown, the protesters were joined by a grey-and-white Alaskan Malamute and his owner. 

Throughout both the march and the stay downtown, the protesters chanted phrases such as “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” and “Love, not hate, Makes America Great”. Water was generously provided by a local shop to prevent throats from getting sore. 

As cars passed the protest, many drivers honked or gave thumbs up to show their support, with negative reactions being very limited. Despite original plans, the protesters did not end up blocking the streets (or, as one suggested, climbing the lamppoles). The march back to EHS started at 2:58 p.m. 

One participant told the Claw that they were “glad that there were opportunities to protest locally”, as opposed to the more large-scale demonstrations in Denver and Boulder. Another noted that were a walkout to happen again, it would need to be advertised more widely. 

Martin Neimoller, a survivor of the Nazi regime, wrote a famous poem: 

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— 
    Because I was not a socialist. 

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— 
    Because I was not a trade unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
    Because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” 

Germany, 1946. 

Well, first they’re coming for the immigrants, and Evergreen spoke out— 
    Even though we (mostly) aren’t immigrants. 

Photo from Facebook.