By Fearooz Al-Rabahi & Dana Elgaali
Over 50 students walked out of class during 4th period, on Thursday October 18 to protest the end of the massacre in Gaza and to demand that local authorities defend Arab students against attacks. This protest sparked more protests throughout the district, including at Lowell, Washington, and Balboa. Even in other places in the U.S., including Chicago, Florida and New York.
The protest was in response to a lack of attention from the school about Gaza. According to senior Yousra C, one of the organizers of the protest, a number of Arab students felt like the Galileo staff wasn’t bringing any awareness to the situation. She also claimed emails were sent to teachers from the district saying that they cannot speak about what’s going on in Palestine.
“I felt like I needed to create an opportunity for people to speak up and for myself to speak up. Arab history has always been silenced and whenever Arab people or Muslims are suffering no one ever speaks about it, I’m tired of being silent,” said Yousra about the reason she felt the need to speak out.
Students had varying reasons for deciding to walk out of 4th period and join the protest. Junior Aisha M. said, “I decided to protest to educate the students at Galileo who may not be well informed about this topic and to also stand up for human rights.” Sophomore Zeina S. added, “I’m Palestinian and seeing what’s happening and seeing innocent children getting murdered and the genocide thats happening and people just ignoring it, made me want to educate people on it.”
Another student, junior Deena A., said,“ Some people think that kids’ opinions aren’t valued and important, so we wanted to show that we also have opinions that are important.”
