From the basketball court to the promenade, civic engagement is a campus responsibility.

The Syracuse men’s basketball team, while playing at Miami on Saturday, wore T-shirts in remembrance of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victims. The shirts read “Praying for Stoneman Douglas” in red bold letters on the front and “#MSDSTRONG” on the back. Both teams wore the shirts for warm-ups, showing solidarity in these heartbreaking times.

The habituality of mass shootings seems to be part of society. Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, 438 people have been shot — and 138 have been killed — in at least 239 school shootings, according to The New York Times.

While it’s important to recognize these shootings, we shouldn’t remain in a state of grief for too long. But, since we’re all here, we might as well dwell it in a little longer and question why have we become more comforted by our school’s basketball team than our government officials.

Although the team act of remembrance was consoling, it’s not the job of a college sports team to comfort us. Comfort isn’t cutting it anymore. Comfort doesn’t bring back lost lives. It’s the job of the institutions in power to enact change so the weight of providing solidarity doesn’t lay on the shoulders of students.

Sports teams are on campus to gain an education and play the sport they love. It’s up to the rest of us to help with the load we call civic engagement. We should comfort each other through acts of acceptance, support and conversation about polarizing subjects.

While we’re waiting for our officials to enact change in response to these acts, we work to cultivate a loving and open environment for everyone, so we can work to prevent these tragedies from materializing. On and off the court.

Camryn Simon is a freshman dual magazine journalism and Spanish major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at csimon01@syr.edu.

Published on February 19, 2018 at 9:18 pm