Here & Now

Noon Wednesday with guest Tatiana Washington

Marisa Wojcik:

Welcome to Noon Wednesday, I’m Marisa Wojcik, a multimedia journalist with Here & Now on Wisconsin Public Television. We are at Rufus King High School in Milwaukee today. And we are talking to an organizer of 50 Miles More and Team ENOUGH. And Tatiana Washington is a senior here at Rufus King High School. Tatiana, thanks so much for being with us.

Tatiana Washington:

I’m glad to be here, thank you.

Marisa Wojcik:

So let’s start with 50 Miles More. It started in Wisconsin last spring right? What happened?

Tatiana Washington:

So, after March For Our Lives events ended, 40 high school students went up to Madison and we did a 50 mile march to Janesville which is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s hometown. And we did that because of his efforts of blocking common sense gun legislation time and time again. And two weeks after our march ended, he announced his retirement. So we’ve been excited about that. After that, because of all of the how well the march was received in Wisconsin, we launched a national campaign, #50more and #50states. And we ask other young people around the country to do their own 50 mile march in their home state.

Marisa Wojcik:

And so recently another state just did that, right?

Tatiana Washington:

Correct, Massachusetts just completed their 50 mile march. And it was to Smith & Wesson, which is a gun manufacturer. And that’s just because they don’t have any NRA backed politicians in Massachusetts. So they, in Massachusetts a lot of the weapons that Smith & Wesson make are illegal but then they ship them out to all these other states. And some of them can commit a crime. The weapon that was used, the gun that was used in Parkland was from Smith & Wesson. David Hogg joined in the march, who was a survivor from the Parkland shooting. And two parents who lost a child in the shootings also joined the Massachusetts march.

Marisa Wojcik:

So you’ve been in close communication with other organizers from other states including organizers from Massachusetts?

Tatiana Washington:

Yes, so we help them and we guide them through the process of how to organize the march. But you know they get to do the actual organizing and it’s their own march but we get to help them and assist them. So it’s really cool to talk with them. And you know not every march looks the same. There’s things done differently in Massachusetts and Wisconsin so it’s been really cool to see that.

Marisa Wojcik:

Is it difficult to coordinate with students from other states?

Tatiana Washington:

Mostly because of the time zones. Like scheduling calls, like oh what time zone are you in? And also because it’s such diverse group of kids in this gun violence prevention movement. That we don’t necessarily all have the same opinions or the same tactics. But at the end of the day we all just want to make a change and end of the day we just want to prevent gun violence.

Marisa Wojcik:

What are the exact policies that you’re asking to be changed that everyone is agreeing on?

Tatiana Washington:

50 Miles More, we would like to see all assault weapons banned. So any war weapons should be banned. We want to raise the purchasing age for a gun to 21. And any accessories that can turn a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon like bump stocks, we don’t want those. And want universal background checks.

Marisa Wojcik:

How is that different from Team ENOUGH? Is Team ENOUGH asking for similar policies?

Tatiana Washington:

Yes, so Team ENOUGH we would like to have an assault weapons banned, universal background checks and I’m blanking the third one.

Marisa Wojcik:

And Team ENOUGH is a national movement as well?

Tatiana Washington:

Yes, so Team ENOUGH is a national group with students from Columbine, Parkland, Milwaukee, and that we all came together. It’s backed by the Brady Campaign. We all have come together. We are all doing stuff in our states, either locally or even like a more national scale to prevent gun violence. But this is almost like a coalition of different students from around the country.

Marisa Wojcik:

The Wisconsin state legislature passed some measures to improve school safety across the state and including security and mental health initiatives. Are those enough for kind of preventing some of these gun violence attacks happening?

Tatiana Washington:

So it’s a start and me personally, I’m glad that the legislators are taking this seriously. But that fear of if your school is next is always in a lot of students’ minds. The other day we had a code red drill and a lot of the students were scared. Just the fact that this could actually happen. And in my classroom we heard a classroom screaming and yelling so we got scared like oh my goodness, is this not actually a drill? And it’s just also the fact that we have to have our school day interrupted when we should be learning but we’re practicing what to do if someone brings a gun into our classroom.

Marisa Wojcik:

What has been the reception from legislators as you’ve been pushing both on a statewide level and a federal level?

Tatiana Washington:

I think legislators are taking this more seriously because the youth around the country are saying this is enough. Team ENOUGH, we gave out report cards to legislators and we had meetings with them. Because in school we get report cards. So you know, our representatives should be actually, for the people, we need to let them know. We’re scrutinizing them. We need to make sure that they are doing their job and they’re actually for the people. So we gave them these report cards, either pass or fail or incomplete grade. And the way that they would get an incomplete grade was if they either didn’t support any of three bills. Which was universal background checks, assault weapons banned, and then extreme risk orders or pro laws which prevents people, this would really prevent domestic violence or suicide with a gun. You can call, like get a judge or police officer to take away someone’s gun for a temporary time period. And so we gave them these report cards and we met with them. If they can’t meet those bills and they don’t get a passing grade, come November we should vote them out.

Marisa Wojcik:

So what is next for Team ENOUGH and for 50 Miles More?

Tatiana Washington:

Team ENOUGH, we are really working hard on mid-terms and making sure that we have representatives and people in congress that do not get money from the NRA. Because that just shows right there that they don’t care about common sense gun legislation or gun violence prevention. And 50 Miles More, we have partnered up with National School Walkout. They were in charge of the April 20th walkouts that happened and we are creating a youth coalition because there is unfortunately a disconnect with a lot of the youth groups around the country. And we’re all doing so many amazing things. We want to make sure that we’re all working together and able to communicate. So we want to bridge that gap.

Marisa Wojcik:

Do you feel momentum growing amongst students and even in your own community being here in Milwaukee?

Tatiana Washington:

Definitely, we just had the Massachusetts march happening and we have other organizers around the country doing their own 50 mile march. And just to make sure that what happened out there March 24th, March For Lives, stops there. We have to continue that momentum. And even like here in Wisconsin, we have amazing youth that are organizing. I interned over the summer with Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort with other youth from Milwaukee area. It just shows that to spend your whole summer doing one cause it shows that this is something that youth are taking seriously. So yeah, I definitely think the momentum’s continuing and I know personally I’m not going to give up on this momentum that has to continue. We have to keep that pressure going.

Marisa Wojcik:

Are you happy to be back now that the school semester has started back up again?

Tatiana Washington:

It’s been a weird adjustment going back to school. But I am glad to be back. I can’t do as much organizing of course when I’m in school but you know, senior year.

Marisa Wojcik:

Well Tatiana thank you so much for talking to us today.

Tatiana Washington:

Yeah thank you so much.

Marisa Wojcik:

For more from Here & Now and Wisconsin Public Television you can visit our website at wpt.org and thanks so much for joining us on Noon Wednesday.