Essay Sample on Lying in Silence: Gun Violence Protestors Send Strong Message

Evans, GA: The protestors are passing their message in silence while lying down on their backs, their hands akimbo, and eyes closed. Visible silence that is performative in nature highlights that the protesters have already been silenced by the already reigning cases of gun violence.

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Stamford, Conn: The protestors, who are most likely students, are wearing sad faces and look deeply disturbed by the several gun violence cases meted against their fellow students. They look threatened because their classrooms are no longer safe environments for learning.

Chattonage, Tenn (Griggs et al., 2018): All the demonstrators have their right arms up in the air. The uniformity with which they have their hands displayed and placards held sends a strong message of solidarity against gun violence. Furthermore, there is visible silence among them, an act that emphasizes the ‘silencing of gun violence’.

New Orleans: The most visible message on the photo is a placard with the message, ‘AM I NEXT?’ This is a call of action to those who think they are safe from gun violence thereby taking the ongoing protests against gun violence lightly. No one is safe.

Cure Violence Promise Story

The cure violence strategy, unlike most other forms of strategies adopted to combat community violence, gives violence a wholesome approach by leveraging a model that is based on crime-disease management (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014). The model focuses on; (1) Interrupting transmission of community violence by identifying and studying individuals prone to violent behavior, (2) Finding ways to reach out to the identified individuals, and change their violent behavior, and (3) changing the norms of communities towards violent behavior. The basic premise of Cure Violence was in Chicago.

Cure violence was evaluated based on places that were leveraging the model to those that did not have the model. From the evaluation, it was identified that: (1) There was a significant reduction in violence among communities that adopted the cure violence model; (2) Homicides were reduced by 56% in places that utilized the model; (3) The model saved over five million dollars in costs associated with homicides throughout a 3-year evaluation (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014). Exposure to violence causes more violence, family dysfunctions, and health problems. The key to success in curing violence is understanding the scope of the problem and addressing it.

Self-Care Plan

Workaholism significantly hampered my commitment to my self-care plan. In a bid to achieve more within a limited period, I found myself working excessively hard for prolonged hours, thus eating into the time set aside for evaluating, executing, and revising my self-care plan. To minimize the obstacles in the future, I intend to come up with a strict work schedule and be a bit easy on myself. Fixing my work schedule to a given number of hours will give me enough time to fully implement the self-care plan while cultivating discipline toward the same.

Notably, as a result of workaholism, I did not manage to fully follow through with my self-care plan. For instance, I sometimes abandoned runs, walks, and other exercise activities incorporated into my daily routine. Nevertheless, one self-care activity that worked for me this semester was trying something new every fortnight. I was able to pick new foods, attend new events, and engage in new outdoor activities fortnightly as had been initially set on my self-care plan. Trying new things has enhanced my well-being in terms of happiness and developing more positive energy towards life.

References

Griggs, T., Lee, J. C., Mccarthy, M., Murray, B., Parlapiano, A., Ward, J., & Williams, J. (2018, March 24). Photos From the 'March for Our Lives' Protests Around the World. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/24/us/photos-march-for-lives.html.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2014, Sep, 15). Cure Violence Promise Story. YouTube. https://youtu.be/itDAFOdfTdI.