New York Magazine features school-shooting survivor in proactive and powerful front cover
A US magazine has turned heads for its proactive and powerful front cover — and it is just in time for the 2018 midterm elections.
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IT TAKES a lot in our increasingly sensory, yet increasingly detached, fast-paced world to make you stop and think.
Not only has New York Magazine’s latest cover done that, but it has forced us to sit with the discomfort.
Described as “heartbreaking”, “powerful” and “confronting”, the cover of the October 29 — November 11 issue features a shirtless teenage boy baring horrific scars across his torso and a colostomy bag.
The boy is 15-year-old Anthony Borges, the young man credited with saving up to 20 lives during the Parkland, Florida, school massacre.
Borges used himself as a human shield by barricading a door to protect his classmates in the third deadliest school shooting in US history. He was shot fives times and was the last of the injured to leave the hospital.
This image should be projected onto the buildings where they have gun shows, or put on the sides of a billboard truck, and parked outside those shows. Very powerful, I hope it has a similar impact to Emmett Till’s photo in Time Magazine.
— VeganAutismMom (@VeganAutismMom) October 29, 2018
This @NYMag photo of Parkland High School shooting survivor Anthony Borges is powerful and extremely heartbreaking.
— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) October 29, 2018
These wounds are a result of a profound societal failure. pic.twitter.com/GhJkwGP49T
When the news broke about the Parkland school shooting, were a former student murdered 17 of his classmates, the entire world was heartbroken. But this time, instead of grief, we felt anger. We were done with ‘thoughts and prayers’ and we wanted meaningful action and reform on US gun laws.
However, much like other mass school shootings in the US — the Virginia Tech massacre which killed 32, the Santa Fe High School shooting which killed 10, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which killed 26 — our anger soon turned to apathy.
Since the shocking Parkland massacre, New York Magazine points out, at least 75 other shootings in schools barely made the news, and if they did, they slipped right out of it.
“It’s stunning to think that these shootings — these attacks on children — aren’t being talked about constantly,” the feature bemoans, before sharing the harrowing anecdotes from 27 school-shooting survivors over the last 72 years.
This is the face and the scars of one who survived gun violence — many do not. Enough is enough of this thoughtless butchery funded by the NRA. Thank you @nymag for putting this on your… https://t.co/dCbhuaglgt
— Stan Williams (@stanwilliams) October 29, 2018
Very powerful cover from @NYMag - the scars and debilitation and lasting economic, physical & psychic costs are lasting for those who survive and their families. And they can’t sue anyone. Common sense gun legislation. https://t.co/cW0ENWxEmq
— Mena Burke (@MenaBurke) October 29, 2018
The publication has been widely praised for its in-your-face approach to getting gun legislation back on the agenda — and the timing isn’t a coincidence, with the 2018 midterm elections in the US to take place next week on November 6.
New York Magazine has boldly made its point and now it is leaving the ball in the voters’ court. Let’s hope their anger can be reignited and channelled into voting, rather than again turning into apathy.
Originally published as New York Magazine features school-shooting survivor in proactive and powerful front cover