There are countless times that we, as a country and world, have said the words “never again” and planned to stick with them; but we’ve somehow always managed to break our promise no matter how big or small.

We said never again after the Holocaust, and yet there have been genocides before then. It wasn’t the first, and it wasn’t the last. There never even should have been a first. Millions of people have been removed from this Earth because they don’t look right or believe in the same things as somebody else. People shouldn’t have to hide their heritage or their beliefs because they could be killed for it. They should be proud, not afraid.

We’ve said never again after every mass shooting in the U.S., and next to nothing has been done by the government to change this. Once again, we shouldn’t have to fight for these things; they should just be widely accepted by the population. When people go to school, the last thing they should need to worry about is whether or not someone is going to walk into their school with the intent to physically harm multiple people. Students shouldn’t have to drive all the way to D.C. and swarm the White House like bees to a hive to prove that they deserve to feel safe in a place where they go to learn.

We said never again to sexual assault as well, and yet it’s still prevalent. People should not have to fight for their rights to their bodies. They shouldn’t have to fight for others to realize their bodies should not be violated. The victims of Larry Nassar shouldn’t have accumulated so much; there shouldn’t have been over 150 victims to testify against him; there shouldn’t have even been one. It’s disgusting to think about how many lives he has ruined because he’s a selfish and horrible man.

Rights are being infringed upon, and all we can do is give all that we can, while the government continues to ignore our efforts in order to push their own political agendas. We march, we walk, we protest, we fight for these basic human rights, and more needs to be done on the government’s end. We do these acts for things we shouldn’t have to fight for. We shouldn’t have to fight for the right to be alive, and yet we must do so anyway.