We Say We Care, But Do We Show Up?

Hundreds of students packed the west quad to meet Adamn Killa Oct. 16 after he posted on social media he would be visiting Loyola. Students rushed to his car, and were eager to be posted on his social media or get video footage proving they were present when he visited.

Just the week before, on Oct. 8, the Loyola Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had a protest on the same quad to commemorate the Palestinians lost during what is now a two-year genocide. This protest was also advertised on Instagram. Only 30 people attended the SJP protest — a stark contrast to the Adamn Killa event. 

The difference wasn’t just in the numbers. It was in what those numbers revealed about us as a student body. This isn’t about judging individual choices, but it’s about recognizing a pattern. We’ve become a generation which performs our values online but rarely pays the cost of living them out. 

Protesting has become one of the most visible forms of activism in our political moment. However, protesting isn’t entertainment. It’s not about gathering for the aesthetic or collecting content. It’s a deliberate act of disruption. It’s a distressing process designed to raise awareness and discomfort regarding what’s happening.

In this case, the SJP demonstration was meant to make Loyola and their students uncomfortable with the roughly sixty thousand Palestinians being killed through violence and intentional starvation, and the fact our tuition could potentially be aiding in this slaughter. 

I’m both mad and disappointed. Palestinian students who have lost loved ones showed up — not just to remember them, but to demand a form of justice our government and our school refuse to provide. And we couldn’t be bothered because protesting has become performative — something we only practice in moments that offer entertainment rather than in moments that demand something from us.

Some people may share their concerns about safety, discomfort or even being part of something, unfortunately seen as “controversial.”

However, take into account that Palestinian students showed up — students who have lost family members, whose loved ones are living under bombardment and whose grief is active and ongoing. 

They showed up knowing they may face backlash or counterprotest — all while carrying the weight of active grief, of watching their homelands be destroyed in real time and their families killed. They continue to carry these emotions alongside the abandonment of institutions that refuse to recognize their pain.  If we’re discussing feeling unsafe, let’s acknowledge who’s at risk versus who’s simply uncomfortable.

In this context, the feeling of discomfort stems from a place of privilege — it means the stakes for someone are social, rather than existential. 

Additionally, thousands flooded the streets of Chicago for the “No Kings” protest — a massive demonstration against authoritarianism and threats to democracy. If I scrolled through my Instagram, the majority of people I follow who attend Loyola had either attended the demonstration or posted about it.

Clearly, we’re willing to show up for causes we believe in. This brings us to the real question — which causes are we willing to show up for, and why?

Scroll through campus’s Instagram stories on any given week and see the infographics about social justice, reposts about global crises and empathetic captions about “standing with” various causes. 

But when it’s time to stand literally —  in person, in public — with our names and faces attached, the turnout tells a different story.

Showing up matters, protesting matters. We have proven we can show up, but for a celebrity sighting or a march with thousands of people downtown. The infrastructure for showing up exists, but  we just seem to reserve it for moments that cost us nothing or align with something “popular” or “trendy.” This is the pattern we need to break.

I’m not saying this to call out students, but to call them in, holding myself to these standards as well. It’s easy to feel like one more person won’t make a difference, and my presence doesn’t matter. But those thirty people mattered to the students who organized the demonstration. They mattered to the Palestinian students grieving loved ones.

The next time there’s a protest on the quad, whether it’s for Palestine, climate justice or any cause that asks us to be uncomfortable, show up — not just for the content, not because it’s trending but because values mean nothing if they are only practiced when convenient.