Quinta Brunson Explained Why She Won’t Do A School Shooting Episode On “Abbott Elementary,” And This Makes A Lot Of Sense

Quinta Brunson just addressed a question she’s faced repeatedly: Will she dedicate an Abbott Elementary episode to today’s devastating reality of school shootings?

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In a Women of the Year cover story for Glamour, the actor said, “I just think about the day-to-day in a workplace comedy, and I don’t think that that’s the realistic day-to-day in the classroom. I say that knowing that school shootings happen all the time, every day or every week, unfortunately. But there are two different realities.”

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She continued, “There’s the one present in the classroom where teachers are just trying to get through a lesson. And then there’s the outside perspective of us engaging with teachers through the news.”

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The 33-year-old explained that when she talks to her friends who are teachers, they’re generally focused on getting through their lessons every day. “They’re just trying to get the reading scores up,” she said. “They’re just trying to do this job. If anything, the school shooting thing is in the background, like, ‘Fuck.’ It’s kind of like, ‘We got to deal with that, too?'”

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She also drew parallels to her thought process on addressing race on the show: “I really wanted to lead with everyday story first and let everything fold into that. So I wanted to talk about, instead of ‘Janine confronts her Blackness,’ or ‘Janine deals with this race issue,’ it’s really just like, ‘Janine is trying to change a light bulb.'”

She continued, “I think that’s the way the majority of the people that I [know are]. Like my family, they’re very working class. When they’re at work, the issue at work is just the task at hand.”

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The actor admitted that it’s complicated, and she’s unsure if she wants to “dedicate [her] space” to addressing school shootings. “I don’t want to open up my show to that political violence. I consider it that at this point — even the discourse of it is violent. And although I participate in it outside of my show, and I’m a huge advocate for eradicating gun violence in this country, but I don’t think my show has to carry that,” she concluded.

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This isn’t the first time Quinta has spoken about the issue. Last year, she tweeted that people are so “deeply removed from demanding more from the politicians” that they demand it from “entertainment.” In a second tweet, she urged folks to “use that energy” to demand change from elected officials.

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You can read the full Glamour interview here.