Thread by @Jenn_E_Weaver

Today is really about listening to kids, but here’s my message to high school students walking out today (sorry in advance for too-long thread): I have two kids, in second and fifth grade over at Hillsborough Elementary. Every day when they leave for school I make sure to 1/

to kiss them good bye and tell them I love them. And this is like, a thing with me. They walk to school and I will call them back down the drive or chase them up the block if they leave without this ritual because - and I know other parents do this too - if something should 2/

happen to me or god forbid, them, before we see each other again I want our last memory of each other to be this simple, intimate show of affection. When the Parkland shooting happened, one of the instinctual things to say as we consider those 17 dead high schoolers is 3/

“I can’t imagine”. Can’t imagine what they went through, what their parents and loved ones are going through. But you see I kiss my kids good bye every day because I DO imagine. I imagine them right now, today - my oldest taking some godforsaken math test and my younger one 4/

doing a wax museum as Wilma Rudolph. And I imagine those normal school things being interrupted by rampaging gunman, always a man. And I imagine them huddling with their classmates in a corner. And I imagine how pointless that will be if the shooter gets in the room. 5/

But I also imagine this - for them, for you, for every kid in this country - I imagine schools that are safe. I imagine nurses in every school. I imagine social workers in every school. I imagine 100 percent of kids in school with safe housing, three meals a day, and at least 6/

a couple good friends. These are the things we need to create safe schools - not guns, not more police, not metal detectors. We need safety and connection and community.
Before too long you will leave high school. You’ll go to college or trade school or get a job or just move 7/

away somewhere new for the heck of it and you will get distracted. So I am here now and looking you in the eyes and saying that is okay and normal...BUT. As you grow and change don’t lose track of this sense of urgency you feel right now. You must keep fighting. 8/

Because us who came before you have messed this up so badly. Don’t be like us, be better. Keep fighting for safe and gun free schools. Connect your struggle here in Orange County to kids in Chicago, and Baltimore, and yes, Florida who are all organizing against against gun 9/

violence whether it’s in our schools or in our neighborhoods. Keep fighting for the rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness to outweigh the right to carry the deadliest weapons, whether the lives you’re fighting for are middle class ones, rich ones, poor ones, 10/

black ones, white ones, Latinx ones, straight ones, queer ones, disabled ones. Keep fighting! And when they tell you to calm down, don’t calm down, keep fighting! And when they tell you that you don’t understand, tell them no, THEY don’t understand and keep fighting! 11/

And when they tell you it’s impossible, that this - a society and culture absolutely saturated with guns is just how it is, there’s nothing you can do about it - you think of those kids at Parkland, you think of those babies at Newtown, 12/

and you think of those kids in Chicago killed by guns bought and imported across state lines, and You. Keep. Fighting. I know you can do this. I believe in you. #Enough #NotOneMore #NationalWalkoutDay 13/13