I have been struggling to find words over the last few days. I’m awed by all the kids who experienced profound trauma and tragedy firsthand and have found their words so eloquently.
Everything that can be said about gun control has been said. I don’t know how to add to the conversation because it’s not a conversation. You can’t converse with a pile of NRA money. Those people aren’t human.
But I wanted to say: teenagers today are extraordinary. Adults whine about their attachment to their phones, their vanity, their entitlement.
But what the olds don’t get is that they ARE connecting with other people on those phones. Millennials are in constant contact with each other. They’re constantly expressing things that might be hard to say in person. They’re emotionally available to each other.
Most importantly, they’re connecting with people who are different from the ones sitting across from them at the dinner table. People with other experiences. People with broader views of the world.
Why do you think a bunch of kids from Florida — FLORIDA — seem to have a more nuanced understanding of the change we need than our elected officials?
Snapchatting from a school shooting is fucking journalism. It’s combat photography. We have a greater understanding of the human side of this tragedy than we’ve had of any of the other (bazillion) mass shootings because they documented it.
Adults have got to stop judging these kids. They get up every morning and have to consider the possibility that they’re gonna get murdered during their geometry test. So maybe they seek comfort in a screen. We can’t judge it. We didn’t have to live like that.
Anyway.
Shut the fuck up for a minute and listen to these children. They know better than you do.
Shut the fuck up for a minute and listen to these children. They know better than you do.
