[Xmca-l] Re: Out of the mouth of babes

[mike cole]

Thanks for being there to represent us, Peg.
Mike

On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 7:39 PM Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net> wrote:

> That March provided experiences that moments can yield a movement: More
> words and acts are planned and will be carried out with leadership by youth
> dedicated to hard, focused, intelligent, heart-filled work.
> Some as young as 9, none more than 20, they've revived so many of us!  And
> they are not being tripped up on divisions exploited by those who make the
> problems in the first place.  They recognize each other across all kinds of
> constructed barriers as fellow "troublemakers" (as John Lewis says) for
> those who make our problems.   There was palpable unity in whispers and
> shouts and tears among the 800,000 on Pennsylvania Avenue, answering the
> calling for REV (Register, Educate, Vote at local, state and federal
> levels) in spring and summer acts to follow.
>
> Even the New Yorker magazine last night posted  (
> https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-extraordinary-inclusiveness-of-the-march-for-our-lives
> ) about the rarely found or built inclusivity that was a carefully arranged
> part of the march yesterday.  That inclusion is remarkable and laudatory in
> and of itself.  For that alone, I think we should just about kiss the
> youngsters' feet, sing their praises for a few days and learn how to learn
> from their example!  In that diverse crowd on the podium and in the
> streets, hundreds of thousands of people wept with the brother of the twin
> who was shot in a neighborhood robbery, they chanted Ricardo for the Los
> Angeles young man whose sister told about him, they saw the tape being
> ripped off their mouths by the two young men who finally had a forum for
> inner city gun violence discussion, they empathized about police violence,
> they appreciated the students’ understanding of so many complicated aspects
> of the problem, knowledge of specific details, and the rhetorical power of
> their talks and videos.  We could see power sharing of MSD group and BLM.
> The focus of the national media reporting was on MSD but the students from
> there addressed white privilege and arranged to take up less than a third
> of the rally speaking time; they spread to other organizations the finances
> for buses full of teens and pre-teens from diverse neighborhoods near and
> far.  There is so much that they did so well, even, Andy, rebutting the
> proposal to spend government money to arm teachers while highlighting
> government failure to provide living wages for teachers and other funds
> needed in education. Several times they also made clear the relation
> between economic inequity and locations of gun violence -- not just during
> crimes but also by police.
>
> This old lady's tears still well up when I recall episode after episode:
> Samantha, shot in the leg with shrapnel wounds in the face, threw up at
> the podium, but then grinned in triumph as she went right on explaining an
> action plan for spring and summer of full focus activism before she starts
> college in the fall.
> Emma's fully engaging silence offered us the chance to feel the 6 minutes
> and 20 seconds it took to kill her 17 school mates.  She capped it by her
> final call to "Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job.”
> And so many more.  Each important for the moment and all building a
> movement.
> Peg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2018 11:42 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Out of the mouth of babes
>
> What a wonderful blast of sunshine, like the first rays of summer across
> an arctic landscape! These kids who have "Marched for Our Lives", in such
> gigantic numbers. This must be the broadest movement we have seen in a
> generation, and so young and creative and energetic, promising a better
> future. The issues affecting the young (and surely this activism will flow
> across to education cuts, casualisation of labour, and all those broad
> issues which affect young
> people) are not sectional. This is not a movement of well-off people
> wanting for the poor but a movement which sees itself as defending its own
> vital interests. This makes it very powerful. They are even working at
> getting MLK-type rhetoric going in times when we might have thought that
> that sort of rhetoric was dead. :)
>
> Enough to make an old man cry to see this movement!
>
> Andy
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>
>
>