These Magic Kids

[ehrnst]

They somehow don’t seem real. They seem more like fully formed wizards who just popped into existence, as if the shooter who tore through their high school just showed up expecting sheep and found warrior-paladins instead.

But then it makes even less sense, because they aren’t just from Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida. They are kids from everywhere. And they keep demanding that the media recognizes that they are from everywhere. These kids, these magic kids, keep saying to the interviewers, GO TALK TO THE OTHER KIDS. GO TALK TO THE BLACK KIDS. GO TALK TO THE POOR KIDS. GO TALK TO THE LATINO KIDS.

Then, as happened time and again today, when the cameras finally turn to the black kids and the Latino kids and the poor kids, THEY talk about other kids.

This isn’t a story about Parkland, Florida and a really smart AP class with great prospects. It’s about a full-on generation shift that caught me, and I’m guessing you, totally by surprise. These magic kids are from EVERYWHERE.

.....................................................................................

I think the reason we are so surprised by these kids is that we’ve spent so many years telling ourselves that they were “snowflakes” who were going to get blown away by the real world, that we missed the coming storm.

God, were we wrong.

The truth is these kids didn’t spontaneously erupt from Florida a month ago. They have been deconstructing the bullshit of our generations for their entire lives, and now they’re ready.

Not for nothing, these are the kids that were born, literally, in the months after September 11, 2001. They came into a world at war. They grew up in the shadow of ever-threatening “Red Alert Levels” and endless “Active Shooter Drills” and the ubiquity of “Rekt” videos on 4Chan. They did not know one day of school before Columbine. They did not know one day of life without the threat of terrorism. They have not known one day of their nation in peace. Like it or not, they have lived every day of their lives, twenty-four-seven, on the battlefield.

https://midcenturymodernmag.com/these-magic-kids-1aefbbeb81cd

[PatrickforO]

1. Thought provoking and true.

We had as a people pretty much forgotten how to handle a democracy. They have not.

[Cracklin Charlie]

2. These kids...

Aged twenty years in six minutes.

They have earned the world's attention. I will defend them with all that I have.

[calimary]

4. No kidding! My kids are a few years older than this group is,

but they’re wide awake too.

They may lift us all up. God Bless every one of ‘em!!!

[mountain grammy]

3. K & R

[AwakeAtLast]

5. These Magic Kids

Have Magic Parents who lived in the shadow of Bush 2, Columbine and 9/11. Not a coincidence. The kindling was laid, they were the match.

My daughter is 16, BTW, and will be able to vote in 2020.

I, too, am a Magic Parent!

[Blue_Adept]

7. Lots of Gen-X parents like myself that found it difficult to get control of the levers of power

with the past generation outsized and the generation after even larger. So, as has been said in other studies regarding Gen-X'ers, we put our heads down, got shit done, and quietly raised this generation and guided them as best we could as technology bloomed around us all and they took to it.

My eldest is 18 an she's a proud, fierce, kid who speaks her mind clearly in school about a range of topics with a good bit of knowledge to back it up.

My other is 15 and she's just as intense in different ways, connected to other parts of the world.

And like their classmates, they've been pushed to be outspoken, to partake in public speaking almost daily in various classes and through all-class performances every year, that they're unafraid to put themselves out there.

These kids deserve all the credit for taking the reins. But they also have those proud parents that have been supporting them all along into this.

[raven mad]

8. Baby-boomer here, with an incredible daughter of 37.

I raised her to never fear speaking up for justice, and she is raising my two granddaughters the same way.

Emma is her new hero.

Fierce? Oh, HELL yeah! Watch out RWNJ's - YOU are in their sites!

[backtoblue]

6. Kick and rec!!

[sheshe2]

9. Follow the Children

[uponit7771]

10. K&R

[CanSocDem]

11. Yes indeed!

k&r