You said:
I don’t know any way to interpret that but accusing families at protests of being exploitative, unless they strictly ensure that their kids don’t chant along or hold a sign.
So Thurnberg, just showed up at the UN, without an invitation, walked up to the podium and gave her speech?
Wow, why don’t more people in the world, just do that?
Not sure how that demonstrates she’s being exploited.
So, she’s being exploited by the UN, who invited her? And before that, by the US Senate?
Did you *really *think that comeback made sense, in your head?
Again, the issue there isn’t “teaching your children your values,” the issue there is, “white supremacy is a terrible ‘value.’”
If the child is using words that are supposed to be way above their education level, they’ve likely been coached.
Pay attention to which children look like they’d much prefer being anywhere else when not mugging for a camera.
If the person’s actions have been focused on their particular cause and they now advocate for it publicly then that seems fine to me. Far better in a way than poorly educated adults taking talking points from ALEC.
Parrots, or props, simply mouthing words is always a turn off. The age of the prop hardly matters.
If I were to lay down a standard, it would be two-fold. Here is the first part:
If the issue directly affects or threatens to immediately affect children, and if the children have a clear interest in the issue, and if the children can be reasonably expected to understand that the issue affects or threatens to immediately affect them, then it is appropriate and effective for the child to raise awareness of the issue. It’s like they have standing in the court of public opinion.
If someone lacks this standing, it does not invalidate their message. In my opinion it still makes it harder to take them seriously.
This covers awareness-raising activities of Mr. Grimm, Mr. Hogg, Ms. Yousafzai, Ms. Brown, Ms. Chavez, Mr. Contreras, Ms. Copeny, Ms. Dias, Ms. Jennings, Mr. Napoles, Ms. Kasky, Ms. Corin, Ms. González, Mr. Wind, Ms. Reid, and Ms. Totah.
Ms. Elder and Ms. Shahidi’s activities are sort of on the borderline because they try to get out the young adult vote, which doesn’t really apply to children per se. But neither of them are children and the target group (I believe) is young adults. I would still use the same standard but with “young adults” instead of children. As such their activism is appropriate and not held back by their ages.
Ms. Margolin, Mr. Martinez, and Ms. Thunberg don’t qualify unless and until they show that climate change has directly affected them or threatens to immediately affect them. Someone from the recently submerged villages of the Solomon Islands, for example, would have that superficial “standing” that Margolin, Martinez, and Thunberg simply don’t have.
Here is the second part of the standard:
Children are still at a disadvantage when it comes to proposing or endorsing a solution. The assumption is that children can recognize pain and inequity, but they don’t yet understand how the world works. What does it take to do away with this handicap? Reputation, endorsements from adults (“this kid knows her stuff”), interviews, essays, debates, pretty much anything that shows that the kid knows how the world works like an adult would (should).
I do not now take the time to evaluate the previously mentioned children under this half of my standard.
~Max
So, the smarter a kid is, the less weight we should give to their words and ideas?
Terrible standard.
What, the UN and the US Senate can’t or won’t exploit children or anyone else for that matter? Does that really make sense to you?
And that’s not true of grown-ups? If grown-ups had unlimited knowledge and wisdom, there wouldn’t be any need for border controls, prisons, asylum processes…
Exploitation = they are saying something I don’t like
At least that’s how a lot of posters in this thread seem to be using that word.
The UN “exploiting” Greta Thunberg into yelling at them for twenty minutes doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.
Trying to explain what might qualify as exploitation to those that refuse to believe that exploitation even exists is a fool’s errand.
I certainly believe that exploitation exists. I have yet to see any evidence that it applies to any examples from current events (whom I’m not allowed to name specifically).
So your answer is “Yes, I really did think that made sense.”
nevermind.
???
Exploitation is using someone else to further your own agenda. There are many parties in the Senate and the UN that would like to see the world take a tougher policy stance on climate change. Inviting a 16 year old girl to help influence that agenda seems like a no brainer. And when Trump makes fun of her, like they all knew he would, even better.
It’s using someone else unfairly. What’s *unfair *about inviting a known climate change activist to speak on … climate change?