No, they’re used as human shields.
I distinctly remember it was forbidden to criticize David Hogg because he was a minor. No matter what he said, true or not, we had to smile politely and talk about how brave he was.
Of course this applies to only kids that hold liberal points of view, my liberal friends had no problem condoning calls for violence against the Covington kid. This very site had multiple posts stating how much they would like to “slap” the smirk off the child’s innocent face.
Knowing about the death treats he continues to get, thinking that he is brave happens regardless if he gets somethings wrong.
There was nothing proper about a group of Catholics that decided that it was ok to troll extreme right wingers that still remembered that even though they did agree on being against abortion, they did keep in mind that the one represented by the MAGA hats and clothes is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins.
I think your memory is at fault there. While some public figures and others who made homophobic or otherwise offensive public statements about Hogg did get some pushback about it from the public, nobody was “forbidden to criticize” Hogg.
You may have fallen victim to the common right-wing confusion between “not being able to offensively smear somebody without any negative consequences” and “being forbidden to criticize somebody”.
Oh, geez. Really, people? Look, if you want to talk about some politician using his/her kid in a campaign ad, fine. Shame on them and all that. But the basic premise here is flawed as hell, and anyone who’s spent a lot of years with a lot of teen-agers can tell you this. And no, our own kids and their friends don’t count.
There really ARE teens who have the courage of their convictions, and whose convictions are not those of their parents or some political party or activist, but their own. I spent way too many years judging speech meets and essay contests to think otherwise, and I’m not the only one on this board to have done so. Some teens have excellent research and rhetorical skills, and a few, a very few of those have the passion, determination, and persistence to gain an national or international platform.
Take Greta Thunberg. Too many people think, “Oh, she MUST have had puppet masters behind her!” and haven’t bothered to look any further. Shame on them. Thunberg wrote an essay for a newspaper ecology contest and won. (And no, she didn’t get her views from her parents, who disagreed with both her climate change and student strike ideas but who, to their credit, didn’t forbid or discourage her.) That led to an invitation to participate in a group of kids concerned about climate change. Someone floated the idea of a student strike. The other kids dismissed it, so Thunberg took it on by herself. She posted on social media. It struck a nerve among the many, many young people who are–news flash–well-informed and worried about climate change. Boom. It went viral.
It’s a little like the Hawaii woman who three years ago posted an idea on Facebook: a woman’s march, except in this instance, Thunberg didn’t hand over the development of her idea to professional organizers, though she naturally consulted some on her own initiative. And she gained international recognition and gave a hell of a speech at the UN.
Back in 1880, a sixteen-year-old girl wrote such a persuasive rebuttal to a sexist Philadelphia newspaper column, the editor offered her a job. Her first article was on divorce laws that were unfair to women. She went on to expose the horrors of insane asylums, effecting their reform. Her pen name was Nellie Bly. Imagine her impact if the internet and social media had been around then.
Bly and Thunberg were outliers, no doubt about it. But they were not puppets used by manipulative adults.
I still dont get why this one girl out of the thousands all over the world who write essays or give speeches or do something for the environment - only she gets such worldwide fame?
Now how many other parents are pushing their daughters (sorry no boys allowed) to get up on the stage and make speeches so the kid can become famous?
Perhaps seek to educate yourself. Here is the wiki on this person.
Ok, I get that. She had a presence in Sweden. But still she isnt the only teen in the world to do things for an environmental cause. I still dont get how her status rose from just a local person in Sweden to worldwide fame in only 1 year.
Do you get how anything goes viral?
Particularly things that matter deeply to a lot of people?
An interesting and thoughtful piece about how Thunberg is radically different from other climate-change activists.
Greta Thunberg’s enemies are right to be scared. Her new political allies should be too
Well, ISTM that the cite Bone provided laid it out pretty well:
Thunberg at 15 won a 2018 student essay competition on the topic of climate change sponsored by a major Swedish newspaper, and as the contest winner, she got her essay published in the paper.
That exceedingly minor “public figure” status led to her being contacted by, and attending some meetings of, a Swedish environmental group, during which the suggestion of a student strike on the climate-change issue originated.
Thunberg’s unusual level of stubbornness/dedication resulted in her solo “school strike” protest every day for three weeks (and subsequently on Fridays) outside Swedish government buildings, and her teen-typical level of social-media savvy resulted in her Instagramming and Tweeting her protest actions.
Her protest caught the attention of the founder of a Swedish social-media company focused on climate change, whose social-media coverage of her actions attracted a wider audience, especially after he made a YouTube video about them in English which got international attention.
Thunberg stayed solidly engaged and on-message about her cause, attending demonstrations, giving speeches, and talking to other activists, while also continuing her weekly “school strike” protests. The “school strike” concept for climate-change protest caught on and was widely associated with Thunberg’s name.
And the rest is, quite literally, history. Sure, Thunberg isn’t the only prominent student activist against climate change: there are, for instance, Jamie Margolin, Vic Barrett, Xiye Bastida, and many others in the US alone.
But Thunberg, as one of the first young people to come to international attention in this area, happened to be the chief beneficiary/victim of the positive-feedback loop of being noticed and consequently being sought as a spokesperson and thereby becoming more noticed and consequently being even more sought, etc. etc.
I don’t know what on earth you mean by this. Lots of young climate activists are male, such as the aforementioned Vic Barrett, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Paul Campion and Evan Weber, and numerous others both in the US and worldwide.
The climate-action youth movement does tend to be predominantly female, but it’s by no means female-only, and there is AFAICT absolutely no attitude that boys aren’t “allowed” in it. (The two teenagers of my acquaintance who were climate-striking in Christchurch NZ when the Christchurch mosque shooter committed his attack, for example, are both male.)
That makes a good point. Will even the most liberal leaders actually make any big changes?