There’s a new set of loud, defiant voices that arrived on the scene last week that makes diversity a whole lot more inclusive.
Make way for the heretofore-ignored minors of all stripes and sizes. They are now their own group, the post-millennials, persons under the age of 18, who after Parkland can no longer be ignored, especially as they age and become generally woke, politically active adults.
With Parkland they have found their cause, their voice. And when they walked out of class last week and protested the inaction of politicians and a society controlled by NRA logic, they struck a nerve.
I got a sense of the change when I began teaching as an adjunct again in the California State University system this semester. Diversity in journalism, naturally.
But I didn’t expect the most important lesson so far wouldn’t come from the pearls of wisdom I would impart to my students.
My class and I actually learned it together on Feb. 14 – the day 17 were killed and as many were wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
While I was teaching the class, the numbers were just trickling in. The students were all following it on their phones.
