care, make a change. These gun laws need a change!”
Her applause was even louder than David’s. Aarayln Hughes had found her voice. She was not meek now.
2
Jackie was thrilled. What an amazing day in Parkland, and gun safety was dominating the national conversation again. And they hadn’t had to organize this one. That helped. The march in DC was ten days away.
One reaction had left her with a sour aftertaste, though. This is her account of the following day.
Jackie walked into math class that morning, AP calculus AB. Her teacher asked, “Who’s walking out today?” All the hands went up. “I bet half of you don’t know why you’re walking out,” he said.
Jackie was stunned. He knew she and Alfonso were in the class. “I wasn’t going to let him do that,” she told me.
I know why I’m walking out, she told him.
Why, Jackie?
For disaffection for current gun legislation.
Do you even know current gun legislation?
I actually do.
“And so we basically got into that for a little bit,” she said. “And he proceeded to call me immature and said I would never understand the complexity of this issue until I’m an adult. But he actually didn’t say it like that. He didn’t say ‘the complexity of this issue.’ I just made it sound smarter—he just sounded dumb.”
“I think I happen to be more mature than more than half the adults in this country right now,” she said.
I beg to differ, he said. But we don’t have to get into that.
“And then he started teaching math but as he was writing on the board he continued to say, ‘This walkout won’t accomplish anything. You’re just going to walk out to get out of class.’”
This is a statement, she said. People have been protesting for centuries and it’s the largest message. Look at Selma, look at the Little Rock Nine. It made a statement and it made history.
“He’s just stuck in his own world,” she told me. “He actually just got a cell phone for the first time after the shooting. So he’s clearly stuck a hundred years back. He doesn’t understand. We were actually arguing for twenty minutes and the entire class was silent.”
I asked how old he was.
“Probably in his sixties. He’s the one who doesn’t understand the complexity of it. He hasn’t heard enough of our side, because he won’t listen to us because he thinks we’re just kids. As do a lot of adults.”
“Are you getting that from a lot of adults?”
Not so much in person, she said. “On Twitter. The random old dudes will have like three grammar mistakes in their tweet and be like, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But there’s an overwhelming amount of love from adults. The only people obviously giving hate that I’m aware of, other than the people on Twitter, are the kids at school because they think I’m doing this for attention.”
“Really? How many are you getting that from?”
“It happened to be my old friend group. It’s a good assortment of fiftysome-odd kids. I just had my study hall and was crying. People weren’t talking to me, because people just don’t talk to me anymore. They shun me. I sat alone during lunch today because I couldn’t find Emma. I’d rather be by myself than with people who talk bad about me behind my back.”
“And how are you getting wind of it?”
“Oh, there’s people that still support me that are telling me who’s saying stuff. And I appreciate them telling me. I made a lot of new friends out of this. They make me so happy. I genuinely haven’t been this excited to be with a group of people in years. So that’s what’s been going on—it kind of sucks. Especially in school, because I have all my classes with them, but when I leave school—like I’m going to the office after this [interview]. Every time I go there, it’s kind of like a sanctuary. I love everyone there.”
Losing all her friends? This was the second time she had mentioned it in the past few weeks. I clarified what she meant by “old friend group”: pre–Valentine’s Day? Yes. Her friend group from before Valentine’s Day was gone. Then she corrected herself: they had been her friends until her Twitter follower count took off. “It sucks, but it’s happening to all of us. Which is how we’re rising above it—with each other’s support.”
Falling out with one close friend can be devastating for a high school student. But amputation of her entire