Emma Gonzalez, 18 years old, Cuban, graduating from Stoneman Douglas High School. A passionate speech made her THE face of the protest:
“Politicians who sit in their gilded houses and chairs that are paid for by the gun lobby NRA tell us: Nothing could have prevented something like this … we say: bullshit.”
Again and again she resolutely wipes the tears from her eyes. That was three days after the school rampage that killed 17 people. The schoolgirl Emma Gonzalez suddenly became the activist Emma Gonzalez. Painting, drawing, sewing – all of her hobbies have suddenly become unimportant. Because the young woman with the shaved hair has only one goal: to change the gun laws in her country. She believes Trump’s proposal to arm teachers is completely wrong:
“My school had two weeks every year when they ran out of paper. And now there is supposed to be $ 400 million to train teachers on the gun? Really? Really now?”
More followers than the gun lobby NRA
She doesn’t talk about it for long. She criticizes, accuses, demands. She now has more followers on Twitter than the powerful gun lobby NRA. Many stand behind Emma. Others attack them. When a Republican politician, who actually had no opponent in the election campaign in Maine, cursed Emma as a skinhead lesbian, a 28-year-old decides to run against him. In the meantime the man has given up.
And Emma? Just keep going. Her mother Beth watches the rapid development in amazement and a little worried, she says on CBS:
“I’m scared. It’s like she’s built wings out of wood and duct tape and throws herself off a building. We run under her with a rescue net that she doesn’t want or that she thinks she doesn’t need.”
Activism instead of learning
Emma’s form of mourning: protesting, shaking up. Your life is upside down. If the massacre hadn’t happened, she’d just be studying to graduate now. Emma was born in the year of the rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado:
“I no no world without mass shootings in schools.”
But Emma and her classmates want to ensure that the students who come after her can go to school again without fear. She has been living for this since February 14th.
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