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section one
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David Hogg
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images 5
This is a photograph taken during the March for Our Lives Rally in Washington, DC, in 2018. In the
center of the picture is Emma Gonzalez, who along with David Hogg and other Parkland students
became politically active after the tragedy at their school.
What message does this photo seem to communicate, and how might Hogg respond to the photo
based on what you have read?
or blue, we are all human. We all have experienced achieve your desired result, and so we’ll leave
loss and pain and joy. We all have families and the vilification to other people as we set about in
friends and hometowns. As John Kennedy once good faith to convert our pain and loss into
said when talking about resolving the differences of action that changes our world for the better.
a different time, “We all inhabit this small planet. We will continue to talk to any audience in
We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our any town anywhere to convey the simple, strong
children’s future. And we are all mortal.” message that commonsense legislation does not
Please do not misunderstand me — our mean taking your guns away — it means saving
goals to make America safer do involve political lives. And we will continue to work during the
solutions, and politics asks you to make choices. coming election and all the elections to follow to
One candidate over another, one value support moral candidates who will value lives
judgment over another, one solution over over lobbyist dollars and common sense over
another. Democracy is by nature about choices, ideology. And we will continue to describe things
and choices can be divisive. We will fight for our as they are, and to tell the truth — about who is
goals, we will not relent, and we will not give up. and who is not a captive of the gun lobby, which
But we in March For Our Lives have learned seeks to keep us afraid and keep us divided. We
through this baptism by fire in 2018 that the will continue to use the technologies available to
world is not improved by vilifying each other. In us to address the whole world, even as we
addition to being childish and wrong, vilification cherish meeting and talking to new individuals
is also inefficient, in that it is a terrible way to in town after town, whether we agree or disagree.
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