Advice From a Teen: Listen to Us, Support Our Activism

With the nationwide March for Our Lives behind us, many people are wondering what will happen to the momentum of the protests against gun violence, especially for the teen organizers of the movement.

Em Odesser is a big believer in listening to young people, not only because she's a teenager (she's 17 years old, a senior at Hastings High School), but because she's the editor-in-chief of Teen Eye Magazine, an entirely teen-run digital publication that covers "everything from Free the Nipple to Black Lives Matter to people talking about their own communities and how they feel in their school," says Odesser.

She co-founded the magazine when she was 14, but she says things took a turn after the 2016 election. Her email inbox was flooded with messages from teen readers, expressing frustration and asking how to feel included in the political and cultural discourse. Odesser says that when she took these concerns to school, she felt largely dismissed by her teachers.

"I was really frustrated at the idea that teens wouldn’t be able to participate in radical movements and actually be revolutionaries," Odesser told WNYC. "Looking through history, so many movements have been led by young people."

Odesser recently wrote a piece for Teen Vogue about her school walkout two weeks ago, which she felt was co-opted by the adults around her.

But she does feel like the post-Parkland movement is different from other youth-led protests we've seen recently.

"Our society is starting to become slightly more understanding of teen rights, but also black people are still being murdered on the daily by police," said Odesser. "So when we’re talking about gun control, we need to keep in mind the people who aren’t on the TIME Magazine covers, [who] don’t currently have the spotlight but should have the spotlight because they’ve been fighting this issue for a very long time."

Her advice to young people on how to keep the momentum up: Get familiar with your elected representatives, and make it clear to them that you'll vote them out if they don't support your interests. If you're an artist, create art about this. 

And her advice to adults: Listen to teens.

"Even though we’re capable, we definitely need resources. We definitely need help time managing. We definitely need people giving us validation, because there’s a lot of emotional labor and it’s really scary to be speaking up," said Odesser. "So to any adults watching, I’d say: Listen, give local teens your love, give them your time, help them figure this out. "

WNYC's Shumita Basu spoke to Richard Hake.