VOA慢速英语--帕克兰德的学生活动家会定义美国的年轻一代吗?

Will Parkland Student Activists¹ Define America’s Younger Generation?

More than three months after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the survivors² who became gun-control activists may be deciding how their generation will be remembered.

Carolyn Davis is with the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that studies religion, culture and public policy.

She spoke³ with VOA about the history of student activism in the United States.

She said,“It’s the beginning of something really, really compelling -- a new generation of political movement.”

She added, "You look at the civil rights movement, you look at the anti-war movement. These are movements led by students, led by young people, so there’s precedence for this. Suffrage⁴ and the American Revolution, in large part, were fought by people about this age.”

Seventeen people died in the February 14 shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Effect of “die-in” protests on Florida politics

David Hogg has become one of the most well known of Parkland’s student activists. He recently announced a boycott⁵ of Publix food stores. He made the announcement after learning the company had donated money to a man hoping to become Florida’s next governor. The candidate, a member of the Republican Party, is a supporter of the National Rifle Association, a gun rights group.

Hogg and other student activists organized a "die-in" protest. Students lay on the floor of several Publix stores in the state to create the appearance of students killed by gun violence.

On May 25, Publix announced it was halting all political donations.

Hogg told VOA in March, “This is the beginning of us taking back our democracy and revolutionizing America for the better.”

On social media, Hogg often declares, “The young people will win.” Carolyn Davis says that kind of hope is a sign of the young generation.

College student Haley Fleming told VOA that the student movement is just getting started.

She said,“People this age are going to start voting in the next few years. They’ll be voting in the next presidential election and every election after that, and then they’ll start running for Congress and that’s when this movement is really going to take shape.”

That kind of directed, political thinking is fairly common for the post-millennial⁶ generation, notes William Frey of the Brookings Institution, a research center in Washington.

He said, “They kind of look at the rest of us older people as something to push aside. Not in a bombastic⁷ way, but basically just sort of shrug⁸ their shoulders and say, ‘Let’s move on from all of this.’”

Millennials and post-millennials

Just who belongs to the post-millennial generations is open to debate. Davis describes anyone between the ages of 15 and 24 as a post-millennial. But the Pew Research Center says anyone born from 1997 to the present is part of this generation. The oldest among them turn 21 in 2018. William Frey defines post-millennials as anyone born in 1998 to the present -- people aged⁹ 20 and below.

This generation has been given several names, including Gen Z, Digital Generation, iGeneration and #Generation. Yet nothing has stuck in the same way the term “millennials” has for the generation before them.

“From what we can see, they’re very liberal, they’re very democratic in terms of their political expectations,” said Frey. He added that, compared to their own parents or millennials, post-millennials appear to be more liberal.

“The tricky¹⁰ thing about post-millennials is they’re not yet fully¹¹ formed.”

The politics of post-millennials

When it comes to politics, young people are deeply divided along racial lines, the PRRI study found. About one-third of young white people say they are supporters of President Donald Trump¹². But support for Trump among blacks, 5 percent, and Hispanics, 17 percent, in the same age group is much lower.

A recent PRRI survey attempted to identify the most critical issues facing post-millennials. It named the top three issues as jobs and unemployment, terrorism and the cost of higher education.

Over the years, the United States has become an increasingly more diverse country. Efforts to increase diversity are generally welcomed across all post-millennial demographic groups, but less so among young white men.

Carolyn Davis said, "While this is the most diverse generation, there is no guarantee that they’re going to politically be of one mind.”

I'm Jonathan Evans. And I'm Anna Matteo.

Words in This Story

compelling – adj. forceful or persuasive¹³

precedence – n. the act of coming earlier in time

suffrage – n. the right to vote

millennial – n. a person born in the 1980s or 1990s

bombastic – adj. wordy

shrug – v. to raise and lower one’s shoulders, usually to show you do not care about something

petition – n. an official request or appeal to an official or organization

diverse – adj. different from each other

demographic – adj. related to the study of changes that take place in large groups of people

1 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 suffrage   

n.投票，选举权，参政权

参考例句：

• The question of woman suffrage sets them at variance.妇女参政的问题使他们发生争执。
• The voters gave their suffrage to him.投票人都投票选他。

5 boycott   

n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与

参考例句：

• We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
• The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。

6 millennial   

一千年的，千福年的

参考例句：

• Both Russia and America looked to the future to fulfill their millennial expectations. 俄国和美国都把实现他们黄金时代的希望寄托于未来。
• The millennial generation is celebrating the global commons every day, apparently unmindful of Hardin's warning. 千禧一代显然对哈丁的警告不以为然，每天都在颂扬全球“公地”。

7 bombastic   

adj.夸夸其谈的，言过其实的

参考例句：

• The candidate spoke in a bombastic way of all that he would do if elected.候选人大肆吹嘘，一旦他当选将要如何如何。
• The orator spoke in a bombastic manner.这位演说家的讲话言过其实。

8 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

9 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

10 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

11 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

12 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

13 persuasive   

adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的

参考例句：

• His arguments in favour of a new school are very persuasive.他赞成办一座新学校的理由很有说服力。
• The evidence was not really persuasive enough.证据并不是太有说服力。