"Dear Mr. President..." A Parkland survivor's message to the next leader of the United States.
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00:00I had to hide underneath the lifeless body of my classmate to survive and I want the future
00:04president to understand that nobody should ever go through what I went through and black youth
00:09shouldn't have to deal with gun violence on a day-to-day basis. Dear future president,
00:13my name is Aaliyah Eastman and I am a Parkland survivor and racial equity activist.
00:30I wish the president would understand that black youth are tired of being impacted by gun violence.
00:40I lost my uncle to gun violence in Brooklyn, New York. My uncle was only 18 when he was gunned
00:45down and I also survived the 2018 Parkland shooting at my high school. In my opinion,
00:52I think the future president should care about gun violence prevention because gun violence is
00:56the leading cause of death for black youth as well as police violence because police violence
01:01disproportionately impacts communities of color that includes black and brown youth. Although it
01:06has been nearly three years since the shooting at my high school, it is still something that I have
01:11to deal with every day. Suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and insomnia that came from
01:18the shooting is something that I just have to learn how to deal with because it is now my new
01:23normal. I got involved with gun violence prevention after surviving the shooting at my high school in
01:282018 and I really got involved because I saw that the movement for gun violence prevention wasn't
01:34intersectional and it wasn't addressing the gun violence that happens in communities of color
01:39and I wanted to make sure that I was sharing my platform with those that look like me
01:43and I also knew that my story could also save the lives of those that could possibly be impacted by
01:48another school shooting. I want the future president to understand that America has a
01:53problem with guns. This is not something that we see in a lot of different countries. It's
01:58uniquely an American issue. We have more guns in this country than we do of people
02:04and I hope that the future president understands that is an issue. I want the future president to
02:09understand that although mass shootings are consistently talked about because they get the
02:14attention of media, black and brown families are disproportionately impacted by gun violence.
02:20Again, they see gun violence every day in their communities and they're consistently impacted
02:25and I want the future president to understand that this is where we need to start to solve
02:29this issue of gun violence, making sure that these communities are getting the proper resources to
02:34deal with the issue and to combat gun violence in their communities. If I had the power to create
02:39legislation right now to prevent gun violence, the number one on my list would be making sure
02:45that we would have money given to grassroots organizations that stop gun violence at the
02:50root in marginalized communities of color because we know a lot of grassroots organizations do the
02:55work that our congress members don't do and they stop the violence before it starts but they don't
03:00have the money to continue this work. So I'd make sure I would have legislation put aside to make
03:05sure that these organizations have the money to continue doing the work.