On March 22, 2018, I met and interviewed Makaila King, the young lady who encouraged our school to get involved in the National Walkout that took place last week, which I also participated in. I wanted to get to know Makaila better and to find out what drove her to take charge and organize the students the way she did. Here’s what she had to say:

Vivett:

You were the impetus for the march taking on the strength that it did here at our school. Tell me more about that. Were there other students on the campus that you worked with?

Mikaila:

It was more of me working inside of my individual school, then talking to the principal to get other schools involved and having them get other speakers from their schools so that it wouldn’t seem like just one school doing it. It would just make it look like one school as a whole coming together to show recognition to the gun violence and to stop  basically the violence going on in our schools, to have a safer environment for our students.

Vivett:

What got you interested in this? Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Mikaila:

I’m sixteen. I live in a small town, not really anything big, in the Queens neighborhood of South Ozone Park. I’m very close and connected with everybody in my neighborhood, so when I heard about the Parkland shooting I was there like “it’s just another regular shooting” ‘cause if it was Black kids, nobody would’ve really done anything or it wouldn’t even have touched the newscasts. It would’ve been censored because the government likes to censor a lot if stuff. Like in Texas, they had a whole bombing of a few African-Americans and nobody was talking about that.

Vivett:

So do you see that there is some kind of racial divide in the coverage given to school shootings? Can you elaborate on that?

Mikaila:

I wouldn’t say it’s a racial divide. I would say it’s more of a situation where what they show on the newscasts and what they televise is to make a certain race look superior to the other. So like, they make Whites seem like they don’t do anything bad, but if any shootings happen you always know it’s a young, African-American/Black man who raped this person or shot that person so it’s like they cover what they want to show society and make people believe that Black people are the problem when deep down inside White people have their issues, too. Don’t get me wrong, Black people have their problems, but it’s more of  like they portray us to be violent, crazy, and angry when White people are the same way. It’s just that they just choose to censor certain things.

Vivett:

You know, Mikaila, I heard about you and heard your name in relationship to the Walkout before I met you. Can you tell me about what really led you to organizing our school’s portion of participation in the nationwide school walkout?

Mikaila:

When I found out about the whole walkout thing on Facebook, I didn’t think it was going to be that big of a thing, but then once I heard that the schools were thinking about doing it, I immediately jumped on it! I was like, “I wanna do a walkout!” because it was on my bucket list to do some type of walkout or change something or make a difference somewhere so I was like, why not start in the community at my school, try to influence my peers into doing something positive, which I did. And it turned out to be a very, very well put-together protest. I wouldn’t even call it a march. I would call it a protest. A lot of students from a few other schools said that I did a lot — like too much with it —  ‘cause they felt like I overtasked and they felt like I turned it into a pep rally when the whole idea of what I was trying to convey was trying to make the atmosphere, y’know, happy, not sad and not depressed. I wanted all of us to come together as a whole and make us seem as one and, yeah, — that was the purpose of the selected music —and also it was to make them be in an energized mood so that when we talked, nobody’s bored. Instead everybody was just active and into what’s being said because there were a few long speeches. Other than that, everybody was very into it.

Vivett:

So did it go as you’d planned?

Mikaila:

Yes and no. I wanted newscasters to come. I had told them that it was going to be more than a walkout. I even called Pix 11, Channel 4 and ABC 7. They said they would come. They never came. One thing I didn’t like was they only gave me 17-minutes when we had discussed that I was going to go longer than that so I just felt like that right there just wasn’t okay. It wasn’t enough time because I feel like there could’ve been more said, more coverage, we could’ve done way more and a lot of people felt that it was supposed to be for the seventeen students and teachers but me personally, I didn’t  feel like it should’ve been directed towards them. It should’ve been directed towards gun violence as a whole. I did say “Rest In Peace” and extended my condolences to those families that tragically lost those lives, but at the same time, if it was Black people, nobody would really do that so it’s like, why is it now that we’re doing something about this when there were like eighteen other school shootings but this one we have to do something? There was a part of that that I disagreed with.

Vivett:

What I hear you saying is that White Lives Matter but Black Lives don’t.

Mikaila:

Exactly.

Vivett:

Moving forward, are there other community organizer initiatives and protest initiatives that you would like to get involved in?

Mikaila:

Uhmmm…not that I really know of but if there are any that pop up any time in the future, I would be happy to look into it and try to change something or try to give my help as much as is needed.

Vivett:

Did you feel supported by the school community when you initially broached this topic?

Mikaila:

When I first told people about me doing the march, a lot of people were like, you shouldn’t do it because people aren’t going to listen to you and they were just giving me a lot of, y’know, like bringing me down and not making me want to do it. But then I still kept saying in my mind that I should still do it and that’s exactly what I did! I organized the whole speech. My speech was really good, according to everybody. I got a lot of compliments – along with back talk too but at the same time I feel like it did go good.

Vivett:

I was there and I was really happy with what I saw and felt which is what led me to seek you out in person and interview you now! I was really, really proud as a Black woman, as a Black teacher, to see another young Black woman taking a lead, taking charge, doing something positive, not just sitting back and complaining and really living out the mantra of our school which is “Be the change you want to see in the world.” You have helped to enact that so thank you for doing that.

Mikaila:

Aww — thank you!

Vivett:

Are there any final words you’d like to say to anyone who will read this blog post?

Mikaila:

I would say don’t let others bring you down and you should feel free to do what you want in society. Don’t try to censor anything. Be open. At the end of the day, our first amendment says that we have freedom of speech and therefore we can say what we want and say how we feel. If there’s something that you want to do that you feel like is going to change the world, by all means do it. Don’t let nobody stop you.