Category: Youth Rights

Yeah!

Core Values

January 25, 2020

Suddenly, lowering the voting age to 16 is a mainstream issue.

It got a lot of support in Congress, if not enough. The issue is being asked of presidential candidates. More and more places are proposing the change. Nancy Pelosi is even claiming she’d always supported it, even though not really but hey still glad to have her on board now.

Wow.

This issue is one of NYRA’s “holy trinity”, along with drinking age and curfews. When someone would come up to our table at some event all like “the National Youth Rights Association? what’s that?” we’d reply that we’re about those three things and that we look at all the ways youth are discriminated against. They might react with a non-committal shrug and be on their way.

But now it’s 2020, and the 16 voting age has come shockingly close to becoming a thing nationwide. It’s not just coming from us and a few allies anymore. Somehow, some way, it caught at last and everyone is talking about it and seriously considering it.

So let’s say it happens. Hell, let’s say voting and drinking ages get dropped to 12 and curfew laws are all repealed. What would NYRA be anymore? Would there be any reason for such an organization to exist?

The answer is, yes, of course. In fact, I’d say NYRA is needed more than ever now.
Continue reading “Core Values”

We Have a Serious Drinking Problem

March 31, 2019

A couple days ago, baseball season officially began (Go Nats!), a time of eating peanuts and hot dogs, homeruns, and yelling “why did you swing at that?! that was up to your eyeballs!”. Oh, and lots and lots of alcohol.

A couple weeks ago was St. Patrick’s Day, a day for corned beef, green apparel, and tired Irish stereotypes. Oh, and lots and lots of alcohol.

A couple months ago was the Superbowl, a day of weird commercials, salty snacks, and cheering against the Patriots. Oh, and lots and lots of alcohol.

Walk into just about any restaurant that isn’t a fast food place and open the menu. What takes up at least half the menu? Lots and lots of alcohol.

This lots and lots of alcohol in these and other contexts is all normal and familiar to us. But, if I may ask a risky question… what if it weren’t?

I mean, it’s all so normal and familiar to us that it’s easy to forget that alcohol is dangerous!

So many dead each year from drunk driving or alcohol poisoning or doing stupid shit while drunk. So much violence and abuse is committed by those under the influence. So many get addicted.

And, yet, we treat alcohol consumption as expected of adults. It’s portrayed as “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems!” What must you do when faced with overwhelming stress, according to pop culture? Drink a lot! Depressed? Drink! Annoyed? Drink! Celebrating? Drink! And if you’re in a place or situation where you can’t drink, well, that’s just the worst thing in the world and you cringe at the mere idea!

Well, unless you don’t drink, but why on earth wouldn’t you drink? Are you Muslim or Mormon? Are you pregnant? Are you some stuck up loser? That seems to be the attitude, since I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to an event where there was a wide selection of wine or some spiked punch, but I ask for something without alcohol, and I get some version of “LOL water is over there, loser”. Like, is the idea that someone might not want to put this stuff into their body so unthinkable?

We’re obsessed with alcohol, so much so that we don’t realize it and find the idea absurd. But maybe it’s time we acknowledged it. Maybe it’s time we acknowledged that maybe we could do just fine without it.

I’m not advocating prohibition. Prohibition was a disaster. Alcohol is just too ingrained in our culture. That and I don’t want to see any reduction in civil liberties. What I’m suggesting is that we as a society just stop acting like alcohol is so damn important.

And, all of that said, lower the drinking age!
Continue reading “We Have a Serious Drinking Problem”

Shut Up and Give Them Candy

October 31, 2018

I hereby decree…

If they come to your door on Halloween night, give them candy.

Okay, you know that. Adorable costumed children come to the door and receive candy. That’s how it works.

What if they’re not costumed? What if they’re 15 years old?

Hey, guess what! Doesn’t matter. They still get candy.

If you’re the kind of person who says to a teenager at your doorstep on Halloween “go away, you’re too old”, you just really really really need to get a life. Here’s a better idea. Teenagers come to your door trick-or-treating? Give them candy and move on with it. What exactly have you accomplished by bitching at them and sending them away? Nothing except act like an asshole, that’s what.

And the towns where it’s actually illegal for these teens to trick-or-treat? How much of a deranged sociopath do you have to be to think a trick-or-treating middle schooler should be arrested?

So it’s the same old thing. Teens are too old to take part in children’s activities, and if they try they might be breaking the law. Teens are too young to be at (surely alcohol-oriented) adult Halloween parties, and if they try they or someone might be breaking a law. So as usual they don’t fit neatly into the hard and fast “child” or “adult” boxes, too old to be cute and “innocent”, too young to be trusted and respected, so they are cast aside for being a difficult to sort age hybrid. And where teens have their own category, perhaps their own Halloween activity, they are presumed to be vandalizing something or drinking underage or otherwise somehow breaking the law. So really, once again, teenagers can’t win and are ruining society by having the audacity to exist.

Enough of this bullshit. This is a fun night. Someone comes to your door as part of these festivities, you pass out the candy and let everyone move on with their lives. If this is something you simply can’t do, that it’s simply impossible for you to not police the costumes and ages of trick-or-treaters, then please just turn off the porchlight and leave this holiday to those of us who aren’t complete assholes.

If They Could

April 7, 2018

So I was at the March for Our Lives in DC two weeks ago, joining in with WES, who I somehow managed to find in the crowd.

Check out my sign!

Yup. I figured everyone else would have the basic gun control angle well covered, so I went the voting age route, if with a well-deserved jab at the NRA to play to the audience.

And if this whole thing isn’t a major reason for lowering the voting age, I don’t know what is. But more on that in a moment.

The speakers were mostly Parkland students, as well as survivors and friends and family of victims from that and other shootings, all demanding an end to gun violence, all urging our leaders to take action. All calling for sensible gun control.

Not that that’s a simple solution. Gun control has its own complexities and can very easily be racist, ableist, and numerous other inequalities (which, not being Kathleen, I’m not going to sit here and spend ten paragraphs naming!). Certainly not even those at the march would be in agreement as to what that would look like, as some just want guns to be more difficult to get, requiring background checks and perhaps licensing, while others straight up want the Second Amendment repealed.

But all that aside, gun control as a response to school shootings would be significant in a way I hadn’t really even realized before. Until one of the speakers straight up said they do not want zero tolerance policies.

That’s right. Zero tolerance policies and other academic security theater, making the schools become somehow even more like prisons, are often the go-to response from policymakers when these atrocities happen. We’re seeing calls for harsher school environments. The idea being that if students are super restricted they won’t shoot or be shot.

In other words, instead of going with gun control, which would directly affect and restrict adults and acknowledge that adults must accept responsibility and make sacrifices, whatever they may specifically be, they go for zero tolerance policies and tougher schools, all of which pin all the restriction and blame on the young students they’re supposedly protecting.

They also say that #WalkUpNotOut bullshit, telling students not to walk out and demand change but to just “walk up” to some lonely classmate and befriend him so that he doesn’t flip out and shoot everyone. Which, while certainly befriending people is good, is just more of adults shirking responsibility and blaming the problem on young people and bullying, with a side of “therefore, sit down and shut up because it makes me uncomfortable when you challenge authority or think critically except where doing so is convenient for me”.

To these adults, it’s all a young people problem, young people need to be made to behave and kept on a short leash, and if adults are responsible for anything it’s that they’re not being tough enough with those horrible young people.

And, of course, gun control would affect voters. The students being heavily restricted and nonetheless still shot at aren’t old enough to vote.

That’s also why I’m so dismayed at the push to raise the firearm purchase age to 21. As I said before, it doesn’t actually accomplish anything or force our society to tackle the hard questions around guns. It just, like with the zero tolerance policies, pins the blame on young people and calls that a victory. They rightly see zero tolerance as the pathetic cop out that it is, yet somehow raising the purchase age is any better? Vast majority of these mass shooters were well over 21, and the deaths of their victims weren’t any less tragic and horrifying. Nikolas Cruz is only 19, sure, but I doubt an age restriction would have stopped him here, or that in two years he’d be over whatever made him do this and that he’d be all sunshine and roses. Not that I think he should have been able to get an AR-15 however he did, but that should be a question of the general population’s ability to get one rather than picking on and thus blaming young people.

After all, blaming young people is just going to make this worse. Not only are policymakers choosing to place restrictions that apply only to young people and not anyone or very many old enough to vote while ignoring gun control policies which would apply outside of schools and affect adult voters and actually be effective (or at least much moreso than zero tolerance policies and increased age restrictions), but in showing little willingness to consider more effective options, they’re making clear that, despite the thoughts and prayers, they don’t really care that much that these kids are dying. After all, they are teenagers, a group thoroughly villified at all corners of society. Teenagers are nothing but trouble, something their voters must put up with. The voting parents are devastated, absolutely, and that’s where there’s some lip service to these voters having lost cherished property but not much more. Even after Sandy Hook and the victims being much younger, nothing was done. Kids might make adults as a whole feel sentimental, but it doesn’t mean they value their lives enough to make widespread societal change for them. Except where they can make themselves look like they care to score points with other adults.

Hence my sign.

The march included frequent reminders to vote in November, against those who just do and say whatever the NRA tells them. Those who would rather make schools more restrictive and punitive than even think that an adult might not need to be able to get a semiautomatic weapon that easily. Because, as the march concluded, we must remember the children at the ballot box.

And I was standing there with gritted teeth, thinking “there’s an obvious change to call for here… politically active teens needing to beg adult voters to vote a certain way… we’re just a few miles from three towns that did it… come on…”

Because, seriously, would this be an issue if these teens could vote? I mean, yeah, probably, but all this highlights what a gross injustice it is that they can’t. They want safer schools and for these mass shootings to stop, but because they don’t have the franchise, elected officials aren’t under all that much obligation to listen or care except where those of voting age show solidarity. Because the group that is endangered in these shootings, the students, isn’t considered a group worth having a voice except by way of parents and teachers, which is of course not good enough. Lower the voting age to 16, and make the high school students a voting bloc who can tip the election results one way or another, and suddenly the candidates can’t afford not to listen to their demands or at least stop scapegoating them.

This isn’t just wishful thinking on my part. Lowering the voting age has very much been part of the conversation here, with a slew of articles and whatnot coming out around this issue here and here and here and here and here and here and here. The Parkland students’ activism, while not about this specifically, absolutely demands it. Without the youth vote, adults can much more easily simply choose not to listen.

Without the youth vote, adults can much more easily not care when young people die.

Nothing but a Number and a Distraction

March 21, 2018

I hereby decree…

Age restrictions aren’t solutions to serious social problems.

For one, they are in and of themselves a serious social problem. But even if you don’t care about that, there is still a lot to be concerned about with a reliance on age restrictions when faced with a public health challenge.

With still more horrifying mass shootings in recent weeks, talk of gun control vs gun rights has surged as expected. It’s a messy issue that I mostly stay out of as I really have no strong feelings or a lot of direct knowledge about it. But there’s still plenty of terrible ideas floating around, especially the suggestion to arm teachers, which is without a doubt just about the worst idea in the history of the universe.

Of course, there’s also calls for raising gun purchase ages to 21.

Which, aside from age restrictions being harmful discrimination against young people that exacerbates their already severe marginalization, is completely beside the point.

Raising the gun age does nothing about all the politicians who are in the NRA’s pocket. It does nothing about navigating the balance between good faith self defense measures and enabling someone who wants a lot of people dead. It does nothing about reconciling gun restrictions with those who feel this would be an attack on their culture. It does nothing about making sure any gun control measures or enforcement aren’t racist or ableist or otherwise target or scapegoat vulnerable populations. It does nothing about the conditions of certain institutions of our society that might drive someone to want to commit some atrocity in the first place. It does nothing about all the guns adults can still purchase and thus are still being put out into the world (something the retailers raising their gun sale ages don’t seem to mind continuing to profit from). These are the complicated issues, among many others, that need to be addressed to do the issue of guns any justice. At best, acting like an age restriction solves anything is a waste of energy, but worse it distracts from the real issue in all its complexity, making the age of a shooter at all important, making fixing that a goal, such that when it’s done someone can claim a victory without having really done anything. And given that, while this complicated issue is being negotiated, people are dying, distracting it with unrelated tangential non-issues is downright irresponsible. Focus on the matter at hand and leave age (and mental health, by the way) out of it.

And it happens in other areas.

States have been raising their age to purchase cigarettes from 18 to 21, just to say, hey, look at us championing public health. Even though most smokers are much older than that. They say the age restriction is because it’s easier to get addicted when you start young, but this then really just takes responsibility off older smokers to quit. When raising the age is touted as some big solution rather than a pathetic grasping for straws, then the issue of smoking is made to be a young people problem, that the problem isn’t that the tobacco industry is making bank putting out a deadly product but that those who use it are the wrong age.

And let’s not forget alcohol and the questionable logic allowing one to sincerely believe you stop drunk drivers by raising the drinking age to 21, rather than, say, doing something about actual drunk drivers. Or, like with cigarettes and guns, questioning the industry and culture that promotes and clings to alcohol so hard despite all the harm it does.

Seriously, with these and more, look for an age restriction someone wants to raise or enforce more strictly, and I’ll show you an actual serious social issue that’s being avoided. If young people are being restricted like this because of some personal or social hazard, maybe we should be looking at that hazard and its place in our culture.

Okay, so I’m not saying the age restriction is always at the expense of actual concrete solutions. But it does present itself as a bandage, as a comparatively simple fix to rally around just to be able to notch a victory. It makes one look like they’re taking action, doing something they think is at worst harmless and perhaps common sense anyway (which, of course, isn’t even close to true, but that’s what they believe), and patting themselves on the back for being on the right side of progress. And advocates need to wise up and stop falling for it.

In truth, age restrictions are far less about safety than about adult policy makers making themselves look good and responsible to one another while simultaneously shifting blame off themselves. And it’s so easy to do, because we’ve been conditioned from a young age to equate an adult restricting a young person with responsibility, without questioning the efficacy or morality of the restriction, without wondering that the adult has their own difficult questions to answer and changes to make on the issue.

Believe it or not, young people having even the slightest bit of freedom and autonomy isn’t the cause of all or even any of the world’s problems. If we truly want to solve anything, if we truly want to see meaningful change and save lives, stop acting like it is!

And Greenbelt Makes Three

January 9, 2018

Usually when there’s a map of my region with triangles on it, it’s the Pepco Outage Map.

But here’s an awesome triangle for the region.

At one point farthest to the west, we have Takoma Park, the first of them, which did it May 13, 2013. The southernmost point is Hyattsville, the second, which did it January 20, 2015. And to the northeast, the third point, which did it January 8, 2018, is Greenbelt.

These three towns at these three points have all have lowered their municipal voting ages to 16! A move with lots of good reasons and lots to think about and lots of tweets back in the day.

I was there when Takoma Park and Hyattsville each sealed the deal. Sadly, I was unable to attend Greenbelt’s due to freezing rain encasing everything in ice. But at least the people who mattered were there.

The three towns are all right by each other, too. The idea is spreading throughout the region. College Park is inside the triangle, almost totally surrounded and must surely join in at some point! The geographical proximity commands it. You, too, Berwyn Heights, especially if College Park does get in on this. And you, New Carrollton, just outside the triangle to the southeast. Why should the Green Line terminus in Greenbelt have all the fun of being in a #16tovote town when you and your Orange Line terminus could as well? Also, perhaps you’d then provide a little encouragement to a certain town just a bit south of you, just off the above map…

Yes, I’m talking about you, Glenarden! Get it together!

Stalker App

January 2, 2018

I began my 2018 waking up to the New Year’s Day marathon of The Simpsons on FXX I’d turned on the night before and had fallen asleep watching. I stayed in bed for a while and watched some more, not wanting to get out of bed because, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s a bit extremely cold here in the mid-Atlantic states this week.

Then during one commercial break I saw it. A rather extended ad for a product (not saying the name) for tracking someone, ostensibly a family member. This way, you’d know exactly where this person is at all times, whether they are driving too fast, etc. You know, perfect for the psycho stalker on your belated or Orthodox Christmas list.

Oh, did I mention this product was specifically geared toward parents to use on their teens? Yeah, that’s supposed to make this any better somehow. I mean, even if that did, it’s worth remembering any spying technology doesn’t actually know the relationship of the user to the person being tracked. A man could be using this on his wife rather than his teenage daughter. Think about that. What healthy reason could he possibly have for tracking his wife’s whereabouts, knowing how fast she drives, and who she sees? Doesn’t that seem gross as hell? Don’t you kind of wonder that this wife should probably get away from him?

So for that matter, what healthy reason could a parent possibly have for tracking a teen’s whereabouts, knowing how fast she drives, and who she sees? What, the parent cares and wants to make sure she’s safe? Okay, but maybe that husband just cares about his wife and wants to make sure his wife is safe. Oh, wait, that doesn’t fly.

I would go further with this analogy, perhaps going into how we don’t want the government or Google spying on us like this (even though they probably are, every time we say “okay Google…” perhaps) so that we shouldn’t be normalizing it for the next generation, but the sad thing is, youth rights aspect of this aside, you find people are often not all that bothered by it. Some people may look at the husband spying on his wife example and not find anything wrong with it. Perhaps calling up the property argument, where the car and house and phone and whatnot are property that one has every right to keep track of and otherwise do as they wish with. Of course, what they also aren’t shy about saying, they see the teen as property as well.

So what I must wonder is the mentality of the person who clings to this right and would actually seek out and actively use spying technology on a teen (or anyone else). I mean, this is rather obsessive and time-consuming behavior that, well, even someone so inclined might lose interest after a while. After all, they have something better or at least more interesting to be doing. A show or a game is coming on. Got to go make dinner. Got to go to bed and get up for work. I mean, being like “okay, she’s at school… okay, now she’s visiting a friend… still visiting the friend… on her way back here…” is boring as hell.

Unless, of course, you’re just that obsessive. Or you’re looking for something specific. Such that simply talking to the teen about any concerns is apparently out of the question.

The ad indicated the product would prevent kidnapping (they literally used staged footage of a girl being pulled into a windowless white van), so that this would keep kids safe. Well, I’ve gritted my teeth through enough conversations with coworkers and others over the years to gather that safety is barely on anyone’s radar with the idea of keeping track of kids. Some have said straight up they’d catch them lying about where they are and would punish them, with no effort to hide their glee. Safety is the stated concern, but, let’s be honest, the whole idea is, here, assert your dominance over someone in your household who drives you nuts because you can!

And even without anyone purchasing the product or any of the far too many like it that have been around for some time, the ad does its own damage. It tells the parents and teens and others watching alike that this is normal, that this is how it should be. It reinforces the already far too reinforced message that teens are property that can and will cause major trouble at any moment and that it’s the parent’s right and duty to keep them as watched and controlled as possible for the sake of themselves and others.

All of that said, it was still pretty hilarious that the episode playing when I saw this ad was Barting Over, when Bart gets emancipated from Homer and Marge after exploitation and abuse. Now the ad just needs to run during Lost Verizon.

The Actual Innocence

December 14, 2017

Five years ago today, Sandy Hook happened.

Several children who should be navigating middle school right now instead had their short lives come to an abrupt and tragic end because some shithead came into their classroom and opened fire on them for some reason.

In the above post on the day it happened, I lamented this loss of life, wondering, as I said, what they could have ever done to anybody. After all, at their age, one is new to the world and still figuring things out and likely hasn’t gotten to the point of causing any deep and deliberate harm to others like those older have. Not that it’s ever okay to kill anyone, of course, but with kids, it’s hard to see any rationale for it. An adult might have deliberately ruined your career or betrayed you in some severe way or what have you. Again, not that the killing is okay, but you can see how one so distraught might decide it’s the thing to do. With kids, they aren’t capable of doing anywhere near the damage to others that adults are.

After all, children are innocent.

And that is what the innocence of children actually is. Innocence is the opposite of guilt. It refers to what the children themselves have or have not done, and how good or evil their intentions. This varies by child, as children are individuals, and there’s no specific point where one goes from “childhood innocence” to “adult asshole” as it’s a gradual progression depending on one’s specific life and circumstances and experiences. But any innocence refers to the individual’s intentions and actions.

As such, it has nothing to do with something being done to said innocent child, nor does it have anything to do with said innocent child’s knowledge of the world.
Continue reading “The Actual Innocence”

It’s Not Your Candy

October 31, 2017

Happy Halloween!

Anyway…

No.

Stop. Don’t touch it. It’s not yours.

Earlier tonight, the kids traversed their neighborhoods in their awesome costumes and visited their neighbors with a familiar chant in hopes of a yummy treat (specifically Nerds, Starbursts, and Skittles if they came to my door!). Afterward, they went on home, checked everything for tampering for fear of the urban myth about poison or razor blades in candy suddenly actually happening, and at long last chowed down. Yay!

All this candy in the hands of kids? What are parents to do?

Nothing. It’s not theirs.
Continue reading “It’s Not Your Candy”

All Politicians Are Adults

September 30, 2017

I hereby decree…

Stop saying badly behaving politicians are “acting like children”.

Or any derivative thereof. Including referring to a lone sensible one as the “adult in the room”. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but all politicians are adults. All mayors. All governors. All of the House. All of the Senate. All White House staff. Even the President.

Yes, even that Orange Thing currently occupying the White House.

Think of all the horrible shit Orange Thing has done. Or, no, don’t do that. It’s depressing. Think then that it’s too depressing to think about all the horrible shit Orange Thing has done and continues to do. In any case, there are a number of words to throw at him. Racist. White supremacist. Sexist. Bigot. Loudmouth. Xenophobe. Narcissist. Sociopath. Evil. And countless others.

So why then, given all that, would you pick “child”? What about calling NFL player protesters “sons of bitches” while saying neo-Nazis are “fine people” makes you think “innocent little kid new to the world and figuring things out”? What about trashing the mayor of a hurricane-ravaged city asking for help makes you think “likes to drink from juice boxes while learning about shapes and watching Doc McStuffins”?

Yet, whether the images around inauguration time showing a leather desk chair being wheeled out of the Oval Office and a high chair being carried in, whether the sign I saw at the Women’s March that said “Maybe he’s teething”, whether countless others calling him a toddler throwing a tantrum, “child” seems to be a popular go-to “insult” to hurl at him.

In response to this, a week before the inauguration, I posted this to I Support Youth Rights:

Donald Trump is a racist, misogynist bully who supports torture, advocates war crimes, mocks the disabled, threatens those who oppose him, and brags about sexual harassment, among many many many other things that add up to him being absolutely abhorrent.

But you know what he isn’t? A child. He is in fact doing all of the above as an adult. Everyone who voted for him is also an adult. His various questionable appointees are all adults. Children are completely innocent here.

So those of you who think you’re insulting Trump by calling him a child, really? All of the above and more said, and what offends you about him is that he reminds you of someone who was born only a few years ago? Do you actually think all of the above is typical childhood behavior? In any case, when in light of all this behavior you call him a child, the only ones you’re insulting are children, who are, again, completely innocent in all this and yet still are in danger of the damage the incoming administration is poised to do to healthcare, the environment, civil rights, and so much more.

So cut it the hell out.

This was posted in January, before so many things happened. Sigh.

But of course it stands. If the Orange Thing actually were a child, that would be an immense improvement. But he’s a 71-year-old man. A vile 71-year-old man. I mean, any damage a small child might do would be by accident. The Orange Thing knows exactly what he’s doing. Or he at least decidedly doesn’t care.