Wednesday, March 28, 2007

These kids today

Students at Wilton High School create an original play about the war in Iraq for a class, and are kept from performing it by their school principal who seems to have felt it would be too inflammatory.

Three girls at John Jay High School are suspended for saying the word “vagina,” while performing an excerpt of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues.

And they say kids today are apathetic.

I say, hell no.

We live in a world where the line between child and adult is irrevocably blurred. Twelve year olds can be tried as adults in the criminal court system; eighteen year olds are dying in Iraq and other war-torn countries; fifteen year old girls in Africa are raising their siblings and their own children after losing their parents to AIDS; the former governor of New York suggested that an eighth grade education should be considered sufficient for most (read: working class) Americans.

And young people are stepping up. They are demanding that their voices be heard, demanding that they and their peers be properly cared for and educated, demanding that we pay attention.

If you want to get to know them better, here are some places to start:
Global Action Project
Sista II Sista
We Got Issues
Youth Speaks

No comments: