I really wanted to write the essay for Death of A Nation, because it's about something that is near and dear to my heart: the youth of America. How many times have you heard that the youth of America are the worst ever? That they're lazy, selfish, and uninterested? Or worse yet, that they're not to be trusted, they're dangerous, and they should be feared? You've heard it as much as I have, if not more, and to be perfectly honest, it pisses me off!!!

One reason why all this criticism of America's youth pisses me off is that almost all of the so-called 'failings' of modern American youth (if indeed not all of them) can be placed squarely at the feet of adults, and the institutions they endorse and run, that are failing the youth each and every day. People are aghast and horrified when children as young as six go to school and shoot their classmates. And you know what? They're right to be horrified. They SHOULD be horrified. But all too often the wrong questions are asked and the finger of accusation is pointed in all the wrong places.

Remember the Columbine shooting? Two seniors who were within weeks of graduating went to school and killed and injured fellow students and teachers with automatic weapons and homemade bombs. Then they then killed themselves. Before the dust had even settled we heard about a group of kids at the school called The Trenchcoat Mafia. These kids wore black clothes, dressed kind of "funny" by mainstream standards, were almost universally considered losers by everyone else at the school, and (again almost universally) picked on and bullied. The existence of such a group at the school was blamed for what happened. Think about that. The existence of that group of kids was, from the vast majority of news coverage I saw and read, blamed for what happened. Our educational system wasn't blamed all that much, nor was a school administration so out of touch with what was going on at Columbine High that the principal didn't even know there was a group of students called The Trenchcoat Mafia. The shootings were the first that he'd heard of them.

Where were the conversations about why there are students at any school who are considered outcasts? Where were the conversations about bullying and a school system that by and large doesn't take this serious and endemic problem seriously? Where were the conversations about how big some of our high schools have become, and that maybe having 1500 students in one building might be kind of alienating? That schools that big make it easier for students who most need help to fall through the cracks? Where were the conversations about out-of-touch school administrators who don't know what is going on in their school? Where were they? There were some stories about bullying and how destructive and harmful it is. And there were some stories about how easy it is to get guns even if you're too young to buy them legally, but not enough, and not for long enough. There weren't any conversations about how our culture seems to accept that one group of people victimizing another is just the way it is… that it's always been that way and there's nothing we can do about it? And the people who should have been initiating these conversations are the adults. Adults are in charge, or at least they're supposed to be, and it's their responsibility to recognize and fix problems. And the first step to fixing such problems, other than acknowledging them, is to actually listen to what our youth have to say.

I am bone weary of hearing about how the youth of America are self-absorbed, selfish, and apathetic about the world around them. Whenever I hear stuff like this I wonder just how many years it's been since whoever is spouting such nonsense has talked to someone under 21? A few years back a teen ran in the Mayor's race here in Pittsburgh. I didn't live here then, but a lot of my family did, and the mom of my brother's girlfriend helped run his campaign. My brother told me that the response of the political establishment and mainstream, corporate media in my admittedly not exceptionally progressive hometown was to tell this young man to go home and leave important things like politics to the grown ups. They dismissed him out of hand because he wasn't a forty-five year old lawyer or city councilman, and yet many of the very same people will beat their breast about how the youth of America don't care about anything but the party this Friday night. It may just be that I'm a little slow, I dunno, but what they're saying is that young people are supposed to be involved and active in their communities, but only when it doesn't interfere with how the powers that be think it should? What kind of mixed message is that? If that isn't enough to make you go home, crack open a Pepsi or three and hit M-TV for seven hours solid, I don't know what is.

The youth I hear from every single day here at UAA are some of the most amazing, interesting, and involved people there are. They're doing a hell of a lot more than I was when I was in school. They not only care about what is happening in the world around them; they're getting off their asses to do something! I've heard from teens in LA that started a human rights group at their school. I've heard from teens in the Mid-West who successfully defended their free speech rights at school. I've heard from teens who are organizing an alternative paper at their schools, who are protesting war and violence, who are looking for guidance to set up a Gay/Straight Alliance in their community, who are getting involved in movements from anti-sweatshop to living wage to the environment and beyond. So don't tell me that the youth don't care when they get shut down, let down, and put down by the adults around them. Don’t even waste my time.

by Anne Geever, Nov. 2003