Today, in the era of political correctness, social exclusion is considered acceptable. Why?
The Prime Minister has latched on to the word ‘respect,’ in his pledge to wipe out the, ‘problem of youth today,’ but I ask him, does that work both ways? Should young people expect to be considered contributor to today’s society, or should we just carry on sitting there, while we get mass-labeled as idiots, and no-hopers, and should we soon expect to be asked to drink from different taps from those of others? Sit at the back of buses? Shall we expect to wait until were spoken to, before we speak?
This generation of young people is the first that it has been estimated that they’ll die before their parents, and the mushy mess, which most young people eat five times a day probably, doesn’t help. A hugely outnumbered minority of young people consider crime to be fun. They think that stamping on people’s cars, and slapping random-picked people is a fun thing to do, so the government steps in with a huge infringement on young people’s human rights, by initiating a blanket curfew.
This means that any law-abiding young person (yes, there are some!) cannot be out of their place of residence after 9 pm. This has obvious social effects, as all young people who volunteer on a local level, must cut their activities short, or risk being publicly humiliated, by being returned home by the police. Speaking of humiliation, the government recently spoke about the possibility of making young people who commit crimes wear a bright orange suit whilst carrying out community service sentences, similar to that of America. They think that humiliating a young person will stop them from breaking the law again. There is absolutely no evidence to back their claims that public humiliation does anyone any good.
Look at young people who get named and shamed by the media for getting an anti-social behaviour order. Do the media consider the consequences of this? No, that’s the simple answer. They probably don’t care either. One of the worst things that have happened to young people is media initiated. The media appear to control this country, rather than the government, politicians are scared about what the media might interpret their comments to be, to the point where they don’t actually answer questions anymore, I mean when was the last time, when asked a yes no question that didn’t involve “Do you want a cuppa?” That resulted in an answer less than ten minutes long, and totally avoiding the point?
My experiences with politicians have been 80% favorable. All the MPs for Sheffield know who I am, and what I do (I'm a member of Youth Parliament,) but on the other hand, the first time I spoke at a national conference, I spoke to the former Health Minister, John Reid, who appeared to be so desperate to avoid one of those awkward situations where no one says anything, that he proceeded to tell me that I had a “Nice, Scottish name,” and that I’d probably got my surname from someone being raped a few hundred years back…. (!) That stunned me to the point, where I could only lightly chuckle, whilst internally furious that he’d said such a thing. (My family origins lay both in Jamaica and Ireland, so I’m afraid you’re wrong there, Mr Reid.)
Media has led politicians so out of touch with young people that they seem oblivious to the real issue of youth crime, and seem incapable of constructive measures toward young people. For example, upon hearing that hooded clothing had been banned from a shopping centre, Tony Blair (instead of an appropriate response, which would have been to say that’s an infringement on young people’s rights,) he approved it, leading to it being implemented across the country.
The Government appears to feel that social exclusion is the answer to solving the problem of youth crime, and achieving their goal of a ‘sustainable community.’ Now I’m no genius, but even I can see that sustainability requires measures that both sustain the community, and that paves its future. Otherwise it can’t claim the title of a sustainable community. If you socially exclude a generation, taking decisions on their behalf with no/unsatisfactory level of prior consultation beforehand, without considering that that generation will eventually be the community, ten years down the line, you’ll just have an even worse problem.
I’m pretty sure the people in charge remember their years of youth, and should consider what today’s young people have to through in addition to what it may have been like in the past.
Let’s look at our point of view. In addition to the usual anxieties of a teenager, (puberty, adolescence, etc,) at school, they’re given exams, which effectively, shape the rest of their lives at the age of 15-16. When there is a high rate of young people passing their A-levels with a good grade, society chooses to call for the exams to be made harder and more difficult, citing that the rising levels of passes mean that young people aren’t challenged enough, and that the exams are too easy.
If you choose to go into further education through going to a university, top-up fees mean that you’re faced with bills of up to £3000 a year.
With the media circus rounding on young people, telling anyone who’ll listen that they’re anti-social drinking, drug-taking idiots who do nothing but destroy community harmony, and commit crime, what is all this achieving? An increase in class division, huge amounts of stress and society looking down on young people from all sides. (And it’s proven that young people are more likely to be victims or crime, rather that the perpetrators.)
Young people have nowhere to go, hanging around shops because it’s light, and safer. People see this as intimidating behaviour, and the young people are often moved on somewhere else, potentially more dangerous, they suffer from much higher levels of discrimination than any other ‘category’ of people, and it must be stopped. Banning young people from streets, not allowing them in certain places based on clothes they’re wearing (my 11-month brother wears a hoody, how long until he’s thrown out of a shopping centre?) The apparent media ‘hunger’ towards offending young people, the list goes on.
One of the best quotes I’ve heard on the issue of youth discrimination is; “We have to treat young people with respect, they’re the ones who will be paying our pension.”
It’s true, we probably will, but that not why I appreciate the comment. I appreciate it, because it hits the bull’s-eye. Young people, in the future, will be the people in charge. The people sustaining communities. The people paying the last generations’ pension. The people guiding ‘our’ youngsters. The people putting forward our views of a “sustainable future.” The people vying for YOUR Vote. Surely the best way of sustaining communities, and therefore, the nation as a whole, is to create a positive future. Invest in the future now, rather than discriminate against it, simple as that.
The Government has taken the wrong steps in allowing young people to stand for parliament at 18, but refusing to give 16 year olds the vote. Young people don’t command enough respect from society to be elected to parliament. Even if a young person did get elected to parliament at 18, chances are that other MP’s won’t take them seriously, and the media pressure would probably make him/her a failure, in the sense that as the worlds youngest MP, everything they say and do will be scrutinized, and the first slip up made would end their political career ‘moments’ after it had started. This is doomed to be potentially fatal to young people’s democracy.
Many projects have highlighted the fact that young people, given the chance, would vote based on an informed decision. Many do already anyway, through votes of parents that are choosing not to vote, so why not make it official?
Discrimination, stereotyping, social exclusion, criticism, stress, and victimization; these are just a few words, which say what society offers to young people. Which one would you choose?
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