In last week’s blog I outlined an initiative in Fort Wayne, Indiana, designed to reach out to youth in an attempt to curb violence and death amongst young people. Homicide is the leading cause of death amongst Black males between the ages of 10 and 24, in the United States of America. I quoted one of the leading Black public intellectuals on Black life in the United States Of America, Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote a moving letter to his adolescent son trying to prepare him for his journey in life as a young Black man by telling him about some of the lessons he had learnt and how he navigated his way through the rapids and came out triumphant though scarred. Ta-Nehisi Coates informed his son that the pathways for Black people are strewn with deliberate obstacles designed to thwart progress and the objective must be to prepare ourselves to successfully negotiate our way through such pitfalls.
How we see ourselves, conduct ourselves, interact with others, is critical in terms of necessary ingredients in claiming this success. An example of such preparation is the recent initiative of Quentrel Provo who organised a fundraiser through a GoFundMe campaign and raised $7,000 Cdn, to take 400 children to see Black Panther for free in Nova Scotia, Canada. The young man should be applauded because he saw that the recently produced Hollywood blockbuster film had caught the imagination of the youth because of its predominantly African American cast and director not to mention its action packed comic book story line. This is an attempt to capture the excitement of youth and through it to inform them of representation, valuing your self, exploring alternative pathways to antisocial behaviour and crime, having ambition, striving for excellence and also having fun with others who look like you.
Another example of knowing and valuing yourself is highlighted in the Channel 4 News (UK) video clip below featuring the work of trauma surgeon, Martin Griffiths, talking about the horrific realities of knife crime amongst young people and the consequences for the youth, families, communities and wider society.
Channel 4 News, 8th February 2018-02-13
Trauma surgeon on the reality of knife crime – Channel 4 News
As stated last week we are all connected to the youth, we are part of them, therefore their concerns are ours too, their circumstances are shared, and we need to find ways to work with them so that they recognise we do wish to understand and together see how we can tackle whatever they face in ways that do not involve violence, crime and death. This demands from those of us who are older, learning from the young what it is like to be young in 2018 and the challenges. Some of the pressures may be similar to what we experienced in our youth decades before, some may be different and we need to be humble enough to listen and learn. Not to judge, be quick to voice our opinion, but to seek to understand and work together to find ways forward.
It is difficult for us because we have such a wealth of lived experience. What we have to accept is that that lived experience was encased in a specific time frame, circumstances, events, meaning, attuned to that time and it all made sense through understanding what happened at that time. Today is not that time. It is different. We are different. We are the students now. We need to learn from our youth. It is their time to be young and teach us about being young in their time frame. This is not to say that we excuse what we see, find ways to ‘explain away’ the unacceptable, but understanding and finding ways of addressing what is now understood, is a necessary condition before planning action.