The Indignities of Being Young

[SoulRiser]

copied from http://www.oneandfour.org/archives/2006/...ities.html

Ageism manifests itself in so many ways. Typically at NYRA we chose to focus on the big issues that are enshrined in law and stand as barriers to equal status and civic involvement for youth like the voting age or the drinking age. However it is often the day-to-day elements of our age apartheid system that are the most insulting.

Its the little indignities that build and accumulate to form the frustration young people feel. Like blacks in Montgomery, Alabama being made to sit in the back of the bus was just a small matter. It really didn't have any wide reaching consequences for blacks like the denial of their voting rights did. However it was a daily reminder that whites were deemed better, superior, more deserving of some honor or privilege. Facing such a social system strips away one's dignity. It is in this multitude of small ways that youth have their pride and dignity striped away from them by ageism.

This story from the NYRA Forums is one more example of this:

NYRA forum post Wrote:Earlier this morning, I was lap swimming at the YMCA, and this lifeguard came up to me and said: LIFEGUARD: You're going to have to stay in the shallow end. ME: Why? (right eyebrow up) LIFEGUARD: Because a lady wants to swim in this lane. We can't allow children to lap swim if the pool is full. ME: This is a problem. LIFEGUARD: Well then you're going to have to get out.

He wasn't causing a disturbance. He wasn't screwing around. He was doing laps. Exact same thing the adult wanted to do. Yet because he was young he had to get out to allow the adult to swim instead.

The adult is deemed superior in this society and is given special privileges. Just like whites were before the Civil Rights movement. Blacks had to give up their seats to whites, youth have to give up their pool lanes to adults.

This teen wasn't just asked to give up the lap he was swimming in, he was asked to give up his dignity. Asked to give up his self-respect and his very humanity. When you have to submit yourself to such a system you lose a bit of yourself. Afflicted with a million pinpricks of ageism, the self-worth and idealism of youth dies a slow death. They grow cynical and weary. And after many years of submitting to an unjust authority, ultimately their young self dies and becomes... an adult. I can think of no worse injustice.

Age apartheid isn't a system that protects youth, it is a system that protects adults. It enshrines and protects adult privilege, which is its intent and purpose. Indeed it creates adults, the worst kind of them. Bitter, cynical, tired, and selfish. Adults who instead of turning on the corrupt system that broke them down years ago, embrace that system and use it for their own benefit. Adults who think they can make themselves feel better by stripping the dignity away from others. But kicking kids out of the pool isn't going to bring your youth back; it is just going to destroy someone else's.

Some have accused the youth rights movement of trying to destroy childhood, and making all kids into adults. Indeed it is quite the opposite. Our current age apartheid system is destroying childhood and kills our youth into a bitter adulthood. We don't wish to destroy childhood, we wish to destroy adulthood, and in so doing save both youth and adults.

Posted by KPalicz at January 18, 2006 06:22 PM

[Abandoning Ship]

Man,I hate stupid Shit like that...

[Freak]

Ok I have a story that kind of related to the first topic. I saw it on Haunted Mansions around the World. Well here it is:
Well a care-free girl named sally was sent to a bording school after he widowed mother remarried to a guy who didn't want to raise another mans child. So she hid her pet turtle and wen to the bording school. Well the headmaster there was a real asshole. He "struck fear into little children just by his mear presence". And she was grounded into the house one day, and she had to sew something. Well she didn't want tp so she snuck out to play with her turtle.
K the headmaster noticed she was missing and he went out to find her. When he did, he went in to a rage. So he tied her hands together and tied her to a gravestone in a deserted graveyard. Well she was scared as hell. There was a whole bunch of wierd stories about that place too. Well she saw flaming eyes and a mouth, and fainted. Although the "flaming ghost" was just a lantern held by a slave(this was in the 16-17 century) and when he saw her he went to get help. She was 7 years old at the time, and the experience turmed her from a care-free, fun-loving child into a suspicious, angry adult. Poeple say she now haunts her old home, trying to refill the missed childhood years.
See the point? But yeah, anyway. The funny thing is with popularity, and slavery, ageism is just poeple wanting to feel more special than others, so they put them down. This really relates to the old saying "respect your elders" which my brother(19) used this on me yesterday because I was "being a smartass":shooting:which i encountered with "but I thought being smart was a good thing":rocket:, which he then tried to stab me with his fork(he's in dire need of anger management). Well it was all about who should go on the computer(yeah I know we're all computer freaks) but since he was older I guess he had more of a right.
I'm actually suprised, once you start thinking about it, how much adults think they're better than you. Because "your too young" and shit like that. The funny thing is in the definition of ageism, it says that its usually against old poeple which infact who yells more, a teenager for his grampa taking too long in the bathroom, or the teenager for screwing up....

[Cilaos]

man that sux

[Alucard483]

i wish i had a turtle

[xXThe Damnation ProjectXx]

hahahahahahahaha

alucard ur fuckin weird man

..................i wanna turtle to????????

[Freak]

....SO DO I!

[xXThe Damnation ProjectXx]

lmffao

[Alucard483]

that one is mine

that one is FoN's

an that one is sorrow's

[Freak]

TURTLE! TURTLE! TURTLE!

I'll name [him] BOB!!!
OR [her]... BOB!

[Abandoning Ship]

You're a strange girl, FON.

[xXThe Damnation ProjectXx]

woo hoo i got a turtle im puttin him in my signature

[Freak]

Quote:You're a strange girl, FON.

[Rebelnerd]

hey, there's nothing wrong with being strange.

unless you're running for president, of course.

[Freak]

That is amazingly good point

[xXThe Damnation ProjectXx]

roflmffao

[Superkamiguru]

"We don't wish to destroy childhood, we wish to destroy adulthood, and in so doing save both youth and adults.'

Beautiful.

[The man]

(01-04-2017 01:38 PM)Superkamiguru Wrote:  "We don't wish to destroy childhood, we wish to destroy adulthood, and in so doing save both youth and adults.'

Beautiful.

[James Comey]

You bump your own post in hubris

[The man]

You'd do the same.

[James Comey]

Most likely.

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

Quote:from a care-free, fun-loving child into a suspicious, angry adult

That's me. That's me alright.

[James Comey]

Lol and yet they teach us "manners" and that bullshit

[the Analogist]

i have pretty much no qualms, if someone wants to make a big deal about it, defending my kids rights against some asshole trying to pull that crap.

politeness is important, but I think sometimes people do need to be told to fuck off