Youth Speaks

When an eleven-year-old sixth-grader reading her poem about what’s she’s not going to be – pregnant, a high school dropout – started the evening at Youth Speaks last night at the Oakland Art Gallery, I knew it would be an intense event. Another 11-year-old’s poem was about how it’s cool to stay in school and how that attitude contrasts with that of other kids at her school. Initally, I was encouraged by the messages in these two poems, but as the evening continued, I was dismayed by how young these poets were. They’re eleven! They’re in sixth grade! They’re children! Why are they thinking about these things now? Why do they, at this age, think that dropping out is even an option? I understand that my questions are reflections of my own prejudices and my own life.

Other young poets during the evening had written about their lives and drugs, gangs, physical and sexual abuse, prejudice and discrimination, self-mutilation, sexism, corporate crime against minorities, and revolution against the white man. The issues they raise in their poetry are the issues we have been reading about this semester. I am not unfamiliar with these issues; I used to live in New York City, I have experienced some of these personally, and my students have written of these influences in their lives. My frustration is that I want to do something about these issues. It’s one reason why I do the work I do, but (and the word “but” here carries its share of white, liberal, Jewish guilt) I live somewhere now where my children do not have to confront these issues on a daily basis. My older son was going into kindergarten when we moved to California so we were looking at schools, and I could not envision my babies dealing with these issues. I feel lucky (privileged is such a troublesome word) because my husband and I had a choice.

My older son is 15 now and came with me to the readings. He’s really into poetry and, selfishly, I knew I would feel more comfortable walking in with a young person. He enjoyed most of the readings (although he admitted to being made uncomfortable by the anger in the poem “Divide and Conquer” which was about the damage the white power structure has inflicted on people of color). Some of the performers were so passionate, and we were caught up in their enthusiasm and in the topics of their pieces. The readings prompted our conversation in the car on the way home. We talk pretty regularly, but I know I don’t know everything that goes on at his high school. Last night my son talked about the drugs, the alcohol, the peer pressure, and what’s considered cool at his school. The poetry brought this out of him in an unguarded way. He told me he might even want to start a slam club; we need to get more information about this. I’m not going to push – really I’m not – but I am so curious to see if there’s any interest at his school.

We both liked the last poet to read, Brandon Santiago, a coordinator with Youth Speaks, who performed his piece about encouraging young people to stay in school. Several lines were memorable to me from his piece. He said that about 50% of the population of San Francisco is minority, but 90% of the population in the public schools is minority. Whether his statistics are accurate, I don’t know, but he made his point – white people do not send their kids to public school in San Francisco. I know people who moved to our suburban school from San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley when their children reached school age. I often wonder what we would have done if we had stayed in New York when we had children. I want to think that we would have sent our kids to public school in the city where they could have taken advantage of the cultural and ethnic diversity that I experienced growing up, but I honestly can’t say. You hear about the dangers, and given your options as a parent, you do everything you can to keep your children safe.

The children who read last night demonstrated their talent and described their resilience in their poetry. It was intense; it was also inspirational.

Sheila Joseph