YOUTH CULTURES – SUMMER 2014 DANGEROUS OR ENDANGERED?

YO U T H C U LT U R E S – S U M M E R 2 0 1 4

DANGEROUS OR ENDANGERED?

YOUTH AND POLITICS

• Youth are enmeshed in and not separate from urban politics.

• Youth as political symbols

• Youth as objects of political action.

• Youth as political actors or a “political identity”

NEOLIBERALISM AND THE PUNITIVE STATE

Overview:

Neoliberal policies (defunding of public programs and the privatization of public spaces and services) and neoliberal ideologies (broken windows, culture of poverty) have led to a “crisis of care” and “youth problem” that is increasingly met by punitive measures that restrict youth citizenship.

How does fear for the youth and fear of the youth shape urban childhoods?


• There is symbiotic relationship between prisons and ghettos that impacts urban childhoods. (pg 47)

• The School-to-Prison Pipeline – a term used to describe the widespread pattern in the United States of pushing students, especially those who are already at a disadvantage, out of school and into the American criminal justice system through harsh punishments and sentences.


“Neoliberal governance has not reduced state power, despite calls for small government. The rise of law-

and-order politics has expanded the state’s “power to punish” (Tilton, 6).

• This is evidenced in the meteoric rise in prison population over the last 30 years.

• For youth, this is further complicated by the tremendous growth of youth incarceration in privately owned and operated youth correctional centers.


• This punitive system is not simply forced directly by the State, but also becomes part of the local logic for addressing social problems. We could say it becomes part of the hegemonic ideology of neoliberalism.

• Community policing – used to describe an open dialogue between citizens and the police so that local citizens can be “the eyes and ears of the police force” and police can respond to more local concerns and not simply 911 calls (Tilton, 55).


• Local benefits of “community policing”:• Better relations between police and local communities. • Activist learned to see legal constraints on police.• Police, in turn, can better address larger issues instead of

focusing only on specific crimes.

• Local draw backs of “community policing”:• Adopted “Broken Windows” theory for local problem solving.• Makes it difficult for activists to make broad demands

because the focus is on local issues and community responsibility.

• Reshaped activists understandings of youth to youth as “the problem”. Ex: “Youth criminals have more rights than citizens!”

• Absence of youth from community policing initiatives.


If citizenship is being crafted as participation in community policing of youth, what does this mean

for youth citizenship?

“POTENTIAL THUGS AND GANGSTERS”

• What was cruising down the boulevard?

• We can see this activity as a product of deindustrialization and the retreat of private businesses by the early 1990s.

• This form of youth entertainment quickly became targeted as an unwanted, criminal activity.

• Led to spontaneous events and cops and youth engaged in cat and mouse routine


• Youth in public spaces

• Redevelopment efforts hinged on selling a marketable “downtown sense of place and character” (165). What Zukin calls “domestication by cappuccino.”

• Youth, particularly youth of color, were increasingly portrayed as “undesirable occupants” of public space.


• Youth in public spaces

• Youth on the “street” and the “corner” became embodied “broken windows”.

• The notion of “Thuggish looking” kids conflates urban styles with criminal behavior.

• “No place to go” – activists and community organizers attempt to solve the “problem of youth” by creating various afterschool programs.

STOP AND FRISK

• How can we connect Tilton’s argument about “thuggish looking” youth as unwanted occupiers of public spaces to the controversial “Stop and Frisk” Laws.

• Some of the facts:• From 2004-2012, there were over 4 million stops in NYC.

83% of the people stopped were black or Latino, mostly males ages under the age of 25.

• Only 1 in 10 results in a citation or charge. • Guns are found in less than 0.2 percent of stops

STOP AND FRISK

• Do these policies protect or endanger youth moving in urban spaces?

• Again, what do these policies mean for youth rights and citizenship?

WHAT IS “THE POWER OF YOUTH”?

• What political and social agency do youth have to challenge impositions on youth citizenship and rights?


• Youth as a political identity.

• Neoliberal disinvestment in youth, coupled with get tough solutions, led to “youth” becoming “a pejorative identity, emblematic of the failure of family, values, and the nation” (194). This is evidenced in policy-making, media portrayals of youth, and even local attitudes towards youth.

• However, this construction of “problem youth” also resulted in young people uniting to denaturalize this stigma and mobilize against the erasure of youth from public spaces. A political identity was crafted via this opposition and pulled from imagery and the social memory of earlier youth social movements. Additionally, “youth” as a political identity is flexible and trans-generational.


• Youth uniting against the Super Jail and Prop 21 in Oakland.

• Methods• Protest at Board of Supervisors meeting. • Super Jail Campaign with posters, demonstrations, etc.• Use of Hip-Hop in the reclamation of public spaces.

• Successes• Reduction of youth correctional facility expansions• Initiated discussion of alternative solutions.


Dream Defenders –

“Dream Defenders will bring social change by training and organizing youth and students in

nonviolent civil disobedience, civic engagement, and direct action while creating a sustainable network of youth and student leaders to take

action and create real change in their communities.”

- dreamdefenders.org


• POPPYN – Presenting Our Perspectives on Philly Youth News

POPPYN is “A News Show BY youth FOR youth (and some cool adults) that presents a real perspectives on what's

going on with youth in Philadelphia.”

• POPPYN works to present a positive representation of young people in the city to counter the overwhelmingly negative and criminalizing discourses about urban youth. Additionally, the frequently address social and political issues that impact young people’s lives in Philly.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS

As you complete this week’s readings and media, keep in mind…

• How do neoliberal policies and ideologies affect youth and restrict youth citizenship?

• What power do youth have to resist youth criminalization and effect change? How do they assert their rights as citizens?

Documents

YOUTH CULTURES – SUMMER 2014 DANGEROUS OR ENDANGERED?