When people ask me what I do for work I typically say “I work for a small non profit that provides outdoor, experiential, education, and leadership development for middle and high school students.” People often respond by asking me if I “work with “troubled youth?” This question perplexes me. I wonder what I say to give others the impression I work with troubled youth. In fact, I work with tremendously talented, thoughtful, compassionate, and kind young people, who inspire me daily. The population of teens with whom I work are usually described as “at-risk youth.” However, I actively reject this term. I believe the term, “at-risk youth” has become a euphemism for urban youth, conjuring up images of youth of color who listen to rap music, where baggy clothes ,and flash gang colors. A tired, overused stereotype many white people rely upon to perpetuate the racist concept that all youth of color are monochromatic, “troubled,” “at-risk,” and dangerous. Additionally, much like I believe describing a person who has a mental illness, as a mentally ill person, defines them by the singular characteristic of mental illness; I believe describing a young person as an “at-risk” youth does the same. When youth are described as “at risk” it implies that young people are the problem instead of recognizing the institutional deficits that consistently fail young people, particularly marginalized youth....youth of color, LGBTQ youth, poor youth, and immigrant youth.
I don’t believe this was the original intent of the term “at-risk,” however I think the evolution of this phrase has resulted in a watered-down version of yet another way to stereotype youth of color. It also redirects our attention from the systemic barriers that prevent youth from flourishing to the “troubled youth” themselves. By focusing attention on the problems of youth, people with privilege are able to avoid taking responsibility for the many ways our country fails young people of color and scapegoat the “at risk” youth as the problem.
The students with whom I work aspire to be pediatric surgeons, take college classes, get straight A’s, stay clean and sober, read books, write poetry, go on trips to the backcountry for up to a month at a time, participate in service learning, earn scholarships, graduate from college, work as raft guides, go snow boarding, rock climbing, and mountain biking, mentor younger students, do their homework, take responsibility for their actions, care about each other, engage in activism, work towards change, work to support their families, speak more than one language, play sports, play instruments, watch the news, and are community leaders. These students accomplish these things while staying up late to care for younger siblings as their parents work two jobs, while coping with the loss of a parent to a drug overdose, while living in fear that immigration will raid their homes, while watching a parent be deported, while knowing they may never go to college, be able to work, or travel, because they don’t have proper documentation, while witnessing shootings on their front lawns, while seeing their cousins fall prey to gangs, while encountering racism, while attending schools with minimal resources, while living in neighborhoods without grocery stores, while getting jumped and robbed at the light rail station, and while waking up every morning surrounded by the smell of the dog food and rendering plants polluting the air.
I propose these young people are in fact not “at risk youth,” but rather, they are “exceptional youth,” who are succeeding in spite of the fact they are perceived as trouble youth, in spite of the fact they do not have access to the many resources flooding privileged communities, in spite of the fact the oppressive system within which they are living is designed for their failure. Perhaps it is time to reconsider how young people are defined.
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