I want to make this absolutely clear to kids: children didn’t used to be stuck inside the house like you are today. There used to be public places you could hang out. It used to be fairly safe to walk around because trucks weren’t designed to kill children. You didn’t need a car to go anywhere so kids without a license weren’t trapped. There weren’t 24/7 cable news networks constantly scaring parents with anecdotes even as crime was at all time lows and the biggest danger comes from adults kids know not strangers.
It’s easy to ignore old people talking about “the good ol’ days” because a lot of the people saying that shit are racist assholes, but the way society treats kids today really is objectively worse than how kids used to be treated. You deserve better, and you should know that better things are possible. We just need to kill the suburbs and for-profit news.
When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, I could go for a bike ride or walk with my sister or friends and we could leave after breakfast and not come back until dinner and our parents weren’t worried. We lived on the edge of town, so we could turn left into the woods or turn right and go downtown or go straight and go to a friend’s house in the neighborhood. I went to a park or the community pool or went out for ice cream alone from a young age.
I also regularly walked to and from school alone from as young as first grade (so, about age 6). And I’m not saying I walked three miles uphill in snow both ways, but I checked a map and it was over half a mile and crossed at least one street that people drive pretty fast on. And that was normal.
it’s so funny to me that conservatives think the reason university students become more liberal is because of the actual course material and not like. the fact that universities in the US introduce are oftentimes the first place Americans are introduced to a walkable environment with affordable health care, with community spaces for any affiliation under the sun where they give you free resources and cheap food. with included public transit and opportunities for training in your field of choice. and you realize that for how much you’re spending on tuition/taxes, yeah, you do deserve these things, it would be insane not to have those. and then you graduate and go back to having to buy a car to drive 20 minutes to the grocery store.
It’s also one of the first places a lot of people raised in insular, conservative areas meet “the other”. People of other ethnicities and cultures, people of other religions, other gender presentations, sexualities, etc. You get to know them and start realizing how much of what you “knew” about them was myth or straight-up propaganda.
It’s a lot harder to demonize queer people when the person helping you pass calculus is a trans woman, or your lab partner talks about his boyfriend exactly the same way you talk about yours. It’s a lot harder to believe that immigrants are out to get you when your Hindu roommate cheerfully shares a care package of homemade goodies from home, or Malia down the hall covers your lunch because you forgot to bring your wallet to study group. You start rethinking some assumptions when the 6 foot spike-encrusted goth who sits behind you in lecture hall shows everyone photos of his baby niece dressed like a puppy for Halloween with all the pride of a new parent, and you remember when your flannel and camo-wearing uncle did the same thing at work last year with photos of your little sister.
Suddenly all those “others” are just people. They’re your friends, classmates, coworkers, and maybe even romantic interests. And that’s a lot harder to hate or fear.
While every force available in the world is searching for the 5 people in the oceangate submersible, a boat filled with mostly Syrian and Pakistani refugees sank under still “unknown” circumstances off the coast of Peloponnisos, Greece (with the coast guard present). More than 600 people drowned but guess which of the two is making headlines
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