Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Last Blog Post 11: Teens Talk Back



Lost Count: A Love Story

This is a spoken word piece written by two young adults "teens" raising awareness on the critical issues that are mis/not represented throughout all dominant institutions. The issue of black youth and their frequent encounter with death. In main stream media the stories that are portrayed never cover stories on black youth and their individual experiences. We never see or hear about young black youth and their contact with daily murderous encounters and the fear of being a target of police violence. The only portrayal of black youth is only of "criminal activity" and negative representations that perpetuate racial stereotypes to maintain this violent western culture. These young men "teens"stand up against the murderous systems that play a part in these young black deaths and they expose the system by giving a voice and identity by naming the victims that were murdered due to these forms of violence. Violence be it black on black violence or police violence against black youth. They call for remembrance, the reality of black suffrage among young adults, and representation of these young individuals in a positive light so that we do not leave their stories untold.



Ambiguous: Classification & Identity


These two beautiful human beings (teens in reference to western context) speak in opposition to racial identity. They want to make it clear that these questions that they are asked on a daily basis are only used as a means to satisfy the questioner, a need for this person to connect dots to their phenotypical characteristics. Therefore whatever is lingering beyond that they can therefore understand where they come from what their heritage is, this can also determine how that person or institution will treat them based on racial identification which leads to oppressive practices through classification. They talk about the need to look beyond that because they are not alien life forms they are human beings. Human beings with substance made with brilliance, creativity, and depth below the surface of their "race,gender, class" that you so desperately need to place them into what YOU HAVE LEARNED from the western culture. These connections that have you so desperately judging by skin color and what goes with what has you blinded to the true person that they are.






3 comments:

  1. I love this because we spent all monday night watching clips like this and they made me laugh and cry haha. Wonderful post!

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  2. that love story was awesome, i watched it twice. - so touching. amazing poetry.
    anyways - these spoken word youtube videos are great examples of teens talking back! something i actually did not even think about until stumbling upon your blog.
    great post:)

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  3. i like the love story video and it does have negative representations of the criminal activity, more people need to stand up against the sysstem

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