Youth Revolution Starts Here

Youth Revolution Starts Here

Alison is now back home, back into Village life, back into her own reference point of family, community, culture, religion. I frequently wonder what sort of reflection she is moving through in relation to her Canadian journey. I dream about being a mosquito resting buzzlessly on her shoulder while she tells her friends and family about her time in Nova Scotia, Canada. I imagine Alison saying “Whaaaat if you see Shopping Malls. Whole place full of things to buy oui!, and cheap as what! They joking when it comes to cheap things in Canada!”

I reflect on my own memories of Alison’s journey, the ones highlighted in my mind that speak of change through stepping out of comfort zones and expanding our minds to include a colorful spectrum of perspectives; ways of seeing the world that may or may not be our own; stretching into possibilities of new light by questioning old world views, old points of reference, widening, changing perspective becoming more inclusive, multi dimensional, forgiving, accepting, loving ….

Our week in Halifax surfaces to the forefront as I write about stepping out and into new perspectives. On our first evening in the big city Maya, Alison and I walked to the wharf. I felt Ali’s heart pumping fast as we moved into her first big city scene. We watched the madness of people everywhere on the docks taking in the last day of the Buskers Festival on a warm breezy Sunday eve. We bumped up with a group of black Nova Scotian youth doing what Grenadian youth do; hang out, make noise, move into their own collective rhythms. We watched while this same group found themselves in trouble with a white security guard for taking up space in the ferry terminal. We watched the security guard stumble in his conditioned fears of youths; most likely of black youths. He comes on too strong and stumbles in his power role to get them out of the terminal. I couldn’t help wonder how he would react if the group were a group of white kids, would they too be asked to leave? Words were exchanged, defiancy displayed before the youths sauntered out. Alison blurts out “I bet you would never see white kids getting on like that, that only happens with my colour skin!” I took a deep breathe. I responded by saying perhaps it wasn’t about race at all but about youths in general, perhaps it was about respect and how we as a society respect our youths, or perhaps it was about race and learning about our own selves and our own reactions to people who are different from us. Perhaps the security guard was afraid of his own fear of black youths and wanted them out of the terminal before they turned into the gangster images pop culture feeds him night after night as he sits to escape life through hours of tv watching. Alison and I then reflected on how race and class are intimately related and I couldn’t help think of the comment recently heard on a phone-in program on CBC radio where Nova Scotia was described as a Northern Mississipi.

Alison, Maya and I talked a bit more about youths in general and the differences not only of skin colour but of opportunity. How some youths may not grow up with the opportunities that others grow up with and therefore life is much harder for them. They may act out through being rebellious to authority or by stealing something they see so easily accessible to everyone else or they may lash out and get into fights out of years of frustration at home. I then wondered out loud why we were only seeing white youths smoking cigarettes, dressed in worn out clothes, hands outstretched for change. Why weren’t the black kids begging for money? Why weren’t the black kids walking solitary around in a haze looking for change? Perhaps it was simply that day. I guess I wanted Alison to see that it wasn’t only youths that look like her who get in trouble, that the layers are complicated and that through traveling I hoped she would be able to open her heart and mind to those layers.

Memories start to tumble out one after the other and I am left with an assortment of moments to share and sort out. I go slow so I can capture and do justice to my own memories soon to compare them with Alison’s once we return. I will continue to unfold memories of potential change in the preceding blogs for now here is the first.
One Love
One Youths!!