_______________________america's youth: introduction - by adire___

youth (y th) n. pl. youths (y ths, y thz)
1. a. The condition or quality of being young.
b. An early period of development or existence: a nation in its youth.
2. The time of life between childhood and maturity.
3. a. A young person, especially a young male in late adolescence.
b. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Young people considered as a group.
4. Geology. The first stage in the erosion cycle.

We are analyzed. Objectified. Studied like lab rats, like a new and dangerous strain of an old and familiar virus, and our "problem areas" isolated as though we were parts of a single body infected with various cancers that must be excised. Those more vicious than others might call that analogy accurate in more ways than one.

We are a curiosity. An alien species, strange to mankind, with jaded eyes and a survival-laced death wish. Confusing. They wonder what to do about us, never with us. Try to influence us for their own personal benefit. Try to understand us in order to exert that influence. Group us as though we can be defined as a whole, a static percentage constant, that shares immutable traits without individuality, that shares a single face without human emotion and only malicious intent.

We are called the downfall of a nation, and its hope. We are blamed for nearly every problem that there is and yet expected to somehow fix them all when they are no longer in other hands. We are misunderstood, and lonely among millions of our peers. Isolated within the safety of ourselves.

We are considered immature, inexperienced, without the differences in our experiences ever accounted for. We are called rebellious when we attempt to exert our independence. We are not recognized as true people.

We are spoken of.

But never for.

We are America's youth.

There is a generation gap so vast that its gulf is formed not of years, but of an entire mindset and state of existence. A way of thinking based not upon the prosperous work ethic that founded this nation, but upon survival in a selfish and cruel world where one has to guard as much against one's allies as one's enemies. "Help thy fellow man" has fallen by the wayside to be replaced by a sense of wordless wariness that places imaginary knives in the hands of strangers and friends alike, be the blades physical to wound the body or metaphorical edges that might scar emotionally and psychologically.

Reality has expanded and with it, our view of the world. A greater grasp of the external causes one to reexamine the workings of the internal and study them in a new light that often leads to a new understanding and a redefinition of previously concrete terms. With this greater understanding often comes a reformation of, if nothing else, thought alone. That reformation might affect politics, ethics, religion - because we do possess those, in quantity. We possess them in forms new and revolutionary and thus unrecognized by the established protocols, considered "shiftless" and "amoral" instead of simply "different".

It is time for something different. The old ways of life, of government, are moving too slowly to keep pace with the development of society as a whole, and degrading at a rate inversely proportional to their advancement and directly proportional to the mental and technological expansion of mankind. And with that degradation the abyss grows exponentially wider, separating young from old from middle-aged and creating barriers that mere media and politics will never be able to cross.

I am a voice. I can speak with certainty only for one, but try to provide a conduit for many, each with individual voices that speak individual thoughts. And with my voice I say, "We are the revolution". With my voice I say, "We are change". With my voice I say, "We are evolution".

With my voice I say, "We are America's youth."

And we are the inheritors of this legacy.

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