I received an e-mail a few days ago from someone upset with the ageist policy of a local peace group in Pennsylvania. This group was putting together a bus to go down to an anti-war rally organized by International Answer. Unlike every other bus going, this group decided to require that everyone on the bus be over 18, or have a parent to chaperone them. Chris, a young person in the area (though over 18 I believe) was rightfully pissed off about the policy and has been writing e-mails to the local group, and International Answer trying to convince them to change the policy. He asked me to write a letter as well.

For your reading pleasure, I’m reposting the letter here. Just a note, since I say some potentially politically charged things in this letter, don’t fly off the handle if you disagree. Consider the audience to which this letter was sent:

I am writing you to politely ask that you reconsider your no one under 18 allowed policy for the International Answer trip to DC. If it’ll help you to give greater weight to my opinion and request, I will let you know that I am an adult, and one who represents 5,500 youth and adults who care about freedom, equality and justice for young people in America.

Your policy goes against the ideals of your organization and of International Answer and should be reconsidered. For practical concerns of growing your movement, it should be reconsidered also. Young people are impassioned critics of the war in Iraq, and are politically active and you are no doubt turning away many individuals who could be great allies of your cause. In the anti-war demonstrations I have been to, a very sizable percentage of participants there have been youth. You are shooting yourself in the foot by making this decision.

More important to us of course are moral and ethical reasons. Young people are people. People who deserve the same respect and consideration you give adults. Youth are intelligent and capable enough to decide on their own whether they want to support or oppose this war, and whether they want to attend an action on that topic. To deny that reality puts you in the same historical category as whites who supported Jim Crow laws and men who opposed woman suffrage. They are just as capable of looking after themselves on a trip such as yours as anyone else. You wouldn’t need to stress out over their welfare, and I am certain they wouldn’t want you to. Just treat your young fellow protesters the same as your old fellow protesters.

Would you put in a ban on all older adults out of fear of legal risk if they suddenly keel over from old age or sickness? Would you ban all animals for fear of legal risk if they attack someone or cause a mess? Would you ban all illegal immigrants out of fear you could be charged with helping an illegal immigrant travel in this country? Would you ban handicapped individuals out of fear they could get injured and sue you?

Americans are a litigious people, I can’t deny that, but unless you are handing all passengers a 20 page contract to sign there are a multitude of possibilities that could end up with you getting sued for something. Yet you feel that it is a worthwhile risk for everyone other than young people. From that I’d say the real issue here isn’t legal liability, but rather your own biases and beliefs that youth should not be trusted, and are too incompetent to travel.

There isn’t much else to call that besides bigotry and discrimination. The justifications for your treatment of youth are no different than the justification used generations ago to exclude and disenfranchise minorities and women. Racists and sexists long ago (and still many today) believed that women and blacks couldn’t handle responsibility, couldn’t fend for themselves, and just weren’t as smart or able as white men, and so put in place many laws, restrictions, and policies, such as yours, to restrict them. You action merely perpetuates and vindicates the bigotry of past eras.

You mention the 60’s, but honestly if everyone had your attitude back then, the 60’s as we know them never would have existed. I have studied under Julian Bond, the NAACP Chairman, and a veteran of SNNC and the student sit-in movement back in the 60’s. He taught us that the protests, marches, and direct action that made the Civil Rights movement successful 40 years ago were populated largely by kids and teenagers. In many cases their parents were too afraid to speak out against racism and white supremacy, preferring to stick to the strategy they’ve always known best which was to keep their heads down, not make any waves, and hope not to incur the wrath of their white, southern neighbors. If it were left up to the adults, perhaps Jim Crow would still be with us today.

It was the youth of that time that recognized the wrong of racism and marched in the streets bravely facing fire hoses, police dogs, and billy clubs that turned the tide against racism in the South. Heaven help us had Martin Luther King required their parents chaperone. Young people then and young people today, recognize an injustice earlier, and respond more actively to that injustice than the adults do. It is no wonder than youth were against this war when it started, and are against it even more today. Adults however have waffled back and forth, and were more than willing to return the instigator of that war back to the White House for another 4 years.

You said you faced reality when you were young. Did you also face the reality of racism and sexism? Would you have embraced Jim Crow because that was the reality of the time? If you were organizing a bus ride 40 years ago, would you have insisted blacks sit in the back or would you have gotten a separate bus to take them? Or would you have bravely embraced the Freedom Riders who put their lives on the line to desegregate buses? Black or white, youth or adult, I would have supported the Freedom Riders, and still do. I imagine Chris would too.

I recognize the reality of ageism, I recognize the reality of racism, I recognize the reality of this war, but instead of throwing up my hands and accepting injustice, I choose to fight it. Your bus ride down to DC in opposition to this war is a symbol of that fight against injustice. Please, I beg you, don’t turn that noble act into yet another injustice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 11:21 am and is filed under Youth Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.