Young People Have Voices

Dear National American Media, quit talking about me like I’m not here.

You keep saying things about how students feel and about the youth vote and…talking to old people who supposedly know so much about young people. If you really value expert opinions SO MUCH, why the hell don’t you get up and ask some YOUNG PEOPLE about these things?

And no, by young people I do not mean your young correspondent, like Meghan McCain. Meghan McCain may be young by your standards, but she is not me. She has never been me and I will never be her. Please, if you think she’s really adding to the conversation at hand, put her on your TV show. That’s you’re prerogative – you get to produce whatever programming you want, after all.

Why not ask some actual college students who are trying to get jobs while they they take a full course load or more, work unpaid internships, and participate in student government/clubs/etc around school? Huh? Why not ask us how we feel about our job prospects after we graduate? Or student loans? Or our own assessment of political engagement/enthusiasm or lack thereof?

It’s not completely a joke when I say that the national media kind of acts like a bunch of teenage girls, talking about us (the youth, 18-21 or so in particular) like we’re not in the room. In some cases we aren’t there, but there’s always that fateful time when we walk in and you start to maybe regret what you said just a little. It just so happens some of us are kinda pissed about the things you say behind our back. To put it into another phrase you begin to hear teen girls throw around a bunch in these situations: “If you have something to say, say it to my face.” Say it to my face, Media, and let me respond.

In particular, I wanna yell at cable news. Cable news seems to be all about expert opinion. All day, guest after guest, the way they are justified airtime is that they know something and they know it so well that they have something to contribute. This logic doesn’t seem to be applied to anything about young people though. No college journalists or college political groups are on TV talking about what they see on their campuses after one of a million cable talking heads gives their little intro about the importance of young voters. After all, those people all the experts in these subjects in many ways. They are the first-hand information that is invaluable to any and all journalism. They are the people where the information, the very FACTS are coming from, and yet they are continually ignored in favor of older people who are supposed to represent our concerns and ideas.

If you truly value expert opinions like you claim to, then let some of us in to talk about our experiences. Not all of us are mindless shells of a human being waiting to be formed. If you assume we all are just useless bodies waiting to be enlightened, then I can assure you about 60% of us will still be waiting for our ‘enlightenment’ when were 40, some even longer. And I’m also not saying ignore the statistics or the people who supposedly study, work, and advocate for us. We appreciate them too – but trust only those who have the sense to do some first-hand information collecting.

I’m not saying my education GIVES me some right to speak about this. That would assume I think I’m getting something that will be tangibly useful out of my undergraduate degree. A lot of people who already have their undergraduate degrees are really quick to tell us exactly how useless we are. Maybe it’s true – I don’t have one of those magically helpful Master’s degrees or PhD’s that apparently immediately turn you into a functional member of society and give you all the answers to the huge life questions that apparently I know nothing about (although no one bothered to tell me that until now).

That’s not what I’m saying at all – what I’m saying is that there is no better source than a primary source. You learn that as an undergrad if you really pay attention – that textbooks and anthologies and journals and research are awesome, but why use them if you can dig into the real stuff, the first-hand knowledge as it was originally recorded. Everything else is extrapolation – and the beauty of the primary source document is that you get to do your own extrapolation, and talk to other people who’ve done their own extrapolation and have a far more interesting conversation based on the same source material rather than arguing and fussing over minutiae.

From my perspective, by virtue of being in college, being 19/almost 20 and already having student loans, I believe that qualifies me to talk at least a little about what really goes through my head on topics like student loan forgiveness and interest rates, the job market for new graduates. Being 18 years old (or older) and actually being registered to vote should mean that my opinion on the youth vote, and my ideas that come from watching the young people I interact with on a daily basis are valid source material, if not the most useful kind of source material available.