The Youth vs The Pigs

MILITARY RECRUITMENT:

Schools in low-income neighborhoods are used as gold mines to recruit soldiers from high schools and colleges 10 times more than prosperous schools. This is usually being done by attracting them with promises to financially support their families and keep them out of jail. In fact, Section 9528 from the U.S. Department of Education’s provisions mandate public high schools to be given the same level of access to military recruiters as college recruiters, including children’s names, addresses, and phone number listings if requested. Think about that. 

The land of the free becomes the land of manipulation. 

Military recruiters exploit the financial, racial, and social insecurities of young adults to keep them away from the one thing that could give them power in the real world: education. I do agree that some get involved with the military due to financial or academic obligations, such as having the military pay for their schooling while they serve or learning in a specific trade school through the military. However, the military is responsible for falsely portraying an image of an honorable life serving one’s country around the world to young minds. The work of a true nationalist, they say. 

Additionally, recruiters avoid the talk of mental and physical trauma in soldiers; studies of mental disorders in militaries show “the highest rates of all disorders, including alcohol abuse, anxiety syndromes, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among the youngest cohort, those aged 17 through 24.” More specifically, in a study of veterans suffering from PTSD, almost 80 percent wanted their families to be more involved in their recovery process. Post-deployment families are often faced with not only family/marital problems, but also “domestic violence, sexual issues, depression, and sleep disturbances.”

Students’ rights to education, safety, healthcare, and citizenship shouldn’t need to be obtained by having to risk their physical and psychological beings. 

During my high school train rides, I got off at the stop Broadway Junction to transfer to the L train every day. In at least three out of the five days I used to pass the platform, there would be military recruitment held there. Mind you, Broadway Junction is a very accessible train stop, with trains A, C, J, Z, and L all in one station. Knowing very well that it’s a station very popular for middle school and high school kids in one of the most low-economic neighborhoods in New York City, the recruiters would often stop children and young adults, and persistently pass out flyers. Military recruitment is more widespread than just in schools and these practices are nothing less than predatorial.

SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE:

Moreover, the school-to-prison pipeline disproportionately affects students of color to keep them out of public schools and bring them into the criminal system. According to the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, Black students are suspended and expelled three times more often than their white counterparts. This can be seen through the lens of mental health. Instead of offering resources and counseling services to support students with ADHD, ADD, anxiety, etc., zero-tolerance policies are being used to punish them. They are labeled as “too rowdy” or “inattentive” whenever there is a slight miscommunication between the students and teachers left unaddressed. This leads to more police involvement in schools. “At least one in three students arrested has a disability, ranging from emotional disability such as bipolar disorder to learning disabilities like dyslexia,” reports activist and author Leroy Moore Jr. There are no mandated policies about anti-racism police training in schools, ironic considering how schools with a majority non-white student body have the highest percentages of campus law enforcement in the country. This leads students in schools to feel unsafe in a supposedly “safe space,” with police who often have little to no experience working with children, putting them behind bars for “disruptive behavior.” 

Experiencing this lack of academic and emotional support, as well as getting arrested for non-violent offenses, creates a cycle of trauma in students of color from a young age. Eventually, this leads them to juvenile detentions or locked up behind bars for the majority of their young lives.

Let us all commit to a forever of accountability and justice <3