You’re Not Listening: Baltimore Youth Speak Out

Second Edition.

Thug, deficient, lazy, irresponsible, disadvantaged. Too often, urban youth - particularly African American youth - are portrayed as caricatures. Such labels persist in part because adults are unwilling or unable to listen to what teenagers are saying about themselves. You’re Not Listening provides a forum for young people to tell their own stories in their own words about their own lives and in the process, challenge readers to reexamine the predispositions and stereo- types they may hold about cities and city kids. The young people who speak out in these pages are all growing up amidst underfunded, largely segregated schools, wages that do not keep up with inflation, inadequate health care, substandard housing, and racial profiling. But urban teenagers are not monolithic in their responses to such realities. Some try harder than others to do well in school, some - but not all - work to supplement the family income, and some have strong opinions about racism and poverty, while others have little interest in discussing the subject. Like all teenagers, they must navigate the choppy waters of adolescent development: forge their own academic, career and sexual identities, establish peer relationships, and negotiate autonomy from parents. They do so in ways that resist the labels imposed by many adults, those who think they know city kids after a superficial glance. Like all teenagers, they long to be heard and understood. To read this book with an open mind is to take the risk of saying to these thirty-four young people: I am listening.