Re: letters

From: Kathryn Alexander (Kathryn_Alexander@sfu.ca)
Date: Thu Aug 09 2001 - 19:09:23 PDT


Bill, i have had some difficulty catching up with the email these
past days - the CHT ethnography of the skater's park is fascinating, and
yet i found the letter posted yesterday by your skater - rebel quite
reminisicent of the common refrain of so many angry young males voices
demands for privilege and special consessions - and then the threat of
violence if they are not appeased.

is it reasonable for skaters to have all night parks - and not take into
the needs of the lives of those around them? why does story this seem so
familiar to me.

In a very minor way - our housing co-op put in what I can only call a
concrete cage to accomodate the persistent vandalism and demands of young
males to have a space play basket-ball, hockey and lacross - despite a
rink but 10 minutes walk from here, and an official lacross field built
at the districts expense only five minutes away . We had dreamed of a
multi-purpose space that would encourage co-op functions, b-b-q's ,
children playyground. but in the end we caved and we have our concrete
jungle.

in many ways it was a 'good investment" because it appesed the angry
voices and some of the vandalism in the parking lots and the
confrontations between teens and adults have abated. i will be one of
the fist to s ay it was a good investment - but it is symptomatic of
why it was a good investment.

it concerns power and privilege of so called dis-enfranchised youth -
young men who live a protaracted childhood that sees their entitlement to
resources and public space paramount to any other issue and rights.

in our housing coop, return for this construction of a concrete - gated
cage which mainly white young male adolescent's dominate and monopolise
- some little kids ride bikes under surpervision, some younger
girls play basket ball when the big boys re not there - we have achieved
"commuity peace" - -- but the little ones do not get playgorund and
any girl stays away until the boys are out of the picture

i live beside the concrete cage - we have to replace the basket ball net
every twice a year, I hear the swearing, bullying and obsenities and
listen to the whack whack whack at all hours of the day and into the
early evening and sometimes at midnight when "our boys' some home
from drinking and B & E's to play a few rounds of ball.

Most of those boys are becoming young men, we now have the cage -
and a crop of little ones with no where to play except the cage.

Again, i wonder why this is being constructed as an US versus them
issue , but i feel victimised by the persistent privileging of male youth
- and the ways we go to great lengths to justify our appeasement
startegies to avoid their violence and vandalism,

when do they give back to the community and see their lives beyond their
entitlement.

i hear that the skaters raised money - but the community deserves
consessions too - life is a messy business of consensus, isn't aht a
valuable lesson for young adults to learn?

meanwhile young women turn their despair onto their own bodies -
and young males turn their despair on Other's body's.

just wondering -

kathryn

________________________________________________________________________________
"We live with strangers. those we love most, with whom we share a shelter,
a table, a bed, remain mysterious. Wherever lives overlap and flow
together, there are depths of unknowing." Mary Catherine Bateson, 2000,
from Full Circles, Overlapping Lives.

Kathryn Alexander,
Faculty of Education,
Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6 Canada

Messages for SFU: (604) 291 - 3395 /SFU FAX (604) 291 - 3203

Personal: email: kalexand@sfu.ca



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