What We Want Baltimore to Know About Us: The Unspoken Voices of Baltimore’s Youth

Photo credits: Ahmed Nishaath via Unsplash

We want Baltimore to know that we feel misunderstood, unrepresented, and underestimated. We are capable of so many things, but feel a lack of resources, limelight, and knowledge. We are just figuring things out as individuals, as we are not children, yet we still aren’t quite adults. However, society and law are constantly flipping between everyone expecting us to act like adults and the age when we actually become one.

"We want Baltimore to know that we feel misunderstood, unrepresented, and underestimated."

We go to school and work and have to see, live in, or hear about underdeveloped neighborhoods. However, adults believe that none of it affects us. Baltimore doesn’t develop and fund its schools enough. Some subjects taught in most schools are outdated and aren’t up to date with the modern trends and pace of society. There are some teachers that are underqualified to teach and don’t understand us. And school doesn’t teach youth important life skills we need to know: for example, how to sign up for health insurance, get a job, or file taxes. They don’t teach at a slow enough pace for the children to learn. Some youth would strongly benefit from individualized learning plans. If they keep teaching the same way they have been, youth will continue to be underachievers and unemployed.

So, say you are lucky enough to live in a part of Maryland that the mayor built up or refurbished. We still see the news and have just gotten through a whole pandemic that changed our view of society as a whole. Even though we are still growing and discovering who we are as people, family and society expect us to go to school, find a job, and decide what we want to be after the next 4-8 years.

We want society to know that we aren’t all lazy. However, some of us go to college like we are told so we can “get a good job”—now what? We owe money in student loans, and “there aren’t enough jobs for people,” “they aren’t hiring”, or the “good government jobs are laying people off.” Sometimes these are our parents dealing with these issues, including unemployment. But society expects us to be unaware, oblivious to the things happening because “you’re a kid,” “kids don’t pay attention to things like that,” or because society doesn’t want to be held accountable.

Elected officials focus on lowering youth crime rates and applaud the kids prone to making bad choices for doing good, or persuade them with rewards. However, you don’t focus on your kids who have been doing good all along just because that is what is expected of them. Your youth who see it as their calling to serve their city and fellow youth struggle to find programs, and when they do find them there isn’t enough space for everyone or they aren’t properly trained on how to be professional.

Many youth feel and agree upon these struggles. But they are afraid to speak up and voice their opinion for fear of being shunned or ostracized because of others social biases. So yes, we can be dreamers and achievers, and whatever you want us to be for a perfect future. But you, Baltimore, have to let us know that we are heard and appreciated by you as well.

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Sela Powell is a youth advocate and board member at Youth As Resources (YAR), a Baltimore-based, youth-led nonprofit focused on changing policies and practices of concern to young people. She is also CEO of Selalike, where she designs, crafts and sells a range of hand-made creations, including costumes, jewelry and art.