What You Don't Know (as submitted to Highestwire)

Submitted by Liana Imam on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 05:05:11 AM EST.

The center of the moral universe. Hi-res version of photo (80 K)

Living in West Bloomfield gives you a sort of jaded view of life. Spending $150 on a pair of jeans seems reasonable, staying in (or sober) on weekends makes you a downer, and if you’re not going to University of Michigan you’ve officially failed at life. To the typical Bloomfield kid, the world is unimportant. The only issues of relevance are things like, who had the most hardcore party last weekend? Which is the most scandalous couple-of-the-week? Where am I going to go for spring break? At least that’s what it seems like. And I don’t understand it in the least.

Teenage kids seem to have this syndrome, one that I have an incredible problem with. Their problem is that they don't know what's going on in the world around them. It's not an accusation of ignorance or apathy or what have you, it's just a fact. I'm not saying that tons of young adults aren't interested in being politically and socially aware. On the contrary, it is my firm opinion that high school and college students are some of the most informed and enlightened people. And I'm definitely not saying I'm the one amazing exception and I watch the news religiously and I know more than you so HA. I'm saying I have an immigrant father and a first-generation mother, people who are affected by the workings of the world outside America. I'm interested by default. Pretty much what I mean is that it's really sort of an accident that I know what I do. It's kind of the luck of the draw.

I think what it is, is that when you're seventeen and you live in America and your country's got most of the nukes in the world at their disposal, you think you're invincible. And you think that believing you’re invincible makes it so and nothing else matters. And you don't care about what's happening in a Third World country somewhere hundreds, thousands of miles away because it's insignificant, it doesn't affect you, and there’s no interesting way to get information about it. It’s just old men on major news corporations spitting out random facts that don’t have anything to do with the fact that there’s a huge party this weekend and you need a manicure before then.

They underestimate the connections, though. America is this nation founded on the idea of a ‘melting pot.’ People of all races and cultures and ethnicities coming together. So, you’ve got a nation full of people from nearly every corner of the globe congregating in this little space, which means there must be someone you know that comes from one of these countries. Hey, I’m one of them. You can put my name at the top of your list. My maternal grandmother came to America from Greece when she was nineteen; my father came to America from Bangladesh when he was the same age. Now, ask me. Why does it matter to Americans what happens in Bangladesh?

First of all, the US is giving Bangladesh economic aid which totals about $100 million as of 2001, quite a significant sum of money. But you never would have known that, would you? Because it’s just some little country southeast of India, and until you read this, maybe you’d never even heard of this little country southeast of India. That’s a bit presumptuous, I know, but enough people have asked me what a Bangladesh was when they met me that I think I'm allowed to be a bit of a cynic about it. A lot more money than that has, in fact, been put into Bangladesh by American hands, to help them out with food and development costs, and by a lot more I mean around 4.3 billion dollars. Not to mention that America is, as with every project of this nature, attempting to build a democracy there. Surprised? I’m not. But that's a different issue, and I'm trying to point out why you, American child, are similar to that Bangladeshi kid over there.

My first, and so far only, visit to Bangladesh occurred in 1998, when I was ten years old. Most of my cousins there were significantly older than I; if my memory serves correctly, most of them were fifteen or sixteen at the time, a little younger than I am now. 1998 was a crazy year; not only was it the peak of the scandal with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, it was the year of Titanic. Now that was something the whole world cared about. And that’s one reason you’re connected to Bangladesh, pretty Bloomfield boy in your brand-new Lexus. It’s not like they’re people on the other side of the world who have no social graces or sophistication. A lot of them are beautifully cultured and those who live well have homes to rival the ones in Bloomfield Hills. Most of my cousins came to the States for college. Now, I can only say this of my own heritages for sure, but they are not so different from you. In 2001, the young Greek women were decked out in the same capri pants and little tank tops as I was when I visited. Today, my Bangladeshi cousins are doing the same thing somebody else’s Jewish cousins are doing: studying at a prestigious college somewhere on the East Coast. So why do teenagers think they are so far removed from all of it?

They don’t care, is what it comes down to. The same thing I said all the way at the beginning. I didn’t need to ask my friends and I didn’t need to ask my dad about Bangladesh. They don’t see a direct relationship between their lives and the issues that plague the world, so why should they care? And why don’t they care?

Some people admitted it: yeah, they’re selfish and they’re apathetic and they don’t care about anything but what directly affects them. Some blamed it on the fact that the news takes a backseat to sports and cartoons. Others said they simply didn’t have time to search out the info themselves; that when they heard it in their classes or from their parents it interested them, but they wouldn’t get it on their own. Another reason was that there is so much about America itself that some would rather be gaining knowledge about their own country's history and political or economic workings. And this is understandable and honorable, as long as it's really happening. But what can make world issues more appealing to the American population?

It's a lot like the question that faced the nation a few months ago: How can we get young people interested in voting. The answers were, apparently, efforts like MTV's and other music related projects; Punk Voter and Vote or Die. A few bands even went on Vote for Change tours, most notably Dave Matthews band, as well as groups with smaller followings like Death Cab for Cutie and the Hexum brothers (Nick Hexum is in the band 311). The theory behind this was obviously that music is something a lot of kids are interested in. So maybe you get a popular band to endorse an international issue…ethnic cleansing in Darfur, anyone? Or get a figure who is respected by a younger audience to provide them with information. One person I talked to told me that if Jon Stewart worked foreign issues into his comedy sketches, it might inspire young people to find out more about it. Free newspapers in the front of high schools were also suggested; we have a newsstand you can pay for here at West Bloomfield, but not only is it in a place that lacks prominence, but kids don't want to pay fifty cents for a newspaper. Please, they're getting cookies instead. A free paper in the front of the school, though, would be easy access and good for people who don't have time before leaving their house to check the paper. Maybe even a simple solution like making intelligence and awareness more attractive. We've got the image of the sexy dumb blonde or hot useless jock so engrained that sometimes people stay uninformed in an attempt to conform to this image, but I can't think of anything less attractive than ignorance.

And you know, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to start a revolution yet, though that would definitely be awesome. I'm just trying to work out this problem in my head, try to figure out what can be done so that American youth doesn't fall through the cracks of an intelligent, informed society. I'm sick of worrying about them though. I'm a smart kid, I know what I'm talking about. And if other people don't care about the world, I don't care about them

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