783: Kids These Days
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbearped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, ThisAmericanLife.org. It's This American Life. I'm Khanna Jaffiwalt sitting in for Ira Glass. Last fall, I saw this video from high school in Michigan, and maybe it wouldn't have stayed with me in the way that it has if it weren't for all the many things that have happened since then that keep reminding me of this video. It's turned into a sort of reference point in my head. For a dynamic, I keep seeing repeated. The video is from September 2021, last fall, in Michigan, about 20 miles outside Ann Arbor. It's early morning, right before the school day. A group of parents and their high schoolers are kind of loosely crowded around the door to a school, a mostly white crowd. There's a police officer with top gun sunglasses. You're going to go in the building? The officer is calmly, one might say patronizingly, repeating if you're going to go into the building, you have to have a mask on. Nobody in this video is wearing a mask. About 20 teenagers are standing between the officer and the door to their school, looking like all teenagers do when they're waiting for anything. A little board, a little blank, lots of crossed arms as this goes on. I'm not going to force anybody. I'm not putting masks on anybody. That's not my job. So they can go in without the mask? This is a county health department order and a policy of the school, that if the... Anybody that's going to go in, they've got to have a mask on. There is no policy. I'm not arguing. Okay, so they can go in, guys. They can go in. They can go in. They can go in. They can go on in, guys. Go in. The officer has just said, "No, you can't go in." And the parents start weaving the kids toward the door, yelling, "You can go in." Some of the teenagers look reasonably a little confused like, "Didn't the cop just say the exact opposite?" But they all turn and slowly move toward the door, where the principal and superintendent are standing with masks on and the kids are just trapped there in a big clump. You guys, they can't touch you, just go ahead and go in. I remember watching this and thinking, "What is it like to be those high schoolers stuck in between your principal and your parent, between two authorities, who are each so certain they have the moral high ground when it comes to your life?" They can't touch you. Then a passage opens. The administrators step to the side and the kids rush in. "I cannot touch you, you guys, I know." Be kind, be kind and respectful, be kind and respectful, be kind and show respect.
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