What does it mean to have your passion criminalized? This is the question participants worked to answer at the recent Angel’s Night gathering at Young Nation. Community members and Detroit Future Youth (DFY) program participants came together at The Alley Project (TAP) in Southwest Detroit for food and a series of interactive workshops led by Young Nation youth and featured expert artists sharing their skills. The workshops featured stenciling, black book art, and street art.
Warmly dressed against the bite of a brilliant fall day, participants worked together to paint the various installations made up of massive walls dotting the TAP lot. The installations are what Young Nation program director, Erik Howard, calls “sanctioned canvasses,” or places where youth can explore their artistic skills and personality without fear of criminalization or reprisals.
As participants worked together at the different stations, the topic of criminalization threaded through discussions. What does it mean to be criminalized? Who is it that gets criminalized most often? What does it mean to be a youth criminalized for a seemingly non criminal action like creating art? Howard helped to guide the conversations by drawing an analogy of the criminalization of youth who create art with basketball, “Although it seems easy to play basketball, we always ask what would happen if we give you a basketball, but then we don’t give you time to practice? And then we say that when you do get time to practice, you have to practice on a crappy court? And then we say you can only play at night? And then we say if you do play, we’re going to call the cops on you?”
As Howard noted, the extreme difficulties many youth face simply trying to express themselves often increases when youth are undocumented (or assumed to be undocumented) or negotiating gang membership. Howard acknowledges that gangs do provide a type of protection to youth that allows them the space to define themselves, but he points to the many ‘hidden costs’ that gangs expect youth to pay for that protection. Young Nation is working to provide a way for youth to engage in activities that are meaningful to them–but will not require them to pay the heavy price gangs require.
The struggles with criminalization that Young Nation are confronting can be seen in many areas across the country. For example, in Los Angeles, there has been an increasing crack down on street art, including heavy fines, arrests, and city officials attempting to control the definition of what ‘art’ is. When Young Nation heard about the situation in L.A., they decided to find ways they could show solidarity with L.A. artists.
In addition to creating “Art is not a crime” t-shirts, youth leaders also led participants through an activity that had participants focus on what their passion was, and then imagine what it would be like (or what it is like) to have that passion under the same sort of attack that artists in LA were experiencing. Participants were then asked to write their responses on a wall in the form of “X is not a crime.” Answers ranged from, “art is not a crime,” to “compost is not a crime,” to “being queer is not a crime.” The answers were documented on twitter and through photography, and will eventually be posted on Young Nation’s online project InsideSouthwest.com, and sent to artists in L.A. to demonstrate solidarity.
The day saw other acts of solidarity as well. The gathering was pulled together by Detroit Future Youth, a program that aims to strengthen and deepen youth social justice organizing in Detroit by partnering with and supporting youth programs that focus on justice based education and multimedia creation. It was through the help of DFY that members from thirteen organizations in the program were able to show up and learn about the work that Young Nation does. But it wasn’t simply a moment to learn, it was also a moment to build. As DFY program coordinator, Ilana Weaver said, “We are bringing out the Detroit Future Youth partners in solidarity with the work they are doing in Southwest for this gathering. It’s all about countering the violence against and criminalization of youth in southwest Detroit.”
The building between youth led organizations has impacted Young Nation’s organizing as well. Howard pointed out, “It is enormously helpful to be a part of a city wide network of youth, adults, and organizations that are using their creativity, relationships, and resources to support social justice and youth development!!”
“Most of all the we value the advantage that our youth from Young Nation experience through membership. By belonging to a passionate and talented group the youth benefit from positive relationships with peers and adults, access to youth and communities that are different than their own, increased presentation and leadership skills as well as and technical expertise.”
Although criminalization often feels like an overwhelming problem, the Young Nation gathering showed that youth are the answer rather than the problem. Supportive mentoring, organizational networking and solidarity across communities not only leads to justice, but to amazing art as well.
