Too many of our young people are trapped in a downward spiral

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1: “This too shall pass...”

Aren’t those words very familiar? Yet we stood behind them and supported the notion without noticing what was actually going on.

It is also exactly what is wrong with the country; letting things pass instead of confronting and resolving issues upfront.

I’m young but I’m tired of these games where grown adults are bickering back and forth like adolescent children.

I told someone that Bermuda is like a sick, broken-legged dog and I asked the question, “Are they gonna nurse it back to health or take it ‘round the back and shoot it?”

Adults believe the youth are unable to speak but the thing is, it’s not that we’re afraid to speak but that everything has been made taboo on the island, and most don’t even know what that word means because the education system has been shot to death.

It’s not even about race or gender. It’s not even about the history of the political parties (which is another issue) — because that doesn’t even matter.

History

As long as we continue to dredge up the past, there will never be any growth. Period. Just like any relationship. As long as adults keep flinging the “well they did this” and “they did that” dirt about we’re just going to be stuck on a descending roller-coaster.

No, the adults don’t see it and neither do the youth. Why? Because the youth don’t even know the history of political parties in Bermuda.

Culture and our history have been stripped from the public education system to just one “homework assignment” of the curriculum thanks to the government that changed the system and based it on figures, in the belief that Bermuda could do better with GSCEs and compare them to America’s SATs.

Shooting

How is it that Bermudians don’t even know the national anthem but can straight off the bat tell you who’s going to be the next US President? How is that every day I read the paper there is another teenager either in court for drugs, fighting, or shooting, caught in some downhill spiral which was put in their path years ago?

Let me be the one to tell you. It’s way beyond a march. It’s gone way beyond talking this out. There is only a handful of youth who actually care for the island and its well-being.

There is no way young Bermudians of my age should be saying, “I don’t want to go back home” while they are in college and there is no way Bermudians should be fleeing the island to all sorts of countries in order to survive.

We are not as daft as you think we are. Even we know the simple math of how the debt has risen in less than a decade, yet no one can explain why.

I’m surprised the island’s suicide rate isn’t higher because people are getting desperate. Young people are wandering the streets because they have no education and no job.

When adults see that this situation is bigger than historic, personal and party political rivalries then maybe we can all act as one unit and bring the island back to good health.

... Just some food for thought from the uneducated, disrespectful, gun-toting younger generation.

De’jon Antione Simmons (later changed to Simons), 23, is a poet, graphic designer and visual artist. He suffered extensive burns after a bike accident and the story of his courageous recovery made headlines in the Bermuda Sun. He can be contacted at [email protected]