East London Youth: A Fight Against the Stereotype

In this I’m going to explain what youth are really like from my point of view (A 16 year old boy) and from points of views of others. It’s going to be sort of what you’d see in OK or Hello magazine etc. I call it a social study because its something that quite a few people ponder upon, for example its stuff like when you go to town on the bus and see a group of youth’s jump on the bus and your kind of scared to open your handbag.

You see, thing is, I’m a 16 year old boy and I hang around with the sort of people that the next age group up are scared of. For example, sometimes when I walk on the bus you see people look you in the eye and you notice there body language change. I wouldn’t call myself intimidating; it may just be the generalization and stereotyping of today’s youth.

When I go to my granddads he constantly talks about the fact that everything has changed from when he was a young boy like me. He isn’t a racist but he says that nowadays the multi-ethnical groups are what causes so much withdrawal from the community and why people get involved in gang’s. To be honest I’m in no part of a gang, but if I was to give my mates a ring then I know for a fact they would be behind me no matter who were looking at. But everybody has these friends where you can turn to them and confide in them.

But the big issue today is that youth’s are stereotyped as being a bunch of thugs that hang around on the corner and wait for a victim to walk past to make a bit of money or hang around outside shops to wait for the perfect opportunity to take a snickers bar and a can of Dr. Pepper. People should be more understanding and remember the time when they were in there teenage years. I’m sure about 50% of today’s smokers started when they were teens. If you smoke think back to the time when you had your first cigarette or your first can of beer – Was it before you were 20?

Being a 16 year old boy and involved with the friends I have I can normally pick out something which isn’t right in an instant. For example I could probably spot a drug deal from 200 yards away. Which leads onto my next point – Why do we do drugs? Well, its different reasons for anybody. Mostly it’s just the buzz you get, if you want to have a good time it seems the easiest way for others it’s to stay relaxed. But as I say everybody has there reason’s. I personally do not do heavy drugs, I smoke Marijuana whenever I’m offered some for free, I have not yet bought any but I do smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. I have a friend who has been arrested for robbery and probably won’t find a job now, so he sells marijuana to people he knows.