September 20th was the weekend for my college’s homecoming football game. It’s a tradition at my college to have a parade the morning of the big game followed by a large tailgating party in the stadium parking lot and then, of course, the game.
I, like most of the other students at my school, attended the parade and while I was there I noticed something very interesting about the politics of South Dakota, of all things.
Since it’s an election year many of the candidates that are running for local, state and even federal offices took the opportunity to have floats in the parade and pass out candy and flyers about their campaign and their stance on important issues. While I think this is a great idea, I don’t think that their attitude towards their “target audience” was that great.
As the parade started some of my friends and I were standing next to some parents that we know. On the other side of us was a nice elderly couple with their grandchildren. The parade started and the usual “team spirit” floats started to come by. Mixed in with them were some local business floats and the politician’s floats. Many of the politicians’ floats had either them riding on the float with “runners” handing out flyers, or the politician was walking around passing out flyers and shaking hands with people.
Here is where the problem all started. The first float came by and the “runners” handed out flyers to the parents standing next to us and the nice elderly couple beside us but didn’t even think twice about handing me or my friends any flyers. No problem, but the next float did the same thing and the next and the next.
Finally a float came by that had the actual politician walking by handing out flyers to people so I thought for sure they would stop and give out at least one flyer to one of us younger people. Sadly though, she handed out pamphlets to the parents and the nice elderly couple but ignored the youth.
The point of my story is to illustrate the problem with the political system here in Spearfish, SD and, from what I gather from my friends, across the state. The politicians and older generations talk about how the youth needs to get involved and needs to get out and vote but they don’t want to make the effort to acknowledge us. They are always saying that we don’t care about what happens in the political arena and that we aren’t taking responsibility for our future but how is it supposed to make us feel when they won’t even hand out pamphlets talking about their beliefs and stances on major issues to us?
I think that sometimes the adults are too quick to point fingers and say that we are lazy or that we just don’t care and that is the reason that we don’t get out and get involved. Maybe if they were to take a little time and think about their actions and the message they are sending us, they would realize that we do want to get involved, we just don’t always know how. Sometimes we are just too afraid to ask.
So here is my challenge to the politicians and adults that say the youth is lazy and we don’t care about our future—talk to us. Don’t ignore us. It may look like we don’t listen and we don’t care, but we do. Even if your message is shrugged off by 98% of the kids you talk to, inspiring 2% to get out and vote is better than keeping quiet and not saying anything at all. Don’t ignore us—actions always speak louder than words.