Teens — and only teens — got to speak out about the proposed teen curfew at a government hearing, and speak out they did. Seventeen-year-old senior Sherrell Willis (pictured): “Curfew, curfew, curfew! All we hear from you [alders, adults] is curfew… Why do you think we shoot each other? To get attention… Parents need to understand no matter how their life is going: You made me, you need to spend time with me, no matter how tough your job is or how bad a day you had.”
If a curfew isn’t the answer, what is then? The voices of teenagers like Willis were seeking it, many eloquent, well-thought out, and even argumentative and challenging. They were among 40 or so teens who signed up and then lined up to step before the microphone to address the full Board of Aldermen assembled at Hillhouse High on Wednesday night for the first public hearing on the fractious proposed curfew for New Haven under-17-year olds. The curfew, first proposed in January by Dwight Alderwoman Joyce Chen, would last from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Some 200 people gathered at Hillhouse’s auditorium for the hearing that was restricted, per the instruction of Committee of The Whole Co-chairs Frances “Bitsie” Clark and Drew King, to remarks of under-20-year-olds: “We’re here to listen only and to ask for clarifications, not to argue with you. However, we want to know not only if you’re for or against the curfew, but what your ideas for solutions are for the larger problem of violence.”
The alders (nearly all of whom, such as Mordechai Sandman and Jorge Perez, were in attendance) got a three-hour earful, including, perhaps not so surprisingly, many kids’ unabashed calls for more parental involvement in their lives. Here, with the photographs of the young citizens who offered them, are some representative trenchant views from those who will be most affected:
“I’m really against the curfew,” said Akeem Antrum, a senior at Hillhouse High. “First, kids won’t abide by it. Kids get in fights all the time”
His friend and classmate at Hillhouse, Jakaya Crump, put it even more succinctly. “All a curfew will do is mean people will do their bad stuff in a shorter length of time. People are very capable of killing each other in broad daylight.”
“Kids need activities,” added Antrum. “When the Forest Theater closed down, we started having to go across the city, practically to a different state for movies, for bowling, for skating. And when the Q House shut down, in my view, that’s when crime started to go up. Give us activities and jobs. A curfew is not the answer to the problem.”
Sherrell Willis (the young woman pictured at the top of the article) said, “I’m against it. We need to get parents more involved… Say I’m out at 10:01, you’ll put me in jail, and then if that happens to a lot of kids, everyone will be in jail and nobody will be in school. What does that solve? No, we had a talent show here at Hillhouse, ‘Wildout Wednesday,’ and the principal shut it down. It was wrong. They didn’t give us a chance.
When east side Alderman Gerald Antunes asked Willis to elaborate on the role of parents, she said, “Yes, activities and parents. Parents need to understand no matter how their life is going: You made me, you need to spend time with me, no matter how tough your job is or how bad a day you had.”
“I’m definitely for the curfew,” said another speaker, Hillhouse senior Geraldine Robinson, who hopes to go to Yale. “Good kids will be at home. Bad ones are out. I strongly disagree with Akeem, who’s in my A.P. government class, and I’m not alone.”
“I’m completely against it,” said Tasha Williams, another Hillhouse senior. “It’ll just excite the cops to bother kids more. I see nine or ten cop cars bothering my friends who are just sitting on the stoop. That’s not right or fair. My solution is activities like basketball for the boys and double-dutch clubs maybe for the girls; I used to do that but it stopped being available when I was eleven.”
“I’m against the curfew, like Tasha said,” added Sheila Tucker, who’s going to Hampton College to be psychologist when she graduates from Hillhouse this year. “We need positive role models here. I think one thing to do is get the crooked cops off the street.”
Ronald Huggins, 14, and a participant in the City of New Haven’s Youth Council, brought up the closing down of Q House as a community marker for the tailspin into violence, and applause rippled through the audience (even though Bitsie Clark tried to gavel down the young audience). “And I want to ask you this. I talked to [Congresswoman] Rosa DeLauro, and she told me that $2 million of federal money went to New Haven for activities. I say to you, Where’s the money? I say take the money you want to spend on the curfew and support b‑ball and a national drill team, and parents should also step up to the plate. Parents have to spend at least an hour a day with their kid, that’s all it takes, but it’s enough, just enough so the kid knows you care. Or kids can find an alderman even! Or another adult. Someone. That’s the answer too, not a curfew.”
“Personally, I don’t have a clear position on the curfew,” said Marlesha McClendon, a 15-year-old student at Hillhouse. “I agree about the Q House, but the problem really is with the younger kids. Older kids from the Hill or Tre are getting them involved in bad stuff early. Younger kids need dance clubs, and why not open a caf√© that goes into the night and kids can go there and talk about poetry and express their feelings. That would really help.”
Felicia McBride, a senior at Cooperative Arts High School, again went back to parents: “More resources, yes, I agree, but it’s parents, because the issue is a lot more complex than people are talking about …Look at the mall where all those kids brought their problems. It’s not about a special place or a time, a curfew. We still have to take personal responsibility, each kid. It all begins at home.”
McBride’s colleague at Cooperative Arts High School, 17-year-old senior Jonathan White (in the picture with Sharay Salters), who hopes to major in theater at Howard University, was also against the curfew because in his view it also did not address the complexity of the issue. “We need to go to the root of the problem. Teens in New Haven fight over the dumbest things: You beat me, and I shoot you for that. Upping the ante until someone kids killed. It’s a mindset that has to be changed, and a curfew won’t do that. I asked one kid why he hated another kid, and his only answer was that he was from, you know, a different area. When I showed him how dumb that was, he understood. Sure, cafes and bowling alleys in the area are nice, but if you don’t get to the root, the mindset thing, then fights will happen in the bowling alley. I think we need forums, where kids talk to each other. And they should be led by young leaders in the city, not older people who are out of touch with things.”
And so it went., the alders listening hard, and the kids, some even quoting chapter and verse from the ordinance and challenging its wording, others quoting Police Chief Ortiz’s negative-leaning position on the curfew to bolster their own, some sparring with ordinance sponsors Michelle Sepulveda and Yusuf Shah, all very impressive.
“Regardless of the way it turns out,” said Jack Paulishen, Manuel Roman’s veteran civics teacher at Hillhouse (posing here on bended knee with Leslie Blatteau to his right and Kayan Clarke, both teaching Roman and others under Paulisher’s supervision at Hillhouse through the Yale Teaching Institute), this hearing and everything leading up to it has been absolutely terrific for the kids. They are so involved. We’ve discussed the curfew at great length, and the kids are literally and really being heard. You know, what’s also impressive is that Hillhouse here is in the middle of the violence prone area, but this year has been remarkably good here at the school. In part because the kids see school as a haven from their tough neighborhood but also, and this is key, because the kids know they’re in the conversation.”
“Yeah, Mr. Paulishen,” Roman said, in remarks he later put to the committee of alders: “But I want to know how much the curfew program is going to cost. The exact amount, please. Because I think they should take the money and give us something back instead. Jobs for teenagers would be a good place to start.”
For more of these interchanges on the pros and cons of the curfew, the second public hearing dedicated exclusively to the views of under-twenty year olds, will be held tonight, Thursday, at Wilbur Cross High School at 6 p.m. Then two final hearings will ensue: Dec. 6 and 13 at the aldermanic chambers at City Hall. These are open to the general public.
I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be
Everybody's searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs
A lonely place to be
And so I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I lived as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
And if by chance, that special place
That you've been dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
Find your strength in love
Sung by Whitney Houston, originally by George Benson.
It is my hope that we hear children everywhere tell us what they need and We have the good grace to listen.