Authors note: About a week ago I commented on a yahoo news article about how Obama felt about the elections. In it I said that Obama hasn't earned our respect and until he does we shouldn't have to call him president. Needless to say, I got some really nasty replies, one old lady started her reply with the words "child, child, child" and went on to inform me of how ignorant I was. She also said that until I became more mature, I should stop commenting. What struck me was that it wasn't so much my age she was upset with, it was my opinions. Because I didn't think there was any point in responding to her (I also didn't know how to), the result of what she said is this poem.
Child
Why do you call me child, as if I am a little girl that cannot see? Why do you say I know nothing, as if I am a baby that cannot speak?Why do you call me ignorant, as if I cannot write my own name?
Do you think that because I am young I do not see? Do not think? Do not feel? If you do, you are wrong. If only you could see though my eyes, as I watch the man who is supposed to protect us, destroy us. If only you could hear my thoughts, as I think of what my country has become. If only you could feel my pain, as I watch my country being destroyed. If only…..
But you do not see and think and feel as I do, and I do not see and think and feel as you do. Because of this, You call me child.
What if I were to say what you want me to say? That America is doing fine, and Barrack Obama is a good president. Would you still call me child? Or would you call me young lady, or even young woman, and say that now you can die in peace because you know the future of America is in good hands. But because I didn't agree with you, didn't say what you would have wanted me to say, you called me child.
Isn't it the old and wise that say that the young should speak out? That we are the future of America and thus should have a say in how our parents take care of her?
I may be young but I am not a child, and I do know this. That no matter how young you are, or how old, or how ignorant, or how smart, rich or poor, black or white, or even if you are just a child, it is always, always, right to speak out for what you believe in.
No matter if you are called a child, if you are hated, if you are scorned, it is and it always will be right to speak out for what is right. So no matter how many times I am scorned, hated, or told to be quiet. I will always, always speak out for what I believe is right, and no one, no one, not now and not ever will be able to stop me.