Madeline Mayes and Sharona Nagamuthu

[00:03] MADELINE MAYES: Hi, my name is Madeline. I'm 16 and today is February, June 11, 2021. I'm located in Brooklyn, New York and my partner's name is Sharona and we're both involved in this organization called Next Generation Politics. And I'll pass it on to her.

[00:22] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Hi everyone, I'm Sharona, my age. I'm 17 years old. The date is Friday, June 11, 2021. I'm located in Queens, New York and I'm here with Madeline. And we're also, we're both in involved in an organization called NextGen Politics.

[00:41] MADELINE MAYES: Yeah, so I actually am really curious, like, when did you end up joining ngp and like, why did you come? Like, I just joined in last summer, so I don't know if you joined around the same time.

[00:56] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: I joined the semester right after you. So I joined in the fall. And the way that I got involved is actually my school sent out a blast email of like, programs and opportunities that they had for students. And included in the email was NGP as well as their partner organization, YVote. So I applied for both of them and I got involved starting in the fall, so around like the election time.

[01:25] MADELINE MAYES: Oh, wow. So I actually got involved in a similar way. I think I've always considered myself to be passionate about politics. And so when that mass email came sent around from my school for wivo, initially I was like, yeah, I'm into this, I'm signing up for this. And so, boom, summer, I joined. What I like about why Vote particularly is that, like, it allows for such free form conversations like the one that we're having right now about politics. And that's something that's not necessarily on the minds of like other teenagers. And so I'm really great that we've been able to connect through that.

[02:08] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Yeah, I definitely agree. I know that like, one of the main reasons why I got involved in WIBO and NGP was because I like, similar to you, I was also like specifically engaged and interested in politics and civics, but I never had an environment to express that. And WIBO and NGP have just given me a place to get more civically engaged and talk to other people that share similar beliefs as me or even sometimes people that share differing beliefs. But I really enjoy the fact that we can have this place to discuss that. But it's also an environment that's respectful and people understand that differing beliefs is okay and we embrace that and we support that.

[02:55] MADELINE MAYES: Yeah, I actually, actually have a question about that. So why, like, what do you think, like the political climate is in like the community that you're in, like where you are located physically or like the people that you surround yourselves and like among students, like people our age, I.

[03:16] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Think like, well it's hard to say like a specific thing because my like personally my school is very diverse and there's like people from all over different boroughs, there's people from Queens and like there's people from Brooklyn. So considering like the political climate, it's like people from two different sides of the scale. So tension can arise at times. But like that's just in my school environment, but in my home environment, I live in Queens. So that's like it's a very liberal, I guess, democratic progressive area of Queens. So there's that, but then there's also other sides of Queens that are on exact opposite scale. But like within YVO and ngp, even though we can't have people that are on different scales there, we're able to come to a consensus and we're able to respect each other and have these conversations even if people don't have the same beliefs.

[04:24] MADELINE MAYES: Yeah. So just to clarify, like ngp, Next Generation Politics is like the main organization that why Vote is underneath and it basically works to bridge divides between political differences among youth and to inspire them to have cross partisan dialogue. And why Vote particularly focuses on the activism behind youth voting which has been absent pretty much for the past few years until this up this previous election. So that has been really, really great for me particularly because I think definitely here like my community in Brooklyn, like I definitely experience something very similar and I think that's for New York City as a whole, like it tends to lean very liberal and there are definitely more right minded people. I think personally I have seen just so many more liberals that it just kind of like drains the voice of right winged people. I personally don't really like to identify in a bipartisan manner. I guess you could call me a moderate Democrat, but I feel like I'm open to different political beliefs regardless of like the term left or the term right. And I think that's actually given me a pretty interesting outlet on politics as a whole. I'm wondering like, is there any experience that you've had whether in NGP or in whatever political youth organization or not organization, but community outside of ngp? Like have you ever had like a, an experience just like talking about civics that has like really like either shocked you from what you expect youth dialogue to be like or like has changed the way you perceived like youth dialogue as a whole?

[06:29] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: I think like most of my experiences that have altered my perception of how youth kind of discuss politics is mainly. Has mainly been in ngp. I know within my school community, I and I feel like some of most school communities, they often shy away from discussing politics just because it can be a touchy subject. But I think in ngp, they embrace that and they accept that the only way that you can get rid of this uncomfortableness is if you bring people from different points of life and different political beliefs and they come to this environment able to discuss openly. And one thing that I really enjoy is that the fact that I was able to have these discussions with people that have different political beliefs with me. But there's never any, like, tension or any, I guess, like somebody completely calling someone out just because they believe something different from them. And I think that's something that you don't really experience outside of ngp. Usually when you see someone with a different political belief, it's always like constantly, oh, we're at the head. And like, it's just like, oh, you're wrong. I completely don't want to listen to you stuff like that. But in ngp, we've. It's always an accepting environment. Even if somebody doesn't believe the same thing, they're able to. They're open to listening and they're open to expressing and saying, oh, I believe this, but I understand where you're coming from. However, I think this stuff like that. So that's one thing that I really appreciate within ngp, because I know that outside of that, I haven't really experienced many civic discussions where people are open to actually having civic discussions.

[08:20] MADELINE MAYES: I mean, I couldn't agree less. I think that like, outside of ngp, I've experienced civic dialogue in the form of screaming matches or arguments around the dinner table or just something along those lines. And it always makes me very uncomfortable and it makes me uncomfortable to be. To talk about who I am and my identity when it comes to politics. And it also makes me uncomfortable hearing what they have to say. And I feel like that just makes dialogue, if you can even call screaming matches dialogue. It just makes it so counterproductive. And I see that, like, largely as a problem all throughout New York City. It could be like a larger movement outside of the city. But honestly, I haven't really experienced civics or politics outside of nyc, so I wouldn't really know. And I feel like our climate is in New York City, of course, is becoming more and more like, polarized because of that. But at the same time, there are more and More opportunities for youth to actually seek out these civic dialogues like we're talking about. So it's kind of like this contrast, this stark contrast between like society as a whole becoming more unwilling to listen to other people and then youth particularly becoming more accepting of varying opinions. And I just like really, really hope that that means for our community that we're becoming, we're becoming more inclusive of others and we're becoming more not necessarily like minded because you don't need to think the same things to agree. But I guess inclusive was the right word then.

[10:16] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Yeah, I totally agree. I think that, like what we've experienced in NGP where we had these discussions where people are accepting and like you said, inclusive are definitely something that I would like to see more. But like you said, because of these screaming matches, like, is there's definitely like extremes now within New York where people are like, oh, I'm all the way on the left, or I'm all the way on the right. And it's kind of like the people that are in the middle, it's kind of confusing because people on the right or people on the left would be like, oh, but you're, you're right in the middle, you're like, it's just confusing for certain people because it's just like a, like you said, polarizing. And how NGP discussions happen. Well, we used to be in person, but because of the pandemic, we are currently online. So we have our discussions mainly over zoom and considering like who's invited. It's mainly youth. Youth that are part of NGP and are interested in having these civic discussions. And what we do is we kind of have a structured agenda, but then you kind of choose which breakout room you'd like to go to and what topic you discuss. Like around election day, we're kind of discussing like, oh, what's going on with election day? Recently we were discussing vaccines and how rollout is going with them. So you kind of get to pick what topic you'd like to discuss and you just get to discuss with people that are like minded and also are passionate and interested in the same things that are, that you're interested in.

[12:05] MADELINE MAYES: And what I love about NGP is that it's so multifaceted. Like you have, in addition to the civic forums, which Sharona is mainly talking about, it's you can also have like, I'm personally part of the podcast, there's also a blog, they have a social cinema club. And all of these different platforms give youth who are interested the opportunity to seek out different viewpoints and to have these conversations. I love being on the podcast. I mean, every single week I interview someone different and we talk about current events and things, and it's been really, really just enlightening. And I think that anyone that you talk to that is involved at NextGen will mostly call it, like, enlightening to an extent, because you just really, like, soul search for yourself throughout the whole process. I don't know, maybe I'm glorifying it a little bit, but it's really impacted me to a crazy extent. My involvement in NGP is like, how I realized that, hey, it's okay to not think that you're one way, or it's okay to have different political views than your family or your friends. It's okay to not be interested in even using a label to describe your political identity. And that's not something I ever would have considered if not joining a gp. So that's pretty cool. Something else I actually wanted to talk about that you talk that you mentioned before was like, political climate in schools. And recently. So I'm taking AP World History, and I just had my exam like, last week, so we're finally slowing down. But recently we were talking about current events. And by current events, I mean from the year 1900 on, not so current, but that's what the curriculum thinks. It's current. So we were talking about, like, the Cold War and the origins of the Palestinian Israeli conflict. And I thought, oh, what a great opportunity for my teacher to talk about current issues and to have students raise their voices about their beliefs and have a productive conversation, because you hardly get any of that in public school that I attend. And it's just been lacking all year for me. And I was so disheartened when my teacher basically completely brushed off the topic. She's like, here's a video for you to watch after class. You can watch it on your own time. Here's some questions you can answer if you so choose to. We didn't talk about it once in class, and just the fact that I was so excited to have this conversation with my peers, and then she just completely brushed it off. I was so disappointed and so upset by that. And I was just like, why is. Why are schools just unwilling to let students have a voice in any outlet at all? It just frustrated me to the maximum. Yeah, that's what came to mind when you talked about schools.

[15:22] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Yeah, I def. I know that. Well, personally, I'm fully remote, so I don't have the opportunity to, like, go into school and I know that some of my friends that are blended and go into school, they have had some opportunities to discuss, like, current events.

[15:37] MADELINE MAYES: But.

[15:38] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: But I think that's just because of the teacher that we have, and she's very for the students, and she knows what the students want. So because they had that opportunity, they were kind of. They kind of got to express themselves. But at the same time, in other classes, like the class that I'm in, I'm also. I also took AP World History. It's kind of like, even though we want to talk about current events and we want to talk about what's going on in our society, they're kind of like, oh, no, that's too touchy of a topic, and they shy away from that. But in reality, I think that we have to have these discussions because if people continuously shy away from these discussions, when we get older, it's even harder to have these discussions. And that's what makes our society so polarized and why people are always like, oh, like, some people are like, oh, I don't care about politics. I don't identify, like, with a. I understand if you don't identify with the political party, but I mean, like, some people are just like, oh, politics don't impact me. But at the end of the day, I think that politics impacts literally every single aspect of your life. So it's kind of just ridiculous. And I feel like it's just a sense of privilege if people refuse to acknowledge politics and refuse to have discussions around politics, because at the end of the day, it's saying that, like, I don't. Like, I don't care what impacts me. And the fact that we're not able to have those discussions in school is just really disheartening.

[17:09] MADELINE MAYES: And I think the reason why, or not the reason why, but I think because of the absence of political discourse in schools, I think a lot of youth just turned to social media then, and I guess this can be a controversial idea. But personally, don't think that social media activism is true activism. I think that a lot of kids will call themselves like a political person or an activist because they reshare posts on social media and they reshare people's stories of just like Instagram posts that you just flip through and slide through. And a lot of the times that's happening without people actually reading what's on there or forming an opinion about what's on there or actually making or actually like, having some sort of critical thinking attached to the post, and it becomes empty and it becomes counterproductive. And it can even be misinforming to people. And I just. It angers me so much because then people will go on to say things like, your silence. We hear your silence. Or your silence is violence and things like that. And personally, I'm probably not to brag, but, like, probably like the most political person in my friend group. But then you have these people reposting these posts, and they're like, aren't you supposed to be the political one? Why aren't you sharing this? And I'm like, well, I don't think that this is productive. You need to talk about politics in a way that's humane, like, we're doing right here, right? Politics is something that's like, not just words on your phone. It actually affects the human being. And I think that because it affects the human being, it needs to be discussed human being to human being. So I don't know what your. What's the word? Outtake? No, like, I don't know what your perception is of, like, social media politics. I know that a lot of people think that it is productive, so I could be wrong in that sense, but I don't know.

[19:33] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: I actually really agree with you. I think that we've kind of formed this culture where people are like, oh, just let me post something on my social media story and call it a day. That's it. That's my activism for the day. Um, and I feel like a lot of people, the reason why people think that that's activism is because other people, the ones that don't, like, even do anything regarding politics, civics, anything, they're kind of the ones that make fun of this activism. And they say, oh, like, you totally think you're gonna change the world with one Instagram story. Like, I understand that, but I feel like because people up play it so much, there's that reason why people feel like this is activism, when in reality it's. It's not much that you're doing. And I totally agree with what you were saying about, like, how somebody may come up to you and be like, oh, you're supposed to be so political. Why aren't you posting stuff like this? I completely agree. It's often counterproductive. And I know that, like, it's. Some people won't take the time out of their day to read what you're posting, like, over majority. So I would rather send people that I know will take the time to read what I'm sending them actually to them, instead of just posting on my story and calling it a day. And I know I prefer to get. Do more stuff behind the scenes, like how we're, like you said, how we're having these discussions. I'd rather have that than just post something and then just call it a day. Even though people won't look at it or maybe even I won't look at it after I post it. Like, it's counterproductive. And I don't really think it. It's just fostered this sense where people are, where people think that this is enough, when in reality it's. It takes a lot more than that. And because we fostered this idea and mentality, people just think that social media activism is the biggest form of activism that there possibly can be in our society, when in reality it's not.

[21:40] MADELINE MAYES: I'm wondering, I'm kind of like thinking about this while you're talking and I'm thinking about how social media activism is increasing as well as, like, the rise of youth participation in things like protests. But I'm not sure if voting is increasing at the same rate. Well, it's certainly not increasing at the same rate as social media activism. It is increasing, which is fantastic. But I don't think that the two rates are matching up. And I'm wondering, like, do you think, like, our generation is going to consider voting, like, as of less importance than like, posting on social media? Like, is this going to become like the new wave of activism, like, just in our future?

[22:27] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Honestly, that's. That's a really, like, good question. I think that because I feel like activism, like activism, not solely social media activism and voting are definitely tied in hand. And I know that some people, like, they kind of just post like, oh, get out, go vote on their social media store, but then won't actually go and vote themselves. So it's really, like I said before, counterproductive. But at the same time, I feel like our generation, like, how we're doing right now, we're sitting down and having these discussions. So of course that doesn't mean that everyone is going to do the same. But I feel like because it's. More people are doing this, more people are going to see the impact that it plays within our society and will be convinced to vote. Because I know that a lot of, like, the younger generation, like, mainly like our generation, even though we're not able to vote, we're pushing other people to go and vote. Like, I know an ngp, recently I was part of the Lowering the Voting Age like, action group. We did a CAP project, which is a civic action project. So we did research revolving lowering the voting age, and what we saw was kind of just a little bit of mixed reviews. Some people are like, no, people aren't educated at this age. At 16, people are just going to go with whatever their parents decide, while other people are like, we need this to happen. Like, people know what they're doing. People at 16 years old are more civically engaged than people that are 24 years old, so there's no reason for them not to be able to vote. So it's kind of just like a mix between people. And I feel like more often than not, the people that are saying no are only saying no out of fear that people will not take this seriously and that they'll just go and vote and do ridiculous things. And how, like, during the 2016 election, people wrote Harambee's name on the ballot, and that just messed up the whole election. So I feel like people are just scared that things like that will continue to happen, especially with the younger generation. But because of that fear, it's just like, it's just we won't get anywhere because of that. People are always just going to be reluctant to expanding the youth voice and taking the youth seriously.

[24:54] MADELINE MAYES: Yeah, I think that personally, I definitely do have that fear, but I think that we need to lower the voting age personally, if given the proper opportunities to allow students to do so. And, like, take voting as an example. Like, why aren't we talking about voting or government as a whole in schools at a younger age? Like, I remember, I'm part of the leadership program at my school, and we actually host events like theme days where you have to, like, dress up. We've been doing this over zoom. So we've been trying to figure out ways to engage kids. So, like, let's say today's pink day for breast cancer awareness or something like that. And then you post pictures of yourselves and they make a collage of it in social media. So when election day was rolling around, I told the advisor, hey, why don't we have something like wear a shirt that has, like, the American flag or vote on it or some sort of, like, voting apparel to do so? And because I noticed that there wasn't any theme day around election day. And I was pretty taken back and my. The advisor looked at me and he said, our students don't vote. Maybe if you're a senior and you're 18, you vote. But most of the kids vote, so don't vote, so why would we do that? And I'm like, I'm sorry, but don't you want to like? And the worst part is that he's a government teacher. Like, he teaches government to seniors. So, like, why is there this culture that's just preventing kids from learning? And I think the same people that are preventing kids from learning about politics and government are the same people who are saying, no, don't lower the voting age. So why don't you give us the opportunities to learn so we can make educated decisions so that we can vote when we're 16? Because that's a privilege that we need to have to have our voices represented in democracy. So, I mean, it's such a complex idea of lowering the voting age. And that's why I loved your project so much. I remember thinking, like, wow, they did so much. Like, you're doing, like, presentations and polls on social media, like, all of these events left and right. Can you, like, talk about that more? Like, what was that experience like? I just remember, like, wow, their project is so great.

[27:29] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Well, the project, like, the idea of lowering the voting itself, it's one that I like necessarily wasn't extremely familiar on. I know there wasn't much. Even though there are, like, what? We did research. We realized that there are many different youth orgs pushing for this. It's one that I haven't really heard much support on. And I feel like that's one of the reasons why a lot of people are also reluctant because there isn't much support. But I did learn, like, a tremendous amount about lowering the voting age within the project. One of the first things that we did was we kind of collaborated with others from. I'm pretty sure it was. I'm totally blanking on which state right now, but other youth from across the country, we were collaborating with them about. And we kind of just had a discussion about what we've done to raise awareness on lowering the voting age and how that's being accepted within our communities. And then we also, like, I know how. We were kind of talking about how it's counterproductive with social media activism. We were focused on, like, just fully collecting data and collecting polls about what people think on social media and how that could be impacted by what we post. We just, we made polls and we were talking about, like, oh, do you support during the voting age? If not, why? And we collected a lot of that data through social media, and it was just interesting to see the differing views. And additionally, we reached out to our representatives, actually, and we sent emails, but sadly, many of us didn't really get any responses. We kind of just got our automatic forwarding email responses. And it's kind of disheartening to see because we take the time to reach out to these representatives. But many don't really acknowledge the youth voice. I know some do and I commemorate them for doing that. But a lot of them don't see the youth as much more than a, I guess, a part of their policy to gain support. They'll be like, oh, I'll totally support the youth. But then when the time comes, they kind of just push us away and ignore us. So that was one thing that was really disheartening to see. But overall the project, it was like a really great learning experience, especially for me and I think for everyone, honestly. We got to learn more about lowering the voting age and especially how lowering the voting age has impacted communities and in different countries even. We were talking about like the UK and like how lowering the voting age has impacted there. So because we've like done this research and we've seen all this, it's kind of just like, why is it not being impacted in our own communities? And it's kind of just like I understand how people are reluctant, but it's, we've seen the progress that it's made and we've, we've understood how these myths can be debunked, but people just refuse to listen. And that's one thing that's just really.

[30:50] MADELINE MAYES: Upsetting, I think, like for the people who refuse to listen, like I imagine like if the voting age was lowered and let's just say like in an example, like maybe not across the whole state or across the whole country but like in one particular community and they realize like all of the people were voting for someone ridiculous, like all the kids, the 16 year olds were filling in Harambe, as you said, like something like that, maybe that would just serve as a slap in the face to them that there's something that they're doing that's wrong in terms of education about voting and maybe that's what we need to make progress. It seems kind of harsh, but if that's like the stance we need to take on it, then maybe that's the stance that we actually have to take. Because if the education isn't going to come first before it's actually done, maybe then the education will have to come after. And that's an interesting thing that I've actually never thought of before until discussing this right now. But I think that could actually be productive.

[32:02] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: I honestly agree. I feel like our society in itself, what a lot of, like a lot of Issues, we kind of don't realize they're important, so we don't pay attention to them until it's too late or until change needs to happen instantly. And it's upsetting. But it's. Honestly, if we're talking about lowering the voting age, I understand how change can only happen like once people realize the importance and realize that instantly needs to occur. So of course that's an instant where change would have to occur instantly. So like you said, even though it's, it's kind of harsh and it's a slap in the face, it's. If they kind of listen beforehand and people understand what the youth are trying to say beforehand, it would totally be avoidable. But in the case that they don't listen to youth, which is usually the case, they'll just have to deal with the repercussions, which is, it's, it's, it's tough to say, but that's, it's a common occurrence within our society. So I feel like it's not something that's so out of the blue, if you get what I'm trying to say.

[33:20] MADELINE MAYES: Yeah, I agree. And I think like, also, like those people who are unwilling to listen or unwilling to change are like kind of the same people also. I hate to make generalizations, generate my gosh, generalizations, but I feel like pattern wise, it could be like the same people who thinks that like, these protests and rallies are actually doing more harm than good. And since they're typically very heavily youth led, I think that like, if you like, I feel like youth are taking other lenses of activism because they can't vote. And if they think that protests are so bad, then give us the right to vote so that we can have our ideas expressed in other ways. If you don't like us protesting or marching in the streets or whatever, so like just give us the opportunities and, and we can actually like work together instead of like constantly bashing each other. I don't know. Why is that such a wild idea?

[34:26] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: I totally agree. There's just this like, disconnect. And I feel like the disconnect can be connected so easily, but it's just people just don't listen. And I feel like a lot of people just have these, I guess, bad perception of the youth. Especially like you were saying, how people view these protests as bad and doing more harm than good because of these perceptions. That's why we can't have this connection. And of course the youth are like, oh, these people don't want to listen to me. So it's just fueling disconnection and it's really hard. I'm curious as for you, how do you think we can go about like just connecting this?

[35:15] MADELINE MAYES: That's a really hard question because like I feel like this is typically a gap that we're seeing generationally. That took me through tries generationally. And so it's not like you can reach out necessarily to a whole generation on like social media or just like have a conversation with an entire generation at once. That's pretty hard. I feel like this is also a terrible thing to say, but I think that through just like time going by, that generation is just going to phase out and this might be taking like too long. This might be like a slow process, but just through the natural way of life, like it's going to be a world where there is more acceptance because Gen Z will be majority of the population. Well, I'm sure Gen Z is already most of the population. I'm pretty sure like that's true. But like as adults in power because we have to be adults to have power for some reason. So I think that just like naturally will fade out like that. But if anything I feel like just like having like just sitting down and having conversation, just like a normal human being conversation, not trying to like jump at each other's throat or cut people off, just like it could be hard but like sit down at the dinner table and just try to have a conversation about like your beliefs, whether it be about voting or not. And sure, maybe the first time you do it it's a crazy screaming match and the house is shaking. Maybe the second time you do it, it'll still be a screaming match. The third time you do it, it'll be less of a screaming match and more of a conversation. And by the 100th time that you do it, it'll be a conversation for sure. So as many screaming matches that it takes to get to the conversation will be worth it because people are going to eventually get used to hearing opinions that they don't want to hear. And sometimes like that's what, like that's what we're at right now. Like maybe the screaming matches are kind of necessary at times. But I think that if we just try to act like human beings and remember that the other person on the other side of the argument is also a human being, that that gap would be closed and will become like more cohesive in that sense.

[37:57] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Totally. I definitely think that like we were saying earlier, we kind of just need to accept the uncomfortableness and we need to have these discussions, like, what we're having right now and just accept them and realize that this is what needs to happen. And even though a lot of people don't want to accept that these discussions are uncomfortable, it's what we need to accept in order for change to occur. And we just need to foster a more compassionate environment, I think, and a more accepting environment. And like you said, it will take time, but we'll get there eventually.

[38:35] MADELINE MAYES: Yes. If I could, like, wish say something to, like, every single New York City resident, like, out there. That's a whole lot of people. But if I could, I would just say, like, be compassionate, have compassion. I'm stealing your word because it's such a great word, but especially, like, coming up with the elections for mayoral elections, like, just have compassion for each other. Like, I'm sure that there are tons of families having arguments around the dinner table about mayoral candidates. Just have compassion. Right. So I really see that we're close on time. So I just wanted to thank you for being able to sit down with me and have this conversation.

[39:20] SHARONA NAGAMUTHU: Of course. I really enjoyed it.

[39:23] MADELINE MAYES: Me too. Yeah.