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OUR VIEW: Youth of today getting bad 'rap'

What do young people and the late Rodney Dangerfield have in common?

It seems that both don’t get any respect.

American Senator Alan Simpson, who is co-chair of the United States’ debt commission, recently blasted today’s youth, saying that they were ungrateful and listened to the likes of “Snoopy Poop Dog” and the "Enema Man" too much – we suspect he might’ve been referring to Snoop Dogg and Eminem.

There is always a danger in making generalizations and Simpson gives further evidence of this.

He might be right, as there are certainly children out there who don’t thank their grandparents for Christmas presents and wear their hats backward, with pants that are hanging down but there are also those that have their pants at their waist and hats turned forward.

But to suggest that the majority of children are ungrateful is wrong as there are a lot of youth around the world, including Grand Forks, that are doing things for the benefit of others, as witnessed in our Salute to Youth supplement.

There are Grand Forkers that are raising money for the Canadian Red Cross to aid the Japanese after the recent nuclear and natural disasters.

Some in the community have gone to third-world countries to do charitable work and help the people in those countries have a better quality of life.

While some of the youth of Grand Forks are setting their sights to help those on an international level, there are also some that are volunteering their time to a number of local organizations and contributing that way.

There are young people out there that are doing good. Making generalizations based on a sample size is unwise, as there are always exceptions to the rule.

While the selfish youth that Simpson is referring to are out there, there are also those that are the opposite.

Assuming that all children don’t thank their grandparents for Christmas presents and listen to hardcore rap would be like assuming that all old people are absolutely out of touch with the youth of today.

Why, it would be like an old man who gets the name of rap artists wrong, who complains about how bad the youth of today are.

We don’t know anyone like that, do we?

– The Grand Forks Gazette