NEWS

R.I. students, scared by virulent racism, seek peace in their time

Madeleine List
mlist@providencejournal.com
From left, high school students Kiara Cruel, Faith Quinnea and Ayee Yeakula are organizing a protest of black lives taken, planned for 4:30 p.m. Friday at Kennedy Plaza.

They’re still kids themselves, but so many Rhode Island youth of color already know that this is not the type of world they’d want their own children to grow up in.

“I’m fearful that I’m going to have to teach my future black son or daughter how to live in America and that’s not right,” said Isabella James Indellicati, a 15-year-old Classical High School student. “... I fear that the systematic racism is going to keep going and I will face these stereotypes, as well as my future family.”

Since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week, people across America have demonstrated peacefully, and sometimes engaged in violent riots, as a result of anger over Floyd’s killing and police violence against black Americans.

In Rhode Island, youth of color are being forced to grapple with issues of systemic racism and witness graphic images of police brutality even as they deal with typical teenage responsibilities.

“We’re still young, and the fact that we have to worry about these things, that if we go out we could get hurt, not come back, not see our parents... it’s pretty scary,” said Ayee Yeakula, a 16-year-old student at Village Green Virtual Charter School. “And you still have to focus on other things like school, worry about whatever you have to have going on at home, and then you have to come to the outside and see stuff like this and then speak on it. It’s a lot.”

When they watched the nearly nine-minute video of a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck until his body went limp, many young people said they felt anguish on a personal level.

“I didn’t see George Floyd, I saw a black man,” said Zainabou Thiam, a 14-year-old student at Good Shepard Catholic Regional School. “I saw my father. I saw my uncle. I saw my friends.”

Some questioned how they can be expected to trust the police when they’re constantly bombarded with images of officers killing and hurting people who look like them and their family members.

“If something was to happen to us, we’re scared to call the cops because we’re afraid they’re going to take another man’s life,” said Faith Quinnea, a 16-year-old Central High School student. “I want everybody to hear me and know how much pain this situation has caused me for years, since I was a child.”

These young people are responding to this moment in history by organizing, speaking out and refusing to accept the lines they say they often hear from adults — that they’re too young, that they don’t understand, that they won’t be taken seriously.

Quinnea, Yeakula and Kiara Cruel, a 16-year-old Central High School student, are organizing a protest for Friday at 4:30 p.m. at Kennedy Plaza.

Indellicati, Jaychele Schenck, a 15-year-old student at Metropolitan Regional Career And Technical Center, and Leonies Taveras, a 14-year-old student at Highlander Charter School, have planned a protest for June 14 at noon at Kennedy Plaza.

And in Woonsocket, Thiam, Daishanay Francis, a 14-year-old student at Woonsocket Middle School, and Jaliyah Joseph, a 14-year-old student at Woonsocket High School, are organizing an event to be held at Social Park that will serve as a space to raise awareness about racial issues as well as showcase local creative talent. The group is working on securing permits for the event.

All of the youth organizers said they felt that the looting and rioting carried out early Tuesday morning in Providence by a crowd of mostly teenagers was harmful to the community and not representative of the overall movement.

Those who want to help create change must go about it peacefully, Schenck said.

“Youth struggle to channel aggression and channel emotions,” she said. “What we are trying to do is plan a peaceful protest so people can have their voices heard. They [the rioters] are trying to go through the wrong channels to get to that goal.”

Ultimately, young people are poised to inherit a future full of problems that adults have been unable to fix.

So, for now, these youth organizers are taking matters into their own hands.

“Our generation, the youth, is trying to make a change because we don’t want the next generation to go through what we’re going through,” Francis said.

“We,” Thiam said, “are going to be the ones leading the world eventually.”

mlist@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7121

On Twitter:@madeleine_list

Zainabou Thiam, 14, left, and Daishanay Francis, 14, along with Jaliyah Joseph, also 14, not shown, are working to secure permits for an event at Social Park to raise awareness about racial issues and showcase local creative talent.