Officially, KIDS
stands for "Kids Implementing and Developing Solutions."
But that's only on paper. In reality, says Zip, it stands
for whatever its members want it to stand for. "When we
got arrested for playing duck-duck-goose," Zip says, "it
stood for 'Kids in Deep Shit.'"
To get one
of its grants, KIDS had to name a president and a board--a
problem for a consensus-run group without official leaders.
So Tifnee Smith wrote down the names of everyone willing
to serve, and picked some from a hat. She's the only one
who knows who's the president and who serves on the board.
Folks attending this year's Portland Arts Festival were
treated to an unusual sight: There, in the middle of the
North Park Blocks, a huge, spirited game of Ring Around
the Rosie was going on--and the 30 participants were all
at least a decade past preschool. Some were in their mid-20s.
This was the Youth Liberation Conference, held at PSU
June 16-18, put on by KIDS, a local group run entirely
by youth dedicated to changing what they view as repression
of the younger generation. The workshops spanned a broad
spectrum, from gender issues and labor organizing to Internet
censorship. Youth from as far away as Philadelphia and
Canada attended. Evan Tucker of Sacramento said he heard
about it when he was up visiting in Portland last winter
and made sure to write it on his calendar. "I took off
from work to come up here," he says.
The last day of the conference the group organized a
parade through downtown Portland that was more daring
than the Rose Festival Parade but less dangerous than
May Day. Instead of chants, people yelled lyrics from
'80s teen songs, like Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild." Some
kids banged pots and pans while others breathed fire,
all the while playfully beckoning onlookers to join their
parade. When they reached the waterfront, almost everyone
went to play in the Waterfront Fountain.
"We're not trying to deny the fact that we are young
and have youthful qualities," says Tifnee Smith, a KIDS
member. "We take pride in that fact and we bring that
aspect with us to the larger [activist] community."
In fact, it was this relationship with older activists
that partially spawned the inception of KIDS in December
1998. KIDS members say that most of the progressive organizations
tokenized or trivialized youth. So Smith and a friend,
Zip, decided to prove to Portland that kids can organize
and speak for themselves.
"KIDS started because the activist community didn't take
us seriously, they didn't give us any responsibility,"
Smith says. "We were seen as going through a rebellious
stage." The cry for a youth-led organization has apparently
struck a chord; KIDS meetings typically draw an eclectic
crowd of around 30 people, with ages ranging from 14 to
21.
"We have people that have been homeless for four years
and just recently found housing, and we have people who
have lived in the suburbs their entire life, people who
recently moved out of their parents' house and across
country at 15, people from Vancouver and all over Portland,"
Smith says.
KIDS operates out of the Liberation Collective headquarters
(or Lib Co, as it's known) at East Burnside Street and
2nd Avenue, an infamous hangout for organizers "with an
edge." Although KIDS members admit to having pretty much
just pirated the space, the Lib Co crowd has been very
supportive.
One of KIDS' ongoing projects is the Freeskool, which
offers classes on everything from foreign languages and
lock-picking to breakdancing.
In addition, KIDS helped to plan the first National Day
of Action Against Curfews in 1999 and speared local protests
on the same issue, including a game of duck-duck-goose
in front of a Portland police station on Nov. 20, which
ended in a mass arrest.
Similarly, they're planning a challenge, through the
courts or City Hall, of local truancy laws that make it
illegal for school-age youth to be out in public during
school hours. "We work from a lot of different levels
to get things done, which is good," KIDS member Erin Brand
says.
One of KIDS' main campaigns will be fighting the Oregon
Citizens Alliance's Student Protection Act, which would
ban any pro-gay or even neutral information in the school
system. It would also allow teachers to be fired if they
were openly gay. "The implications are so great," Smith
says of the proposed measure. "Youth are very hard on
one another, and if it's sanctioned by the school, it
will increase the amount of violence and tension that's
already so high between different groups of people."
While traditional gay and lesbian groups are taking the
lead so far, Smith and others stress that it is vital
that this campaign be led by youth, since it is youth
who will be most highly affected.
Whether they are working against the OCA or marching
in the streets, these savvy organizers realize that certain
tools make their job easier. For example, KIDS recently
received its official nonprofit status in the mail. "We
mostly got it to increase our eligibility for grants,"
Smith explains. But, she adds, there's another reason
for adding a bit of framework to the upstart group. "We
wanted to make an organization that could withstand a
lot of transformation," she says, "because being a youth
is one of the few communities you don't belong to throughout
your life."
KIDS has already put its status to good use, having received
three grants: $600 from the Girls' Initiative Network,
$500 from Take the Time (a program run through Multnomah
County) and, most recently, $3,000 from the McKenzie River
Gathering.
Kathleen Pequeño of McKenzie River Gathering says
KIDS got such a sizable grant because of the work they
were doing and the way they presented it to the board.
"One of the reasons we were excited is because the leadership
is comprised entirely of youth. We try to give consideration
to groups where the leadership is comprised of people
who are affected by the issues," she says. "They really
wowed the grant-making community when they came in with
their discussion of curfew. They were able to put it in
direct terms: 'This is how it's affecting our lives.'"
