Who gets to be called “child”
  November 28, 2023 Salutations, Meteor readers, If you’re reading this, it’s time to toss out your Thanksgiving leftovers. I’m sure it all still tastes great, but is five-day-old potato salad really worth the risk to your gut health? In today’s newsletter, we look at the media’s coverage of the temporary truce in Gaza, a staggering report out of Puerto Rico, and as much good news as we can muster. Clearing the fridge, Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ONWar of Words: What do you call a 13-year-old taken from their home and held against their will by an armed group? Well, it depends. After more than a month of siege warfare, a humanitarian pause was established between Hamas and the Israeli government. As part of this pause, each group agreed to an exchange of hostages and transport of aid into Gaza, the first positive thing that’s happened in weeks. While Israeli children have been accurately described as “child hostages,” Palestinian children captured by the IDF and held for years without trial are being referred to as “detainees,” “minors,” or “prisoners under the age of 18,” which is a lot of words to avoid saying “children.” (Keep in mind that many of the people Israel released have not been tried or convicted of any crimes and include teenagers who were arrested years ago without formal charges.) As the Gazan activist Bisan asked in a social media post last week, “Are our children less children than theirs?”  A 17-YEAR-OLD RELEASED FROM ISRAELI JAIL REUNITES WITH HIS FAMILY. (PHOTO BY SAEED QAQ/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES) The choice to use such varying descriptors for children is not unique to the current news cycle. We can see it in the way Black boys routinely face “adultification” in the media: Michael Brown wasn’t just a teenager shot by a cop; he was “no angel.” Children captured at the U.S. southern borders aren’t innocents held and transported against their will; they’re “detained migrant minors.” White children and teens, on the other hand, are often described in terms that elevate their youth and victimhood—sometimes even if they’re the ones committing the crimes. They’re not terrorists; they’re troubled; they’re mentally ill; they’re “volunteers.” It should not need saying: Both Israeli and Palestinian children are victims of horrific violence. No child asks to be born in an oppressed territory or to live under an oppressive government. And all children deserve accurate, thoughtful, and fair reporting from our news institutions. As James Baldwin famously wrote in The Nation in 1980: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” AND:
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