This Week in Teens: Michael Brown Is Dead, and Now We Know Who Killed Him

Kids protest the killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. Photo by Alice Speri, courtesy of VICE News

Have you read Nietzsche? Teens love the guy. I'm not super well versed in the German philosopher’s books, but I have read a few graphic tees with his picture on them, and from what I've picked up, the gist is that everything is inherently meaningless. So it goes with This Week in Teens, in which our only respite from the constant suffering around us is the comforting knowledge that life doesn't have a purpose.

–America invented teenagers and apparently reserves the right to kill them, too. The biggest news this week—teen or otherwise—has been the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. Police were quick to defend the act, while witnesses say that Brown didn't do anything to provoke police, and was shot multiple times “until he just dropped down to the ground and his face just smacks the concrete." Protests over the killing were countered by a militarized police force, complete with SWAT gear and armored vehicles. The incident has been covered from every angle: how Ferguson is America's latest racial hotspot; how this represents a sort of Chekhov's (military-grade machine) gun and the inevitable conclusion of post-9/11 defense spending; how eight unarmed teens are still at large; and how white people in suburban St. Louis don't give a shit.

It took a bunch of protests for Ferguson police to name Darren Wilson as the officer who killed Michael Brown, which they finally did Friday morning. Police also released a report saying that Brown was a suspect in a “strong-arm robbery” of a box of Swisher Sweets cigars, and that Wilson was responding to the crime when Brown was killed. Whether Brown actually shoplifted is unknown at this point, not that it would in any way justify his death. All that’s clear is that we're in a pretty terrible place right now, and there is no obvious path for things to get much better.

–There’s a perception out there that teens are adults in training, but they’re more like children and adults at the same time. With their baby fat and spindly legs and acne and scumstaches, teens are an already human manifestation of the uncanny valley—the idea that when robots start to look too human they stop being cute and start being scary. Similarly, their brains just aren’t all the way there. They’re confused. Sometimes they don’t even know why they do what they do, so it’s no wonder their actions can be completely confounding and horrifying to others. A particularly gruesome example of this occurred this week in Frisco, Texas, where a 16-year-old boy taped a flashlight to a gun and murdered his parents. When police arrived, they overheard the boy’s sister asking, "What do you mean you did it?" and him responding, “I did it.” When she asked if it was his plan, he didn’t answer. News reports note that his motive is unclear, but they’ve all focused on the idea that the boy was “sheltered”—he was homeschooled by his strict parents, who wouldn’t let him watch violent movies or drink soda. While it’s entirely possible that this fueled his crimes, lots of people have strict parents whom they don’t kill. This sort of tabloid speculation doesn’t help anyone; besides serving as another example of the dangers of widespread gun ownership, there’s probably not a lesson here.

This guy has probably never smoked pot. Photo via Flickr user katieandtommy 

–One bright spot in this bleak week (just like Shark Week but instead of forcing memes we're just sitting in our rooms and don't want to talk about what's wrong) is that teens in Colorado are smoking less pot. On the surface this seems pretty neutral—teens are hard to deal with whether they're on pot or not—but it's actually a net positive, because it means that the alarmists about marijuana legalization will have one less talking point. The "won't somebody think of the children?" crowd has long argued that legal weed will lead to an explosion of bong hits among teens, but it’s safe to say at this point that the fear was misguided and silly. As the slow march of legalization continues, this will only help speed things up.

–Speaking of high teenagers, have you ever tried having sex stoned before? It's one of the grossest things you can do, maybe only slightly less disgusting than taking a hot afternoon nap with jeans on. You start to feel like you're really connecting in ways that you never have before, and then you realize that you have slobber on your face (but whose slobber is it?) and you both still have clothes on and you've spent 25 minutes just grinding really hard. That said, the fact that you'll probably fall asleep well before anyone achieves anything approaching an orgasm makes stoned sex a less-than-terrible method of birth control. If you're looking for a more effective and less heebie-jeebie-inducing way to prevent pregnancy, though, go with an intrauterine device, or IUD. That's what Colorado has used to lower the teen pregnancy rate by 40 percent since 2009. As part of a program created by an anonymous (and thus kinda creepy) $23 million donation, young women with low incomes have been given free or low-cost IUDs. Unsurprisingly, this provision of free birth control has resulted in fewer pregnant teenagers.

Superman-Jesus advocates ineffective public policy. Photo via Flickr user Ben Rollman

Not only is the pregnancy rate down, but the teen abortion rate also fell 35 percent. According to the Washington Post, "The state also spent less on food programs for low-income mothers and children; infant enrollment in WIC supplemental nutrition program declined 23 percent between 2008 and 2013. The governor’s office said the state saved $42.5 million in health-care expenditures associated with teen births. For every dollar spent on the contraceptives, the state saved $5.68 in Medicaid costs."

So, basically, this is a win-win-win. Teens stay baby-free, the government spends less money, and fewer abortions are performed. Even conservatives should be thrilled, right? Not quite: For one thing, if you think back many, many outrages ago to the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision,), you'll remember that some Christians believe IUDs are themselves an abortifacient. Replacing abortions with different abortions is hardly progress in God's eyes. Plus, people like Focus on the Family director Carrie Gordon Earll don't buy that the decrease in pregnant people has anything to do with easy access to things that stop people from being pregnant. “What we have seen over many years is that access to contraception does not equal fewer unintended pregnancies and fewer abortions," she told the Denver Post. "Availability of contraception leads to increased sexual activity, which leads to unintended pregnancies and abortions.”

While this worldview might seem comical in Colorado, it's less funny in places where it shapes public policy. In Kansas, for example, parts of the state that focus on promoting abstinence see as many as 10 percent of teen girls become pregnant. Essentially, what all this means is that we can either have kids continue to get pregnant or give them the greenlight for consequence-free sex. That a huge part of the country wants teens to keep having babies brings the national divide into brutally sharp focus.

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