Week 1 Blog Post: "How old is 15?"

How old is fifteen really? Is it too young an age to make certain decisions, to act in certain ways? In a segment of his comedy act, Dave Chappelle discusses these questions with a mix of crude humor and candor—and even though some of his words are a little tough to digest, the subject is something that needs to be raised, needs to be investigated, needs to be resolved.

“But it keeps coming up. There’s a lot of confusion around that age. Anytime fifteen comes up, people freak out."

 —Dave Chappelle, "How Old is 15 Really?"

In his mention of Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped and held only eight miles from her home for an entire nine months, Chappelle actually derides Smart's capacity to escape from her kidnappers. He then posits the case of a seven year old African American girl who was kidnapped in Philadelphia and successfully escaped her kidnappers—bringing up the point of discrepancy in maturity and competency. Why is it that fifteen year old Elizabeth Smart could not escape her kidnappers while another child, who was only seven, could?

Such examples seem to call into question how children can seem different from each other: how fast they develop emotionally and mentally. I couldn’t help but notice that as Dave Chappelle discussed his own memories of being fifteen, how different they seemed from mine. While Chapelle mentioned smoking reefer and being out late doing stand-up comedy, I remember being yelled at for staying out past eight-thirty or for going to a movie on a school night. So, on one view the age of fifteen is old enough, and on another, it’s too young.

Subsequently, Chappelle brings up a case involving a fifteen year old African American boy in Florida who was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his neighbor by practicing wrestling moves that he saw on TV. In each case—that of Elizabeth Smart, the seven year old girl, and the fifteen year old boy, we see a different version of the capabilities possessed by a child. In Elizabeth Smart’s case, our belief that the age of fifteen characterizes naivety and innocence is confirmed. Most of us would not expect a fifteen year old girl to defend herself or escape from someone trying to hurt her; and when we hear of cases where a child is actually able to defend his/herself, we count it as extraordinary (as in the case of the seven year old African American girl in Philadelphia).

Keeping this in mind, how is it that we can straight facedly sentence a fifteen year old boy to life in prison? Should there exist a discrepancy between the fifteen year old who is considered ‘too young’ and ‘old enough’? And is that discrepancy, as Dave Chappelle suggests, not only a matter of competency and maturity, but also one of other factors—particularly race? In some cases, the discrepancy based on competency and maturity has been accepted because of the nature and details of a certain gruesome crime; but our justice system has allowed this discrepancy to become the rule rather than the exception to the rule. As Chappelle shamelessly expresses, the ambiguity of such a discrepancy is problematic: "If you think that it's okay to give him life in jail, then it should be legal to pee on them" (Dave Chappelle, "How Old is 15 Really?").

Works Cited

"How Old is 15 Really?." YouTube.com. Web. 24 Jan 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym2wN6mqXoQ&feature=player_embedded.