"It's shameful what's happening in this country in terms of what we deny our children"
About this Quote
The rebuke names a moral failure: in a wealthy nation, children are too often last in line. Coming from Kevin Eubanks, a celebrated jazz guitarist and longtime bandleader on late-night television who has spent years mentoring young players, the emphasis falls on what budget choices and cultural habits take away. The verb deny matters. It suggests not mere scarcity but decisions that strip young people of what nurtures their minds, bodies, and spirits.
As an artist, Eubanks knows how music education cultivates discipline, empathy, and a sense of belonging. When schools cut arts programs, they do not trim expendables; they close doors to the very rooms where many kids discover their voice. Instruments, rehearsal spaces, and patient teachers are not luxuries. They are catalysts that transform curiosity into capability. Calling their absence shameful asserts that withholding them is an ethical lapse, not an unavoidable fate.
The indictment reaches beyond the arts. Overcrowded classrooms, unsafe neighborhoods, inadequate healthcare, food insecurity, and a testing culture that prizes compliance over wonder all communicate to children that their flourishing is negotiable. That message is itself a denial: of time to play and explore, of adults who listen, of communities that protect and encourage. In a country that celebrates innovation, neglecting the conditions that let children imagine and try is a contradiction.
Shame is a public word. It asks a society to reckon with its values. Eubanks points to the gap between national wealth and everyday reality, between what is possible and what is chosen. The line is not only an accusation but a summons to reorder priorities: fund schools equitably, protect arts and enrichment, make neighborhoods safe, ensure care that prevents crisis. By centering children, it offers a clear measure of progress. If the future depends on what the young are allowed to become, then denying them is not just shortsighted; it is a refusal of who we claim to be.
As an artist, Eubanks knows how music education cultivates discipline, empathy, and a sense of belonging. When schools cut arts programs, they do not trim expendables; they close doors to the very rooms where many kids discover their voice. Instruments, rehearsal spaces, and patient teachers are not luxuries. They are catalysts that transform curiosity into capability. Calling their absence shameful asserts that withholding them is an ethical lapse, not an unavoidable fate.
The indictment reaches beyond the arts. Overcrowded classrooms, unsafe neighborhoods, inadequate healthcare, food insecurity, and a testing culture that prizes compliance over wonder all communicate to children that their flourishing is negotiable. That message is itself a denial: of time to play and explore, of adults who listen, of communities that protect and encourage. In a country that celebrates innovation, neglecting the conditions that let children imagine and try is a contradiction.
Shame is a public word. It asks a society to reckon with its values. Eubanks points to the gap between national wealth and everyday reality, between what is possible and what is chosen. The line is not only an accusation but a summons to reorder priorities: fund schools equitably, protect arts and enrichment, make neighborhoods safe, ensure care that prevents crisis. By centering children, it offers a clear measure of progress. If the future depends on what the young are allowed to become, then denying them is not just shortsighted; it is a refusal of who we claim to be.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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