“OK Boomer” or “OK Millennial”?
Originally published Nov 11 2019 in my Facebook post, republished here with edits.
Trigger Warning mention of serial rape, child abuse, war, incarceration
Let me tell you something about my generation; the global north millennials.
We are the most politically apathetic generation in recent history.
We grew up while Bill Clinton was in office. We did nothing about his endless wars. We did nothing about how he bombed Black and brown nations. We did nothing about his refusal to stop the Rwandan genocide. We did nothing about what he did in Kosovo with NATO. We did nothing to hold him accountable for being an "alleged" rapist. We watched countless media stories about Monica Lewinsky as his "embarrassment", laughing at the lurid details but never thinking about the suffering of that poor young woman and all the other women who suffered because Bill Clinton had preyed upon them. We did nothing about he and his wife's mass incarceration policy, that targeted Black children the most. We weren't paying attention enough to even know what it was. Why? We were too apathetic to watch the news. We liked Hillary Clinton. We thought she was a strong feminist who worked for women's empowerment. We had zero analysis of the violence of white feminism.
We sat back and believed that Bill Clinton was alright. We thought that our global north privilege would protect us and that we didn't need to care about climate change. We loved fast food, we shopped for brand clothing, we consumed everything and anything we could get our hands on, in the pursuit of "happiness". We thought that mass produced hacks were musical artists and that the children who accused Michael Jackson of abusing them were liars.
We did nothing to smash the patriarchy. Some of us even argued that maybe we didn't need feminism. Some of us even wondered why unions were necessary since we had no idea what life was like before unions. We were too apathetic to learn what unions had done for us.
We sat back and did nothing while George W. Bush was elected, because even though he was awful, we figured that he couldn't really do anything to upset the balance of power. Our global north privilege would protect us, we thought. Nothing would really change, we thought.
We didn't do anything about the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy because we thought it was a reasonable compromise for the Queer community. We didn't even think about Trans rights.
That was my generation. I know this because I was one of those millennials who wanted my Queer friends to be happy, but didn't realize that I needed to speak out publicly for their rights. I had no analysis of Trans rights. I was one of those millennials who didn't realize that what Monica Lewinsky was put through by this patriarchal society was gaslighting and extreme mental torture.
Despite my ignorance of those critical issues, I was one of the few millennials out on the front lines fighting capitalism and climate change, wondering where my generation was. I was out there with people from other generations from all over the world, wondering why my global north millennial classmates didn't care about colonialism. I was out there wondering why they didn't care that Black and brown countries were already suffering from climate change and needed help to stop it.
I talked to my classmates. I talked to my college friends. I urged them to get involved. "We have to cancel the debt of poor countries!" I told them. "We have to stop climate change!" "We have to stop the corporations from gaining so much power!" I said. "We need to push fair trade!" I urged them to join me at rallies, protests. I organized vigils to protest the Iraq war in my students union. I wrote letters to my MP about the abolition of student grants and corporations and human rights. I wrote so many letters that my MP, Stephen Twigg, invited me to tea at Westminster - more than once. I never went because he strategically always invited me in January, when students always had final exams. Meanwhile, I joined every protest I could find about animal rights and the environment and economic justice and war.
Very few people of my generation showed up to those events unless they were really big events like the one protest in London against the Iraq war where 2 million people showed up. But that was a rare occurrence. Millennials didn't show up regularly. The few millennials who did show up wept with me as we expressed frustration at how our friends didn't understand that the world was on a precipice of destruction.
If any generation deserves harsh critique, it is my generation. Now millennials are lashing out at Boomers. Look to thine own self, community, before you speak. Ask yourself if you've correctly addressed your own apathy, and ignorance, and dismissal of other people's suffering. None of us is innocent and scapegoating elderly people when we are at fault too is wrong.
Watch out for millennial fragility. Because the truth is that millennials have not addressed their ignorance, or apathy, or callous dismissal of other people's suffering. We are all guilty.
Generation Z are not guilty, though. They are showing up for climate and social justice because they have no choice. We, the previous generation, failed them. So instead of laying the blame on our elders who struggled to survive war drafts, displacement, houselessness, massive inflation, unemployment, and racism, let's be humble and be willing to learn as well as share what we know with Gen Z.
And if you're reading this and thinking, but not all millennials! Indigenous and Black and brown and disabled and Queer and Trans and poor millennials were disenfranchised and excluded and silenced! They were trying but no one was listening!
EXACTLY.
Think about that. Then think about the Boomer Indigenous and Black and brown and disabled and Queer and Trans and poor who were disenfranchised and excluded and silenced. And you'll have your answer.
And for all those millennials who are right now whining “but we were children! We didn’t understand! The Boomers were adults!” Generation Z are children right now. I mentor them all the time and I’m not going to make excuses to them for my generation’s apathy. There is no excuse for such millennial fragility. And by the way, a lot of Boomers didn’t make it out of childhood unlike us, my fragile millennials. A lot of Boomers didn’t live to be independent adults because they were killed in wars they were drafted into, or by police brutality, or by poverty, or by racism. The average age of US soldiers in Vietnam was in the range of 19-23 years old. The most common age of soldiers who died there was 20 years old. That’s not even talking about the many Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laos youth who died in that conflict fighting those drafted American youth.
Global north millennials, have you ever been drafted into fighting a war against poor brown people in another country that’s being demonized for US imperial interests? No? You know why? Because the Boomers built a mass movement to fight the military draft and thus abolished it forever. They abolished the draft so that you would not go through what they went through. Do you have any idea how much police brutality and mass surveillance and scapegoating and criminalization they endured to abolish the military draft? Ask a Boomer of that movement what it was like. If they have the emotional capacity, they might tell you about how the FBI followed them to school and university, taped their phones, brutalized their bodies, terrorized their families, stuck them with trumped up charges, made them political prisoners. So show some respect for what you don’t know. This isn’t even counting the other movements of those decades. The civil rights movement, the Black Panther party, AIM, the second wave of feminism, nuclear disarmament, environmental justice, workers rights, healthcare healthcare healthcare.
And for all the millennials still whining “but we didn’t have access to information to fight anything! Gen Z has the internet!” Actually no. Millennials had access to plenty of information because we had libraries and newspapers and a lot of media that wasn’t consolidated under just 4 or 5 corporate media companies which is the situation right now. We also had the internet. Where do you think I learned? I wasn’t an apathetic millennial. I looked for information. I watched the news. I spent time in my local library. I read media from different sides of the political spectrum. I listened to my Boomer elders who had been fighting imperialism and racism their whole lives. That’s how I learned. That’s why I showed up for the issues I knew about. Making excuses for your own apathy by pretending like you had no access to information when you grew up in the Global North and thus had access to more information than most people everywhere else in the world is yet another example of your privilege and fragility.
Millennials, stop your ageism. Yet again, you’re not helping. We all need to be uniting to share our collective wisdom with Gen Z to uplift their leadership. One of the most critical lessons we can share with them is OUR MISTAKES. So own up to your mistakes and stop blaming others for them.