Well done article about college students—and the younger generation in general—getting dismissed and ridiculed by the older generations.
A key paragraph:
They [Gen Z students] may also be more sensitive to the horrors of children being killed here and elsewhere because they grew up participating in active shooter drills and watching the aftermath of mass shootings on the news. They are less financially secure than generations prior, and less likely to believe that institutions will save them or reward them for loyalty and hard work. But they are not babies, and they are not oblivious or naïve. And their ideas and actions cannot be dismissed just because some bad actor — no mass movement is without them — does or says something stupid.
A few points:
1. The protests are about the savagery being visited on Gaza. Those who do not stand in opposition to this violence are in support of 14,000 dead children, famine, pain, and fear. The students at the protests are doing the morally correct thing. Criticizing them for doing so is to do the morally bankrupt thing.
2. Gen Z is new on the job. Gen X and the Boomers will leave dismal, humiliating political records behind them. They have immense nerve criticizing young people. Gen X and the Boomers’ self-congratulatory and self-indulgent commentary on social media about how rugged and independent they are, and how growing up in the Seventies (in the case of Gen X) made them resilient and tough is a joke. If the older generations want to point a finger, they would do well to find the closest mirror.
3. Opposition to forgiving student debt (while I’m on the subject of students) is also a joke. See my Jan. 20, 2023, blog post. I don’t hear a peep about the free money given to the ultra-wealthy and the corporate sector. When Israel “buys” weapons from the United States, they do so with your money. And then they blow children apart with those weapons. The CEO of Lockheed Martin—a major beneficiary of Uncle Sam’s magnanimity—made $24 million in 2022. But forgiving the debt of students and cutting the working class some slack? These lazy kids should just be on the board of directors at Lockheed. Talk about stupid and entitled.
Israel is committing monstrous war crimes in Gaza. Students across the country have demonstrated moral courage in voucing dissent. To criticize them for doing so is to make crystal clear where one stands and who one really is.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/opinion/student-protesters-gaza-hillary-clinton.html
