Boomers in This New Moment
Perhaps the young ones will succeed, not on guns alone but on a range of critical social justice issues. I do hope so.
Still, while some are implying this is, as to the span of recent generations, this is no zero-sum, no need to speak and write as if Boomers (and those cohorts between then and now) were/are failed for not having created enough lasting Good.
As to Boomers, we were spot-on as to Vietnam, wholly so on Civil Rights, raised up environmental justice, nuclear weapons and energy, and later (some of us earlier), most of us were clear on the centrality to American justice of women’s and LGBT citizens’ equality under law.
Yet, and despite what we then rightly sensed and now know of marijuana’s benefits, far too many were foolishly wrong on drugs.
Batting .833’s pretty fair and we’re hardly done and pleased to work with young activists; I am, myself, hardly finished.
07/02/2019 @ 11:45 am
The fact that we were wrong on drugs is due in part to oppositional thinking regarding our elders. They were saying at the time that marijuana was dangerous, about which they were wrong (except perhaps behind the wheel, which is not what they really talked about), and because they were wrong we didn’t believe them about other drugs.
But we have been wrong about other things. We were very angry that we weren’t being listened to but we did not react as we should have and become good listeners. So many of us are horrifyingly inept at talking to (or understanding) the opposition. So many of us harbor bigotry toward poor Whites.
07/02/2019 @ 12:28 pm
errrm… as a Gen-Xer myself, I think it’s time that both Gen-Xers and Booms stop being so defensive about our actions and actually listen to Millennials like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Yasmin Radjy.
BTW, though inroads against the oppression of minorities, women and the LGBTQ community were made by both our “generations, I think it bares mentioning that these inroads were fought against and were fighting against people and laws created BY “Boomers” and “Gen-Xers”. It’s not like we are faultless here.
07/02/2019 @ 12:32 pm
spot-on
07/02/2019 @ 11:10 pm
I too am perpetually, a work in progress…