As I lay here on my bed, endlessly
contemplating my broken foot and these four walls, I am watching the March For
Our Lives in Washington today, looking for my husband and my daughter and
sisters-in-law in the crowd. My TV is offline so I am watching on my computer.
I am wishing I am there with them and hoping to get a tee shirt out of it.
I see an ocean of people, more
people than I ever could have imagined would show up. They have come from all
over. I know because just my people alone are from Florida, North Carolina and
Virginia.
The stage, the mega-TV
screens everywhere, the concert-worthy amps…it all smells too much like a
party. This is not a march, this is a gathering
of young people who have no idea how to march without being entertained. This
is a damn concert. My blood is boiling….they are sending no messages here, they
are gathering for yet more Millennial self-indulgence.
But then a red headed young man angrily
takes the stand and tells us we are about to get real. He is very angry and he
doesn’t look down at notes, yet he is so eloquent he must have them, or maybe
memorized key phrases? He tells us we must arm our teachers, arm them to the
teeth. The camera pans across confused, annoyed faces in the crowd. This is not
what we came for! We don’t want our teachers armed! But the man/boy finishes.
He wants teachers armed with pen and paper so they can teach, not fight off
killers, and the crowd roars in approval. OK! Now this is a march! He goes on
to say how this is not what our founders meant for the 2nd
amendment, tells us how it feels to be taking a test and wondering if there is
a shooter lurking the grounds, about how his sister will never have a decent birthday
again since she spent her last huddled under a desk in moral fear.
He says that this is not a
concert, not a parade, there are no huge floating Macy’s Donald Ducks out
there, these monitors and this stage are not part of this march. He explains,
the only thing with a screen we need is this, and he holds up his cell phone,
telling us to spread the word. He went on and then a few other spoke. But at
that point, that man, with that speech, made me proud. His words whipped up that
crowd far higher than the music and the stars did. He showed everyone that this
generation is not here for a day of entertainment, they are here to fight for
their lives. Having said that, I now realize even the entertainers came on stage
in street clothes, sang their songs and left. No self-aggrandizing speeches,
they did their jobs and left. I also tend to forget that for my generation this may be a concert setting but for these people it is what they know, how they communicate and these things have many uses. Sometimes getting older smacks you in the face.
I know many Millennials. I know
the reputation they have. Some of it is true, most of it is not. What I am
seeing today surpasses anything I have seen.
Martin Luther King is what I saw
today. These kids are real and what they are doing takes more effort and more
guts and more organization that any generation I have seen in my over half a
century here. No, more than I think have ever existed in America. My husband
and his sisters are there, along with my Millennial daughter. I see passion in
her, I see that fire, that urge to fix this, to do what is right. I do not see
that, to that extent, in the rest of my generation who is there. Yes, this is
important to my family, the older crowd, and they mean everything they are
shouting but the passion of youth, the hope of the young, that is fading a bit
in us. My daughter and her peers have that and more, she has what we
never did:
a colorblind way of organizing things. They are all one. Black, brown, gay,
trans, they identify themselves not by these things, they identify themselves
as individuals. Individuals that happen to belong to a certain age group that
realize the weight of the world IS on their shoulders, that previous
generations have shit on them and now they are expected to fix it and fix
themselves at the same time. These Millennials have almost overcome the obstacles
of race and gender and sex issues, they are not as burdened with this. They are
many of the negative things older people say about them, there is no denying
it, but a lot of that is because older generations do not understand or do not
like what these kids stand for. I see people trying to make everyone equal, no
matter what differences they have from one another, an obstacle my generation
rarely gets past completely. We have resigned ourselves to the idea that
nothing will change and whether we are right about this or not, these kids have
the selfishness, the heart, the stubbornness to get what they want and lucky for
us what they want is good.
People who have problems with
them either do not understand what they are about or cannot accept it. Yes they
have problems…they need better manners, they need more patience, less entitlement,
they need more fun and they need to accept people who do not agree with them on
a personal level. But I cannot help but think many of these negatives, and the others,
will, in the end, be their strengths. Their unwavering moral compass will save the environment and hopefully give
us a better democracy and a better society.
I have a dream.
My dream is that this is just the
beginning. That these young adults become habitual voters and protesters and
elected officials. My dream is a string of presidents as good as or better than
Obama. I won’t be around to see much of it but just knowing the world actually
could be a better place because of this generation gives me peace.
Welcome, New Hippies, don’t let
us Old Hippies get in your way.
