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Nov. 16th, 2011 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coffeerocket... I wish that every time my generation fought for something, even if a stupid amount of them are under-educated, fad-following hipsters, that it automatically wouldn't be thought of as stupid or pointless.
I feel like, as we're becoming the adults of the world, we're inheriting problems that we've never been taught to fix, we're facing wars we never wanted to fight, and we're looking at social changes that are deemed unimportant because they aren't what the last generation of adults had to face.
I have my issues with the Occupy Wall Street movement. I have a lot of them. Part of it is that, while it amasses more supporters and participants, it still seems like nothing's being done. It does feel like chaos, and that's a bad thing. And I understand that my generation has a huge amount of faults--from finding fast food or janitorial work to be below them, to thinking college is a magic ticket to what we want. I understand why our parents, grandparents, and the entire previous generation looks at us like we mean nothing--it's just a thing that parents, grandparents and entire previous generations do. One big thing my father always loves to reminisce on is that when he was a child, the big waste of space was hippies. And, to be fair, I still understand the continuing point. While now they're thought of as free lovers that understood nature, I'm sure that in fifty years, hipsters will be looked upon as individuals who didn't want to conform to the normalcy of life.
I have a lot of problems with America I don't even want to list because I will wear myself down.
But I also think that it's my generation's right to protest what we're coming into. As it has been for every generation before us. As it was for the anti-war movements, as it was for the civil rights movements, as it was for the anti-slavery movements--all the way back, as far as man can remember, we've struggled with the concept of fair and what it means to each of us, and how we can achieve fairness. Along the way, roads have been paved, making some things easier.
Regardless of how it goes, I think that Occupy Wall Street is my generation's first step into adult life. It tests our determination, our moral fiber and our ethical codes. It challenges us to learn more about the real world outside of a classroom. It tells us to look back on what we've seen our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors before have achieved and consider where, exactly, we want to change ourselves from them.
Sure, to those who came before, we're a bunch of whiny brats, thinking we have the right to live a high life without earning it. But as someone who's happy about the prospect of a dish washing job, as someone who cleans a church for thankless, unkind members who hold my father's rent above our head if he does not jump when they say jump, I want to think that maybe, one day we'll look back a the world and think we left it just a little more fair. As someone who's never thought she was too good for a job (though I'll admit, I do think I was too good for the sexist work environment that was my first job, and I found my next job incredibly in the wrong for hiring people "part-time" and then firing nearly everyone at the end of the season), I find a want to look at my parents and ask them what they thought was fair when they were twenty two. I want to look my parents in the eye and ask, really, if I'm so different than they were, a whiny brat with no sense of self or apparent work ethic.
I want to see the Occupy Wall Street movement succeed. Partially because it's our movement as a generation, joined by people across the entire world to stand up to what was previously thought a normal fact of life, that we now realize is a problem. Partially because I want to shove it in the faces of the people going "YOU'RE JUST DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE LAZY AND DON'T WANT TO WORK." Is that the case? The only reason I'm not on Wall Street (or more likely, at city hall in Philadelphia) is because I am struggling to find a job, myself. (I almost think I should've gone, anyway, as I've spent two months half-begging for jobs with absolutely nothing to show for it but an unending feeling of despair that I will never find a job and my inability to pay for college, or even receive FAFSA is out the window leaving me to die a cold death in the street as even Burger King wants a college degree.) But mostly because we, as a generation are discovering our ethics policy.
Is it okay that 1% of the American population holds most of our money? Previously, this was a question unthought of.
We're plagued by questions left by an older generation for us to answer, as they remain indecisive on it. Marriage and abortion are ideas that we will test and eventually come to decide on, if we as a generation are worth our salt. We will continue to make movements against racism and we will continue to expand women's rights. We will be looked down upon and considered less important by many: We don't have to deal with lynching, segregation is a widely disliked idea, women have right to work, vote and own property.
But it will ignore our problems. If we do not love someone of the opposite gender, it can't be love. If we choose to make abortion legal, to admit the ownership of a woman's body belongs only to that woman, we will be monsters. If we allow women to lead our country, we will be wishy washy and whipped.
These are the problems of our generation. Laid upon us are new trials and tribulations that come with developing as humans.
My generation is constantly met with cries of useless and worthless.
But how can we be either if we're only defining ourselves right now?
I feel like, as we're becoming the adults of the world, we're inheriting problems that we've never been taught to fix, we're facing wars we never wanted to fight, and we're looking at social changes that are deemed unimportant because they aren't what the last generation of adults had to face.
I have my issues with the Occupy Wall Street movement. I have a lot of them. Part of it is that, while it amasses more supporters and participants, it still seems like nothing's being done. It does feel like chaos, and that's a bad thing. And I understand that my generation has a huge amount of faults--from finding fast food or janitorial work to be below them, to thinking college is a magic ticket to what we want. I understand why our parents, grandparents, and the entire previous generation looks at us like we mean nothing--it's just a thing that parents, grandparents and entire previous generations do. One big thing my father always loves to reminisce on is that when he was a child, the big waste of space was hippies. And, to be fair, I still understand the continuing point. While now they're thought of as free lovers that understood nature, I'm sure that in fifty years, hipsters will be looked upon as individuals who didn't want to conform to the normalcy of life.
I have a lot of problems with America I don't even want to list because I will wear myself down.
But I also think that it's my generation's right to protest what we're coming into. As it has been for every generation before us. As it was for the anti-war movements, as it was for the civil rights movements, as it was for the anti-slavery movements--all the way back, as far as man can remember, we've struggled with the concept of fair and what it means to each of us, and how we can achieve fairness. Along the way, roads have been paved, making some things easier.
Regardless of how it goes, I think that Occupy Wall Street is my generation's first step into adult life. It tests our determination, our moral fiber and our ethical codes. It challenges us to learn more about the real world outside of a classroom. It tells us to look back on what we've seen our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors before have achieved and consider where, exactly, we want to change ourselves from them.
Sure, to those who came before, we're a bunch of whiny brats, thinking we have the right to live a high life without earning it. But as someone who's happy about the prospect of a dish washing job, as someone who cleans a church for thankless, unkind members who hold my father's rent above our head if he does not jump when they say jump, I want to think that maybe, one day we'll look back a the world and think we left it just a little more fair. As someone who's never thought she was too good for a job (though I'll admit, I do think I was too good for the sexist work environment that was my first job, and I found my next job incredibly in the wrong for hiring people "part-time" and then firing nearly everyone at the end of the season), I find a want to look at my parents and ask them what they thought was fair when they were twenty two. I want to look my parents in the eye and ask, really, if I'm so different than they were, a whiny brat with no sense of self or apparent work ethic.
I want to see the Occupy Wall Street movement succeed. Partially because it's our movement as a generation, joined by people across the entire world to stand up to what was previously thought a normal fact of life, that we now realize is a problem. Partially because I want to shove it in the faces of the people going "YOU'RE JUST DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE LAZY AND DON'T WANT TO WORK." Is that the case? The only reason I'm not on Wall Street (or more likely, at city hall in Philadelphia) is because I am struggling to find a job, myself. (I almost think I should've gone, anyway, as I've spent two months half-begging for jobs with absolutely nothing to show for it but an unending feeling of despair that I will never find a job and my inability to pay for college, or even receive FAFSA is out the window leaving me to die a cold death in the street as even Burger King wants a college degree.) But mostly because we, as a generation are discovering our ethics policy.
Is it okay that 1% of the American population holds most of our money? Previously, this was a question unthought of.
We're plagued by questions left by an older generation for us to answer, as they remain indecisive on it. Marriage and abortion are ideas that we will test and eventually come to decide on, if we as a generation are worth our salt. We will continue to make movements against racism and we will continue to expand women's rights. We will be looked down upon and considered less important by many: We don't have to deal with lynching, segregation is a widely disliked idea, women have right to work, vote and own property.
But it will ignore our problems. If we do not love someone of the opposite gender, it can't be love. If we choose to make abortion legal, to admit the ownership of a woman's body belongs only to that woman, we will be monsters. If we allow women to lead our country, we will be wishy washy and whipped.
These are the problems of our generation. Laid upon us are new trials and tribulations that come with developing as humans.
My generation is constantly met with cries of useless and worthless.
But how can we be either if we're only defining ourselves right now?
