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To Gen Xers who don’t understand why this BLM is so important to the Millenial generation, and can’t comprehend why we’re asking to defund the police, this thread is for you.
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When you were in your formative years, you were in high school in the 80’s and you grew jaded and suspicious of what the government told you. Do you remember the satanic panic craze?
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You were probably listening to Ozzy Osborne and then suddenly the government and the press started talking about rock music made you a satan worshiper. You paused and went “you’re all idiots”.
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You’d been listening to Twisted Sister on repeat for months and it didn’t make you want to worship the devil any more than before you got the album. So, you don’t trust what the government says because they have no idea what they’re talking about.
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Next, you remember the aids epidemic? That also was a rush of lies and factless information that created a sense of skepticism in you. Nothing you read made any sense and so for the rest of your life you question anything that’s presented to you.
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Now, I’m a millennial but at the top of my generation. Do you know what happened in my formative years?
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I was 18 years old when I watched two airplanes go head first into two innocent buildings killing thousands of human beings. Imagine the younger millennials being 14 and seeing that, or 12, or 10.
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As adults you all ask “where were you?” but ask the children of that time and see what they say. We witnessed, live on TV, bodies falling and jumping to their death because it was better than them burning alive.
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BUT we also witnessed some of the most heroic, brave, selfless acts by first responders to go running INTO those buildings and save people’s lives. We saw them become super heroes right before us.
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They didn’t care who you were, or what you were doing, or what you looked like, or anything, they risked their life to save others. So we idolized them.
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This created a strong bond between us and our country. This created a long lasting devotion and appreciation for those people that put that uniform on every single day. We looked up to them.
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In the years after we learned the bad guys that did this to us wasn’t because of anything we could control. They just hated Americans. We can’t help where we were born, this is who we are and we couldn’t comprehend why someone would kill us for that.
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So, do you know what happened to an entire generation when we witnessed a “hero” murder an innocent Black man for 8 minutes and 42 seconds?
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Do you know what those videos of the police hurting, maiming, damaging human lives and personal property including CHILDREN did to us, those 2 weeks after during the first round of protests? I believe the saying goes “don’t meet your heroes, you will be disappointed”.
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Our trust, our loyalty, our devotion, our childhood, our hearts, everything SHATTERED in the blink of an eye and the overwhelming guilt and shame that now consumes us, drives us to want to fix it.
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This is not white guilt, this is not what people are saying it is, this is heartache and one of the worst break ups in human history that is flowing through my generation.
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But, we’re not asking to abolish them. We understand there needs to be someone on the other end of that 911 call when someone is breaking into my home, or someone is trying to kill me. We now see this police force through much different eyes.
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We’ve been asking too much of them. We’ve been expecting too much of them.
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How can they be strong and brave when facing a life threatening situation, like a bank robbery with hostages, or a murderer combing through their neighborhoods but then expect them to turn that fear and distrust off when we call them for a car accident, or a noise complaint.
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What we’re asking for, is FOR THEM. We see you, tired, weary, and over-worked and responding quite negatively (to say the least) to intense situations because that’s what you were trained to do. We’re asking for you to no longer be responsible for everything.
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What is your highest and best use of talent, and where can it be focused? You’re not therapists, you’re not social workers, you’re not teachers, you’re not nurses, you’re police officers.
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We want you to focus on what you should be focused on and let people that are much more versed educated and knowledgeable about other items, deal with that.
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But that trust? That devotion? That deeply rooted emotional connection? Broken, and now, now we’re with you Gen Xers, we’re distrusting, we’re skeptical, and we’re weary, but the pain it took to get us here will take AGES to fix.
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