Memo To Black Millennials: Grow Up

If the candidates for the Democratic nomination for the presidency don’t cater to your identitarian interests, you’re going to threaten to sit the election out?

Black millennials are unlike any other generation of black voters the Democratic Party has had to court. Born roughly two decades after the biggest wins of the civil rights movement, we’ve experienced both its benefits and failures. We grew up in neighborhoods and matriculated at schools that were resegregated. And while many of us participated in the election of the nation’s first black president, we’ve witnessed what feels like his inability to adequately serve black Americans in the face of continued economic challenges and systematic police brutality. As a result, we are not satisfied with the Democratic Party’s mere acknowledgment of our issues, nor are we charmed by their willingness to appear in black churches.

Like all other constituents, we need to be targeted and convinced. So far, the candidates have spent far too little time debating the policies that shape racial justice. At the top of 2016 they have a chance, with a debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus in which they should focus less on movements of the past and more on the one in front of them.

Or what?

So, if the leading Democratic candidates want the support of this increasingly influential segment of the electorate, they’ll have to forgo their usual youth and black outreach tactics for ones that take seriously the intersection of those identities. Otherwise there’s a risk that black millennials will stay home in the first post-Obama presidential election.

Well, that will certainly show ’em.

calvin

If you squander your political clout on the trivial, your dreaded microaggressions that make you feel sad about having to suffer higher education at Princeton in a school named after Woodrow Wilson, don’t be surprised when the next young, unarmed black man lies dead in the street from a police officer’s bullet.

But then, what’s a dead young black man compared to the brutal pain of Yale not being your safe space?  No doubt life will be far better after the election of a candidate from the other party when you deny your vote to a candidate who demonstrates any concern for your issues.  No doubt the majority of Americans will be happy to put aside their own self-interest to assure the election of a candidate who will embrace your feelings and promise to recreate America so it’s all about you.

After all, isn’t this what social justice is all about, pandering to every identitarian interest?  Or else?  This is why we can’t have nice things.  This is why you can’t have nice things.

11 thoughts on “Memo To Black Millennials: Grow Up

  1. Keith

    If you squander your political clout on the trivial, your dreaded microaggressions that make you feel sad about having to suffer higher education at Princeton in a school named after Woodrow Wilson, don’t be surprised when the next young, unarmed black man lies dead in the street from a police officer’s bullet.

    You make it seem like throwing support behind Hillary is going to stop black bodies from getting shot by blue ones. That link seems a bit tenuous (at best) to me.

    But to the substance of your post: as a friend in politics is fond of saying, if you’re not at the table, you are on the menu. I read the argument by black millennials here as saying that they have been deemed a “sure thing” for far too long and the respective pols need to stop treating their concerns as if they don’t matter. I see nothing wrong with that message. And if they manage to get high voter turnout for municipal, county and State positions (which may actually stand a chance at stopping some of those black bodies from getting shot by cops), it will give more credence to their call to be heard. If they just stay home, I’m not sure what message will be received.

    You might consider what they’re asking for to be silly (and lord knows a lot of it is), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they’ve been overlooked as a demographic group. Who knows what would happen if they had the organizing power of say, the Irish.

    1. SHG Post author

      You assume way, way too much (projection is a dangerous thing). I suspect that no candidate for president will do much of anything to help much of anything. But they could do plenty to make things worse.

      As to taking blacks for granted, I strongly believe that the opportunity has presented itself to make some real change with cops killing people, and particularly blacks, provided it’s not wasted by diffusing the narrowly focused issue with the silly cries of hurt feelings over petty slights. If they remain narrowly focused, there is hope to make some change. If the become grandiose, trivial and silly, they will lose the momentum, diffuse broader support and accomplish nothing. And it looks as if they’re about to engage in the latter and end up losing everything over infantile nonsense.

  2. Mort

    if the leading Democratic candidates want the support of this increasingly influential segment of the electorate

    They mean the loudest part of the infantile mob of pansies, yeah?

    1. Keith

      As long as it’s “one pansy, one vote”, I don’t think they’ll care about how loud or how infantile, only how large the mob. But maybe I’m cynical as well as projecting.

      It’s all about organization and delivery to political operatives.

      1. Mort

        You aren’t even remotely cynical, because you start from a position that even suggests their claim of being anything like a large number might be accurate.

        They are merely one of the loudest and most annoying of the subgroups of whiny little pansies on campus.

  3. DaveL

    I must admit I’m not quite sure where you get the idea from the article that the author’s grievances lie with “microaggressions” related to Woodrow Wilson and not with the murder of black civilians by police. In fact neither “microaggressions” nor Wilson are specifically mentioned in the article, but it does mention “systematic police brutality”, the Black Lives Matter movement, and criminal justice reform.

    1. SHG Post author

      This isn’t about whatever specifically aggrieves one particular author (he doesn’t offer much detail, not that it would matter), but about what aggrieves black millennials. If he wants to speak for a generation of color, then his words include the issues of his generation/color. Have you not seen the demands?

      1. DaveL

        If he wants to speak for a generation of color, then his words include the issues of his generation/color.

        I don’t think that’s true, if you’re the one who’s going to be referee as to what gets included in “the issues of his generation/color” and not he. After all, it’s a fair bet that, apart from identifying as black millennials, those pushing such ridiculous demands also identify as liberals, and believe their issues are “liberal” issues. That doesn’t make it sensible, when somebody specifically raises police brutality as a “liberal” cause, to dismiss that effort and deride them for wasting their attention on “microaggressions” rather than something substantial like police brutality.

        Give credit where credit is due. I could understand criticizing the author of the article for failing to plainly state the specifics of what he believes the issues of black millenials to be. I could understand questioning the validity of his implicit claim to speak for black millenials in general. I do not understand criticizing him for pushing the issue of “microaggressions” while ignoring concrete problems of police brutality when he specifically mentions the latter and not the former.

  4. bacchys

    If there were a candidate from the major parties who is likely to do anything about that young black man dead from a police officer’s bullet your point would be more pointed.

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