Gen X Will Not Save You
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not technically a member of Gen X. The birth range to be considered a Gen Xer goes from 1960 - 1980. Some people put it between 1965 - 1981. I was born in ‘82. Close enough, I think, to speak on this. Like all generational groupings, there is some overlap. My record collection includes every Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Silverchair album. My favorite music is 90’s alternative — when it was actually alternative music and not the synth-drenched, auto-tuned nonsense that masquerades as “alternative” these days. But the music is only part of the equation and not what I want to talk about today. THIS is what I want to talk about today:
This is hilarious for a number of reasons. First of all, nobody is “canceling” anything. Second, Gen Xers are the ones who raised Millennials and Z-Kids. They are behaving exactly as we taught them to. You see, we spent our childhoods suffering the trauma that Boomers inflicted upon us. Divorce rates soared when I was a kid and many of my fellow Xers came from what conservatives would call “broken homes”. Boomers, the alleged hippie generation, allowed corporate control of media and just about every other facet of life to become an uncontrollable monster. Boomers invented the war on drugs. Boomers watched policemen bash in the heads of civil rights activists and set dogs upon them and the only thing they took from that was “jeez, I guess we should give The Blacks some rights” and not that police culture was racist, violent, and out of control. Boomers stood by and allowed profits to hold more sway than environmental protections and decent wages. Boomers went to college for a song while we racked up billions in debt, if we even went to college at all. Remember what you used to call us? The SLACKER Generation?
LOLOLOLOLOL. Overshadowed indeed.
While Boomers hoarded wealth and outsourced our jobs overseas, we struggled to find a place in the world. Many of us grew up in homes with absentee parents. Or parents who hit us. Our heroes died from drug abuse, which Boomers thought of and called a flaw in character, rather than mental illness. As gang violence tore apart communities, mostly ones of color, Boomers’ solution was to further the damage by creating a prison industrial complex that severed families irreconcilably. The oceans and air warmed while Boomers did nothing of substance, other than vote Democratic, I guess. It wasn’t until Gen Xers started holding office that real change began to take form.
I remember when warning stickers first started showing up on album covers. I remember all the outrage that conservatives voiced anytime someone said “hell” on TV. You want to know who’s responsible for “Cancel Culture”? Start with the so-called Christian groups who whined and complained to anyone who would listen about TV shows, movies, video games, music, and just about anything else that wasn’t white and god-fearing. Boomers tried to cancel the best, most controversial parts of our culture and now they want us to save them from the fire they started?
LOL
But it was never about Christian values, was it? At the heart of it was white supremacy and maintaining the status quo within the social hierarchy. “Gangsta" rap was a scourge upon society. Forget the message within the music. Forget that much of it simply reflected the realities for people of color inflicted upon them by racist Boomer policies and corporate greed. Instead of trying to fix the problems, the Boomers simply vilified the messengers. Insane levels of violence were fine for TV so long as nobody said a swear or showed a nipple. Boomers made their priorities clear in everything they did, said, and enacted.
While I am frequently exhausted and exasperated by the sensitivities of Millenials and Z-Kids, I would rather them care too much than not at all. Do I think some of their outrage is silly and misplaced? Uh, yeah. I wish the K-Pop stans would spread some of their outrage into real protest instead of yelling at senior citizen rockers that no one has cared about since 1985. And no, sharing memes online isn’t a protest. It’s literally the least you can do. But I digress. They’re young and inspired and that’s half the battle.
And, most importantly, they care! They care about the centuries of injustice that happened in America. They care that their Black and Brown friends are treated differently than them. They don’t think it’s cool to gay-bash or make fun of people’s gender choices. We taught them to speak up for those who cannot safely do so on their own. We taught them to stand up to bullies. We taught them to treat their fellow citizens with dignity and respect and that’s what they are doing. So why would we “save” you rich, racist windbags from them? We are decidedly not on your side.
As Boomers cry about “cancel culture” I am reminded of another thing that Boomers tried to indoctrinate us with:
Gen Xers believed in the message of the 60s. We believed in environmental movements started by Boomers. We believed in equal rights. We believed in the promise of tomorrow. It was Boomers that disillusioned us and turned us into the “Lost Generation”. You bailed on us for a few pieces of silver and a second home.
The final indignity that turned me against Boomers for good was the ascent of MAGA. Trump was not the beginning of white supremacy in America. He merely packaged and sold it in ways you could swallow (unlike his steaks, vodka, and water). You do not have to say the n-word or burn a cross to oppress people of color. It’s encoded into different terms and ways of speaking. John Oliver had a fantastic breakdown of it on his show this past week:
Every few months, the youths find something from my generation that they want to cancel. Howard Stern, Eminem, Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and Andrew Dice Clay have all been recent targets of their outrage. I’m sure there are others I am leaving out. And you know what? It’s fine! A society that doesn’t reflect on its problematic past will fail to understand its future. Bill Clinton was thought of as a swaggering cocksman when he was a politician. Now? I’m pretty sure he’s a creepy rapist who hung out with Jeffery Epstein. Raising concerns about problematic content isn’t “canceling” it. It is only adding the context to which it exists.
The one issue I do have with the younger generations is their inability to discern satire from reality. If I create a show that features a racist buffoon, say All in the Family and Archie Bunker, I am not condoning racist behavior. I am using the racist to highlight the absurdity of racism. I am not sure where this breakdown between fiction and reality happened. I suspect it has to do with how much of their lives take place on screens, in virtual worlds where nothing is real and yet everything is real. Perhaps we have not been educating them in satire. Next, they’ll be boycotting Jonathan Swift for suggesting we eat Irish babies.
No generation is perfect and we all have our own blind spots. Perhaps being inundated with racist, white supremacist bullshit has lowered their collective tolerance for it? Maybe they do not have an interest in satire. If your whole life is absurd then why would you seek that for recreation?
Boomers feel attacked because we are saying their culture is bad, wrong, or hurtful. Nobody wants to believe that. They want to watch Leave It to Beaver and not have to think about where all the Black people are. They want to stand proud and tall when the anthem plays and not think about what it really represents to all their fellow citizens of color. They want to think that most police officers are good because, in their experiences, they have been. We are all prisoners on the ship of supremacy. Boomers just have better staterooms. Showing you pictures from below deck isn’t oppression. It’s reality.
And boy does Reality Bite.