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Lace on Race
Lace on The Race

The commentary and graphic is from a friend.
Thanks, Nicole.

Let’s talk about and deeply confront that last circle.

This is exactly why I choose not to worship at the altar of the white under 30 demographic.

At the end of the day, they didn’t vote that much differently then their parents.

There is a real difference in that they voted third party in greater numbers (and a significant portion of that was Libertarian which is essentially Republicans with bongs), but the whole ass story is that while they did break blue, it wasn’t by much.

That number is much lower than one would think, considering how everybody talks about how young (white) people are our future, and that as older cohorts die out, that racism, xebophobia, and toxic nationalism would die with them.

To even seriously consider that wishful thinking one would have to refuse from consideration Proud Boys, racist skinheads, the Breitbart and 4Chan crowd, and all the other white youth that proves the lie of white youth progressivism.

Just because someone has piercings and ink and full beards and a decent cut crease doesn’t make them any more progressive than my cohort was in the 70’s and 80’s, and 90’s, after which the young white cohort shaved down their mohawks, traded their Docs for Jimmy Choos, and became the very people they once railed against.

And your children watched your every move, from your white flight to your dinner conversations.

They need to rethink all that and to restate and recognize young people of color are our future.

Whiteness still prevails and still holds sway for the young white demographic.

I’ve been saying for years- that white kids don’t listen to what their parents say, they look at how their parents live.

And if their parents are living in segregated cities, consistently living out and voting only for their own, young people see it. And emulate it.

For decades now, white people have kicked social justice and racial Equity down the road like a beaten down soup can, placing the burden of anti-racism on their children’s shoulders.

And for decades their children have Shrugged It Off.

My cohort those born between 1958 and 1974 the first cohort that was expected to do better than their parents on racial issues.

Now, we’re somewhere between 45 and 62 years old. In that age range, the white cohort voted for Trump.

And they are the parents of the children who voted in that Circle.

White people need to face that and confront it and deeply feel the failure in that Circle.

Particularly those who have indeed lived at least putitively Progressive lives and try to inculcate at least superficial Progressive values to their children.

What happened?

This is worth asking and having deep conversations with your own children.

All the time we have been hearing about how young people need to talk to older people about Progressive values.

It needs to go both ways.

Because those values that at least ostensibly Progressive white people have said they have championed have not always translated over.

Only your own cohort knows why that is, although I have some thoughts of my own.

So, white parents who consider themselves liberal or Progressive or even radical or revolutionary, what have you done to instill your values and your children?

And at the end of the day have they listened?

Where are your children in that Circle?

And that’s including whether or not they voted at all.

Eligible young voters are still the lowest counted cohort when it comes to Reliable voting habits.

There’s a lot to learn from this election.

That last circle is one of them.

Because 20 to 30 years from now they will be the 45 to 62 year olds who are shaping this country, whether legislatively, or in corporate halls, or Academia.

And what they learn Here and Now from you all is how they will live out the next 20 to 30 years.
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