By Misty Barron
During a recent conversation, a friend of mine shared her constant worry for her biracial son. She explained how she experiences a level of concern for him that she doesn’t feel for her white son, and the fear can be overwhelming.
“Our generation failed with racism,” she said, meaning GenX.
She’s right. We failed miserably.
Raised during a time when the Cosby Show was popular and the Fresh Prince hadn’t yet slapped Chris Rock, we were lulled into a sense of complacency. We were led to believe racism was being eradicated and rolled our eyes at the random idiot who thought the n-word was acceptable.
Meanwhile, we ignored the real meaning behind the sudden rise in rap and made jokes about crackheads while thinking Arsenio Hall was the coolest talk show host in history. Eddie Murphy was at his peak, how in the world could we be racist?
Instead, we focused on the social justice of our time. We lived through the AIDS crisis and even if we weren’t gay, understood how devastating it was. We rallied around equality for the LGBTQ community and taught our kids how wrong it was to be homophobic. It was a cause that needed to be championed, one we made great strides in. But all the while, we didn’t notice when shows depicting black people in a positive light slowly faded away.
I never thought twice about voting for Obama because he was black and was shocked by how many used race as the only reason they wouldn’t vote for him. I’d been complacent, imagining the world was fixing itself because I hadn’t heard as much about racism as I once had. But it was there, it’s always been there.
While the U.S. has made some strides toward abolishing discrimination, it hasn’t gone as far as it should have by 2023. Trump’s election gave bigots a voice and they came crawling out of the woodwork. People I once respected started spouting what they’d kept quiet all these years and cloaked racism in the lie of “political differences.”
The rise of the internet and everyone holding cameras has cast a new light on an old problem. White America can no longer turn a blind eye to the hardships and injustices that minorities have endured for generations. It’s not that these incidents are on the rise, it is that our awareness of them has heightened. We are finally getting a small glimpse into what Black Americans have been trying to tell us forever – systemic racism is very much alive in 2023 and hasn’t gotten any better.
It is long past time for Gen X to acknowledge our failure to make a dent in racism and take responsibility for it. We can start by listening to the voices of marginalized communities and supporting policies that promote equality and justice. We must use our influence to make real change and ensure that our grandchildren grow up in a world we failed to give our kids. If we don’t, we’re no better than the Boomers who raised us.
