The Black Millennial Dilemma Series
Part 1: What’s the dilemma?
You hear the responsibility. You feel the dilemma.
This sentiment echoes from the balconies and pews of our churches. It shines bright through mobile screens as we scroll our twitter feeds. It bounces off the exposed brick walls in our loft apartments juxtaposed between gentrification and urban renewal during casual conversations with friends at debate nights. It’s discussed at our conferences(Blavity), our GroupMe chats, and our Slack communities.
You can hear the purpose.
It’s even present in our music.
The people’s champ must be everything the people can’t be
You must have missed the come up, I must be all I can be
Call me Mister Mufasa, I had to master stampedes
-Chance the Rapper, “Blessings”
Chance gets it. Chance lives it. We love Chance. Chance is us. He’s blessed and so are we.
Yet, blessings come with responsibility and sacrifice.
Our grandmothers taught us that first, and then life experiences soon retweeted them.
As the people’s champ, he raps to the soul of the black millennial who has an innate yearning to use their platform to serve their community.
He’s our soul on wax.
This sense of purpose permeates across the millennial demographic.
In 2011, the Case Foundation ran a study on Millennials, which found that 72% of us would stop donating to a cause if we did not have a personal connection with the organization.
For Black Millennials, this sense of purpose and personal connectivity is at the forefront of every pivotal decision we make throughout our post college journey: where we donate, where we spend our time, who we spend our time with, where we choose to live, and what we will do for a living.
The Black Millennial Dilemma can be explored through the following questions we frequently ask ourselves:
How does this help me advance the mission of my community?
Should I do this for the culture?
How can I kick it this tough on the weekend, to break away from the drain of a stressful week, to celebrate my accomplishments when it’s people back home that need my time and attention?
Do I choose a civic minded career path?
Do I go get this money and leverage my experience to fund my civic duties on the side?
Do I pick a career that focuses on community impact? Or do I use my career to fund my community and social efforts?
There is really no clear cut answer to this question. I am not here to make an attempt at uncovering one.
I am here to simply highlight this part of our narrative.
This is a peek under the hood if you will.
This is with both faith and confidence that it will accomplish the following:
- Give a sense of understanding for the people we interact with enabling them to make better decisions that affect us.
- Help those faced with this complex dilemma a better sense of how they can navigate it
This is for you, a black millennial stakeholder.
Here is a list of not-so-auxiliary reasons why this series is potentially important to you:
- You want to strengthen diversity & inclusion practices (ooou!)
- You want to retain top tier diverse talent (ooou!)
- Key cultural insights fascinate you (ooou!)
- Black millennial consumers are driving your profitability (ooou!)
- Volunteerism is down and you need new ideas and hands (ooou!)
- You’re tired of explaining yourself to other people. Thus, you needed more people (ooou!)
- You want to see how others are addressing this internal dilemma (ooou!)
Why the oous, you ask? Because I like incorporating fun hip hop into serious dialogue. Also, I have a fascination for slipping in and out of purpose and turn up.
So, I have time for Chance and Young M.A.
BALANCE.
Which is what this series is all about, right?
Lastly, Part 2 of this series is coming soon.
And I want to bring you in to help complete the narrative.
PLEASE SHARE AND COMMENT.
Are you faced with this challenge? How does it affect you? What choices did you make?
If so, let me hear from you and I will incorporate your feedback into the rest of the series.
Blessings!
-Jeff
