The Privilege to Protest: Looking at Modern Millennial Backlash

Protests are pretty common in today’s society. Different types of protest consists of demonstrations, rallies, and marches. Now, everyone has the right to protest; however, modern culture attaches a negative stigma on the protesters. This phenomenon can be seen in most of older population’s criticism on the younger ones. The idea that our generation, the millennials, are entitled to whatever we want seems to be the general argument they make when they see us protesting. Not to say that there are absolutely no whiners in our generation, but the majority of us are fighting for active change in areas like women’s rights, healthcare, and equality. This article serves to examine why our privilege to protest is well deserved and why the systems of older generations old a negative view of Millennials.

My “privilege” is rooted in a socialist era during which “activism” had a specific set of connotations that stand in opposition to its familiar meaning in contemporary US culture. -Katarzyna Marciniak

Why is protest in today’s culture associated with whining and entitlement from older generations? In an article on the current situation of millennials, Jennifer Wright states “To be a Millennial is to hear constantly about how awful your generation is”. The article follows up with this statement by examining the one population responsible for such criticism. As data indicates, businessmen and corporate leaders are found to most commonly view Millennials as “entitled”. Their reasoning behind this stems from the lazy culture of Millennials. They argue that Millennials are not getting jobs or not pursuing a higher education. Instead waste their time complaining about not getting jobs and asking for handouts. This argument can be counteracted by the massive economic debt left behind by the older generation. College tuition has been raised by 3.5% every year beyond inflation and is still raising. With the looming school debt, many have decided that a higher education is out of their financial grasp and instead opt to start working right away after high school. These circumstances are not considered when corporate leaders look at incoming job applicants with only entry level job experience. Thus, they form opinions that Millennials are lazy and unmotivated.

The older generation also have a negative view on current protests and protesters. I have heard in many forms of media that the older generation considers our generation as a generation that feel entitled to whatever they want and that this “entitlement” is why they protest. A common nickname that I’ve heard to describe our generation is that we’re all “special snowflakes”. This term is derived from the notion that Millennials (again) feel entitled to everything when they want it. Applying this thought process to social protest, older generations see Millennial protest as basically whining. This is what Katarzyna Marciniak means when she says “Not surprisngly, thus the word “activist” for many people resistant to the party system had an oppressive tonality and many, even today, react to this term with shivers of disgust”. The older generation lives in a system where the system is in favor of them to a certain degree therefore they have no need or incentive to change it. However, this system that caters to the older population does not completely include us Millennials. With the emergence of new social situations such as gay rights, workplace equality, paid maternity leave, sexual assault, wage gap, and rape culture, the upcoming generation have to take measures to address those issues. With an archaic system that doesn’t provide fair opportunities for all, its no surprise that there will be a push back for a more fair system. An article states “That has been the general direction of the whole world for the last three hundred years or so. It was slow at first, but it’s picking up speed. We can’t “get rid” of it, but we can certainly continue to oppose it.” Even though protesting is a hard and rigorous process, it has never been a better time to protect these basic rights that are being threatened.

Protesting should not be associated with such a negative backlash. Just because you’re out fighting for fair opportunities doesn’t mean you’re asking for free handouts. A lot of the negativity from older generations are misinformed about the difficulties that millennials have to deal with. Each generation has their own set of social issues and the older generation will always criticize the newer one. By understanding the new situations, the older generation can become more understanding and sympathetic towards the serious issues that millennials are fighting for today. Maybe they will even join the protests and support the movement. Not all of the older generation see millennials as whiny lazy special snowflakes but there are definitely those that feel that way. By reaching out to that population and making them realize the importance of our generation’s issues will be a big step towards solving today’s issues.