How The Pandemic Will Impact My Generation
The Obama-era served as the backdrop to my Muslim-American childhood in suburban Texas. I can’t remember 9/11, I vaguely remember the financial crisis of 2008, but I grew up in a world that was heavily shaped by both.
I watched as my family excitedly put their faith in a man they could finally identify with. President Obama’s election was supposed to represent the peak of liberalism and democracy, it was another marker to legitimize Fukuyama’s End of History. After all, a system that allowed a black man to become president of the United States, and essentially the most powerful person in the world, had to be a free and fair one.
Then I watched as the daydream faded, leaving people around me disillusioned and increasingly apathetic. While I wasn’t politically competent enough to develop any real contempt for our social institutions, I was able to recognize that whatever catharsis was supposed to arrive never did. In fact, for many, things remained relatively unchanged. Endless wars, school shootings, police brutality, and impending climate disaster would shape an entire generation.
I remember where I was when the news of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting broke. I was sitting in my 9th grade English class when my teacher told all of us to turn our devices off in a desperate attempt to control the panic. That tragedy wasn’t enough to provoke political change, and the shootings that came after weren’t enough either. When desperate students marched for their lives after the Parkland shooting, they begged our institutions to intervene and save them. Instead, they were told to hold individuals accountable. To look away from how our elected leaders represented corporations instead of constituents. To have faith in the political system.
Simultaneously, young people were getting increasingly anxious about the climate crisis. They grew up naively thinking they could save the planet from dying if they recycled their trash and took shorter showers. While most kids quickly abandoned their impulsive crusade to sort juice boxes in the cafeteria due to short attention spans and the inability to see any worthwhile end, those like Greta Thunberg grew to deeply internalize existential realities, like the fact that 200 species go extinct every day. The truth is, many of us came to learn later of the ways our social systems contribute to the climate crisis. We grew bitter with knowledge of how powerful rich countries, corporations, and politicians do the most damage, yet pay the lowest price. In the face of impending disaster, we were told to hold individuals accountable, and once again, have faith in our system.
In 2016 I was a 17 year old about to graduate high school. I had just started to develop a coherent worldview as the presidential election played out. I debated with classmates over candidates and policies as I tried to decide who would earn the honor of my first-ever vote. We were trying to understand how the system worked, and eager to finally have influence. We were naive in the way that most young people are, but passionate out of desperation.
After the election, the little faith young people had left in our political institutions began to die out. We started to abandon the norms and decorum that traditionally occupied politics. As the country seemed to grow more polarized, our discourse also began to adopt a sense of vulgarity. Political memes and online trolling were just another means to express our dissatisfaction with the world we found ourselves in, one we couldn’t escape. The change in language was another rejection of the status quo. It’s a refusal to play by the rules of the game, because especially after the election of President Trump, many of us no longer believe the rules serve our best interests.
All of these events reinforce a singular narrative among young people: We have no reason to have faith in our social and political institutions, because the system doesn’t exist for us.
Now, I’m about to graduate from college as a pandemic exposes the horrific realities of our broken system, but I’m no longer shocked at our collective failure to put people first. Our healthcare institutions are falling apart, our economy is about to collapse, and people are going to suffer. The worst part is, we have no reason to believe that any of this will lead to change. The 2020 election is already eerily similar to 2016, and young people, many of whom put their faith in reformative figures like Bernie Sanders, seem to be losing the will to participate. With all sorts of crises looming over our heads, we’re forced to watch any chance at justice slip through the generational cracks in our society.
