Generational Activism

Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter movement documentary shows the progression of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and how it gained social media attention. It shows how the movement got to where it is today and how it gained momentum. Today, Black Lives Matter is such a huge topic of conversation in politics, media, and everyday life. It is important to acknowledge that this movement has had a long and hard history to get the attention it has today. The protests, the burning of buildings, the marching has been happening for years now. More recently we have been hearing names such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. But it is important to remember that the movement began with people like Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. 

Even before the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement was the Civil Rights movement. Even after the Civil Rights era, inequities are still VERY present and activism didn't stop. Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter movement spoke about how young people on social media are are huge factors as to why the BLM movement has so much success. Some young people even were bashing older people at the protests for staying in their cars and not getting as involved. While some people may feel that this is strictly a young new movement, is that the beliefs of BLM as an organization? What if we learned from our elders activism and worked together, or are we already doing that at the leadership level? 

Mighty Times: The Children's March is another tv special documentary that starts much further back in Birmingham Alabama in 1963. The part of this documentary that really stuck with me was "D" Day in Birmingham. "D" Day of the Civil Rights movement was mainly attended by young people and children. These young people grew up and are still alive today. Are they still advocates for change? Are they active in the BLM movement? This led me to questions about Generational Activism and why young people seem to always be the forefront of any protest or movement. 

I found a really interesting article that looks at how generation plays a role on beliefs about many social issues such as climate change, the NFL protests, gender wage gaps, gender neutral pronouns, the government's role and size, etc. Below is the generations and how they are defined for the purposes of the data I was looking at.

One of the many studies conducted was asking people of different generations and political leanings if Black people are treated less fairly than White people. The results are shown below.

It is interesting to me that nearly the same percentage of Democrats recognize inequities across the generations. Republican responses range from 20%-43% in agreement that Black people are treated less fairly which is a large range. Of Republicans, younger people are more likely to recognize inequities than older generations. In terms of protesting and advocacy, this makes me question how politics plays a role in social movements like BLM and what will happen as Millennials and Generation Z get older and have more roles in politics. In terms of this data, it's hard to tell if Republicans beliefs changing to become more conservative as they get older, or if their beliefs have been stagnant and the younger people are learning more.