They turn a problem of a climate change, that they have no idea how to solve, into a different problem of white supremacy, that they see a way of solving.
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Du Bois, Baldwin and King also had very relieved words when they talked about white people who did not concentrate on their race, but who just assumed that Du Bois, Baldwin and King were equal, normal people.
It was more like Rosa Parks that ignited people, and Martin Luther King amplified it. She refused to move, and thus gave power to others, and thus the bus boycott. Rosa led by gexample. Yes, King got arrested, but he led more by authority.
Even before Rosa, riff-raff jailbird WWII pacifists chalenged segregation, and they continued into the King era, swaying the early movement to non-violence.
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You must not talk to a lot of teenagers. Every single one I’ve talked with about climate change talks about her like she’s a rock star, and cites her as their inspiration to get out for protests or – if they’re old enough – to vote.
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Citation needed.
Cuz I’ve read all three extensively, and I think each of them would be insulted at best by your claim that they didn’t want white people to recognize and deal honestly with their own blackness, and especially, with what white people typically made of it.
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Le sigh
So, how bout that Greta Thunberg!
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We’re in absolute agreement that Ms. Thunberg is a splendid person, and we are so glad she’s doing so well.
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Pro tip: disagreement is not an attack.
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Y’know, reading this…
… my initial thought was, “yep, here in the West, 99% of the people responding to Thunberg with crappy comments and memes are older white dudes” and just left it a Like. But I guess I’m not the kind of older white dude who gets all defensive when someone states the obvious about my highly privileged demographic group. Maybe that comes with not being afraid of acknowledging that privilege or of acknowledging that race plays a huge part in inequality, both in the West and globally.
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I’ll invoke the Jefferson Airplane song “We Can Be Together”, from thei 1969 album “Volunteers”. They apparently perforned it on The Dick Cavett Show on August 19, 1969, right after Woodstock.
I’m not suggesting we follow the title, but that the lyrics show the state of kids in 1969, not unlike the kids today. But they made great change, the kids today benefit from it. So you no longer have to be what was expected back then.
For a while I thought it was hyperbole, the sort of thing where so many at the times had photos of themselves with guns. But I was a late boomer. In more recent years I’ve come to see it as more literal, so much of the change was against the law, until the mass of the boomers caused change. John Lewis no longer gets arrested at lunch counters or riding the bus, Chief Phillips and his wife Joan were behind Greta in Vancouver a few months ago while she gave a speech, I can be old without “acting old” and I can date a black woman wit withouthiut getting arrested. The change is endless, but we seem forgotten.
Jack Weinberg said “don’t trust anyone over thirty” , apparently in 1964 during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Students coming back from the the civil rights movement, maybe especially Freedom Summer that summer, didn’t like being treated like kids when back at university. So they changed that, and a few years later the voting age dropped to 18. These are long standing changes that affect all the kids today, for the good
The occupation of Alcatraz fifty years ago still has repercussions, it’s easy to forget how it was for the cousins back then.
The problem with mass movements is that the mass doesn’t do much thinking, and generally lets the “leaders” speak for them. Fifty years ago the leaders were generally the ones heard, either directly or as the mass quoted them. Now, the mass has the means to reach an audience, an infrastructure brought by “all those old white men”, so some of the group think sounds silly when quoted by the mass. It’s more about addressing power, but “old white men” overlooks all the change made when they were younger.
Just because one generation got old doesn’t mean they have no soul.
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My dude, who tf do you think the system was setup by and who do you think it was setup to benefit?
Obviously not native Americans or school children. What does the fortune 500 CEO list look like again?
Yeah, not monolithic, but age and race are definitely a key factor in who gets all the advantages in late stage capitalism.
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Selected by whom?
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If I had to guess that‘s probably because you feel that a eliminating that privilege would only be fair, and it would not impact your relationships or the meaning you see in your life. But not every old white man shares that privilege, some failed to build relationships and find meaning…
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I am monolithic; though, by colour and consistency, I’m probably the eroded core of the European Butter Mountain.
I do hope that, looking back from a chill future where things are better, that Greta Thunberg and her supporters are mentioned among the people who turned things around and put things right.
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I wish her all the good things in the world and I hope she succeeds in getting people to finally take action and pay attention.
However I fear it’s not going to happen and we’ll all have to suffer through ‘the hard way’. For real climate action to work and the standard of living to be ok everywhere on the world, the western standard of living has to go down significantly. No more airplane holidays. No more gratuitous car travel. No more cheaply made plastic stuff. Smaller houses. Less meat eating.
No politician (who’s career depends on short time successes) is going to succeed in getting that through, even if (s)he would want to.
Everybody is hoping on some miraculous scientific breakthrough to fix stuff, but the chances on that are slim.
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Fuck ‘em up, Greta!
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Based on my extensive research on social media comments, the answer is something along these lines:
- George Soros (because Jewish international bankers)
- Antifa (funded by Soros, of course)
- Her parents (who are T-shirt wearing antifa founding members, apparently)
- The worldwide conspiracy of climate scientists, windmill and solar panel manufacturers, and evil green feminists who hate cars and want to reduce people’s freedom for evil.
- Hillary Clinton (because of course)
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I would love to be proven wrong about this… the growing youth movement back in the 60’s probably did have something to do with the war ending when it did. But it sure wasnt enough to keep us out of the new ones.
An active youth movement is “part of this nutritious breakfast”. But without a political apparatus to leverage policy, it won’t be enough to make a difference.
And let’s be real, there is a bunch of things we could be doing, that taken all together, still just amount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
