Global Change is Heavy… Are Young Shoulders Strong Enough?

Our world is changing, in many ways for the better. We have awakened in the past five years especially to growing inequalities that are prevalent around the globe. In 2020 alone we have seen younger and more ethnically/racially diverse groups come together to protest police brutality in America. Young people around the world are fighting for their governments to take charge in the climate crisis, organizing walkouts, strikes, and marches. In the past few months, young people in Nigeria have begun protesting police brutality with the hashtag #EndSARS. Black Lives Matter protests have gone global, especially over the summer months following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Walkouts were organized following the Stoneman Douglas school shooting in 2018, and students formed the March for Our Lives organization. There are far too many other events, crises, and occurrences that have sparked resistance or organizations to form under their inspiration to count, and young people of the world are at the center of it all. 

Young people have become especially polarized from older generations and among each other. Young people are driven more so than older generations at the present time to fight for what they believe in, whatever cause that might be. It is also true that when young people disagree with each other on something they believe to be fundamental, it is all but futile to expect they will be able to put that aside. Not speaking about politics or religion is a uniquely generational rule in that younger generations (millennials and generation z in particular) tend not to follow it. It will be fascinating to see anthropologists and sociologists study the social rules set by generations before and how they evolve or disappear due to the presence of the most outspoken generation there has ever been. 

Global youths are one of the most outspoken and active groups of people, but it is important to understand why. Information is presented through forms of media and it is inescapable. It is valuable information and important to know about, but the noise of social media is sometimes too loud. When you are bombarded with global tragedies all day, it will end up being exhausting. 

Social media plays a large role in the interconnectedness of youths, and the dynamics that will bring in the future are going to be impactful in ways we cannot imagine today. We as a globe are simultaneously the most organized and the most overwhelmed we have ever been, because we not only are aware of the trouble occurring in our own country, but we are aware of incidents in twelve other countries at the same time. The exhaustion that illicites should be noted as one of the major downfalls of social media because overwhelm is one of the great perpetrators of inaction. 

So, to those who are feeling overwhelmed: it is okay. It is acceptable and understandable that activism yields mental, physical, and/or emotional fatigue. It’s hard to have difficult conversations with people you love, and it’s even harder when they do not listen. It’s painful when friends or family are hurting from something that you cannot stop, or even something that you benefit from. So continue to do what you can when you can, but do not burn yourself out. Continue to be kind. Be giving. Be steadfast. And as always, continue to speak up and speak out.