Young Americans just aren’t fighting back as much. Many millennials joined up in the Women’s March and other protests after the election, but we should be fighting the craziness of the Trump presidency. Here are some of the reasons for this, as presented by Alternet:
1. Student Loan Debt
Many of us are under crushing amounts of student loan debt. For some schools and degrees it can be as high as $100,000. Average undergraduate debt is around $25,000. We should be able to resist, but we are having to stay at home with our parents longer because of these crushing debts.
2. Schools That Educate For Compliance And Test Scores
School systems now are less concerned with educating students with critical thinking skills and more concerned with test scores. As the 1990 New York City Teacher of the Year Award winner John Taylor Gatto said:
“The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.”
3. Fear Of Surveillance
With the passage of the Patriot Act and the increased surveillance from the National Security Agency (NSA), people are afraid to speak out against the current regime. Also, for the younger ones, many parents are monitoring what their kids are looking at and posting on Facebook. Many parents even put GPS on their children’s cell phones.
4. TV
As Alternet says:
“Television is a dream come true for an authoritarian society: those with the most money own most of what people see; fear-based television programming makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, which is good for the ruling elite who depend on a “divide and conquer” strategy; TV isolates people so they are not joining together to create resistance to authorities; and regardless of the programming, TV viewers’ brainwaves slow down, transforming them closer to a hypnotic state that makes it difficult to think critically.”
However, many of us are strong activists and care so much about the issues. Don’t underestimate us. Check out these teens talking about the issues that matter to them.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot.
