Activists for the new millennium: complacent and politically unaware? Student leaders say young people are screaming, but no one is listening - Cover Story

Black Issues in Higher Education, April 24, 2003 by Kendra Hamilton

Baghdad is burning, and the streets of the world's cities are full of anti-war protesters--as well as anti-globalization protesters, anti-sweatshop protesters, campus "greens" and much more--but some observers are asking, where are the Black student protesters? When anti-globalization protests paralyzed the nation's capital during the G-8 Summit last year, for example, the Washington Post dispatched a reporter to Howard University's campus to find out "why Black students don't care about globalization."

African American elders, meanwhile, seem to be echoing the criticisms. Sessions at a recent Black studies conference co-sponsored by the Schomburg Center, Princeton University and the City University of New York revealed a "profound" rift between the activist generation of the '60s and '70s and today's youth, noted the Schomburg's chief, Dr. Howard Dodson (see Black Issues, March 13).

"What I hear from people is that we don't know our history, we don't take education seriously, we're more into the way we look--the bling-bling!--than what's inside," says Descatur "Dez" Potier, 22, president of the Black Student Union and a senior political science major at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. "But a lot of people from that [activist] generation just haven't taken the time to understand and relate to us."

Danielle Phillips, 21, a junior at Spelman College and president of the school's Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, says, "I guess the criticism that makes me maddest is that we don't resist and we're not politically aware. Older people think we're lazy and just don't care. But that's not the case at all."

Rena Johnson, 18, a second-year student at the University of Virginia, had only a thread of a voice left after organizing the buses that took nearly 80 UVA students to demonstrate on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in support of affirmative action on April 1. "Young people are screaming," Johnson says. "We are literally screaming, and no one is listening."

THE COMPLACENT GENERATION?

The allegedly complacent generation was out in force that day--that day being April 1. Sporting Greek insignia or school caps and T-shirts, they chanted, "We need diversity--we gotta have diversity!" and, "Impeachment--NOW!" They carded signs that proclaimed "400 Years of Slavery Is Worth 20 Points."

There was almost a carnival atmosphere, as motorists honked their horns and passers-by in business attire forgot their professional demeanor and shouted, "Represent! Represent!" But the tone of the conversations one heard as the demonstration wound its way from the U.S. Supreme Court past the Capitol and down the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial was serious.

"I wonder what Clarence Thomas' mama thinks about what he's doing?" asked one young woman, sparking spirited responses from her companions.

And while affirmative action was at the forefront, the war in Iraq was ever present in the background.

"This administration made a serious miscalculation when it billed this war as being about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people," said a young man to his nodding, dreadlocked companion.

The snapshot that emerged that day was of a generation that is articulate, passionate and politically savvy. It's a portrait of African American youth that is sharply at odds with stereotypes cherished by the media--and even by a certain segment of the African American community.

CHANGING TIMES

The college student population is far less politicized as a whole than it was 40 years ago. More than 60 percent of students viewed "keeping up with politics" as "very important" or "essential" in 1966, according to UCLA's annual Freshman Survey. That compares with 32.9 percent of freshmen in the 2002 survey--a rebound from the all-time low of 28.1 percent reported by the 2000 survey.

But then a great deal of what comprises student activism today doesn't fit neatly into the categories established during the civil rights and youth protest movements of the '60s and '70s, some observers say.

"There are major differences between our generation and the civil rights generation of old," notes Brandon Neal, national director of the NAACP's youth and college division. "During that time period, the period of Jim Crow law, the struggle was clear. People were fighting for rights and liberties that had been denied them.

"For our generation, though, there are issues in understanding what the issues are. Our generation is in the midst of evaluating and defining what our problems are," Neal says.

For today's students, "it's not just all about civil rights--they care about so many other kinds of issues--from literacy to sweatshops to homelessness to LGBT [lesbian, gay, bi-, and transgender]. You name it. Their interests are very diverse," says Elizabeth Hollander, executive director of Campus Compact, a national coalition of 860 colleges and universities committed to fostering the values of service and citizenship on college campuses.

And Hollander's assessment is echoed by that of Phillips, the Spelman junior.