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2. I agree; US baby-boomers came of age in one of the most privileged eras of human existence.
3. Millenials came of age with 9/11 and its aftermath, two wars, and the great recession. The bubble of security in "the day to day" and achieving that level of security that boomers enjoyed was long gone by then.
Not everyone was well off. There's always been poverty, hunger, want. My failing Boomer eyes have seen all of them.
911 changed the entire way we think especially of safety. I remember we could leave our car doors unlocked, and we trusted our neighbors by keeping our homes unlocked. I firmly believe in the concept that as our population keeps increasing, so does the percentages of psychos out there that want to do harm. We didn't need to worry about domestic terrorism like we do now. Airport screening, getting into and out of events, etc. It's even gotten to a point, where everywhere I go I think of a way to escape from a mass shooter. I know the likelihood of being involved in a tragedy is slim, but it changes the entire way we interact with large groups of people.
I was born in 1959, in Philadelphia, but grew up in the burbs. I saw the shift in society as the Baby Boomers came of age in the 60's, but it really accelerated in the 70's. They did not have to go through the Great Depression, and WWII like our parents did, and had a lot GIVEN to them. Thus the luxury to not have to worry so much about the practical, and pragmatic day, to day things, but could think of creating some type of socialist UTOPIA, which of course is neither possible, nor wanted by human beings as it is totally against our nature.
Most of the people fighting for social change in the 50s and 60s were members of the Silent Generation.
the 20th century was more raciest, sexist, homophobic then the 21st.
middle class has decreased in the 21st
Well then. Most started to wake up in the '60s and '70s. We had Woodstock, Nixon, Vietnam for dinner.
AIDS villainized gays in the '80s. I've never had a problem with the gay or lesbian community because (when I was very young) my mother told me that her nephew was gay. He would have been my cousin, but killed himself when he was quite young. In the '40s.
There were definitely dark days in the last century, but this one isn't any better.
Technically you're a Boomer. It almost sounds like you do not consider yourself to be one.
I know I am a Boomer, but I caught the tail end of it. Most Boomers are older than me, and became adults well before me. I personally witnessed a lot of their silliness, and we are still paying for their stupid mistakes, and idealistic buffoonery.
No I don’t remember it, you are older than me. I am a gen Xer raised up in the 70s and 80s. I suppose that experience is unique to our age group, coming of age before the digital age and political correctness but after the civil rights turmoil of the 50s and 60s. Maybe when I was raised has something to do with how I see all of those race issues. I sympathize with those black peoples who lived under Jim Crow pre 1950s, totally unfair and in-American things were going on then but when it comes to today’s political correctness and the “race chip” I lose all sympathy and support for that. I find all of that to be un American as well. Maybe what we had when I grew up is what I see as more ideal, a world where racial discrimination was illegal but a world where you did not have social justice warriors screaming at you about political correctness and constantly running down my white ancestors. Today’s world has just become too ugly.
All of my grandparents experienced Jim Crow, especially the ones from NOLA. It's a major reason they left the south and ended up in the Philadelphia metro area a century ago. So their views colored their children and grandchildren's(my generation)attitudes about the south in general which was mostly negative.
As an impressionable and observant child I saw things like the horrific treatment the Little Rock Nine got just trying to go to school and later dogs and water cannons turned on people in Birmingham, AL. The four girls who were killed in the 16th St Baptist Church bombing were about my age at the time. I watched George Wallace try to block the doors so a black student couldn't enter UoAL. All of those things "taught" me that the south was not a place I wanted to be. Ever.
Then an interesting thing happened in the 80s. One of my nieces matriculated at UVA and graduated. She, and her husband(also a UVA) alum moved to, of all places, Birmingham!
Over the last 20 years I have been to Birmingham many times. Of course there are no vestiges of Jim Crow there today.
I'm sure you realize that lots of African-Americans have white ancestors or current bio relatives. I do.
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