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I meant to do this earlier, but got distracted. So here's a Three Weeks post that's me being all ranty.
So, I was surfing around on my Network page earlier today, and came across the ONTD_feminism feed. Specifically, this post about an article on an article in the New York Times basically about how my generation (Generation Y, although, for crying out loud, can you please at least use the term "Millenials"? Do not define us by how we are NOT the generation that proceeded us. It is insulting.) is spoiled, arrogant, and generally going to screw things up.
And you know what? I am sick and tired of hearing that bullshit. Not because it's ablist or classist or whatever the hell because the NYT writers are once again only looking at the "white, privileged, Ivy-Leaguers". But because it isn't true.
You want to know who refuted that very article on Friday afternoon? Susan Hockfield.
Who is Susan Hockfield? Only the goddamn president of MIT. And you want to know how I know she refuted it? Because I was there.
Here the transcript of her charge to new graduates. But here's the refutation of my generation "screwing things up":
"Speaking for the faculty, one of the great pleasures of MIT’s academic community is that we are all teachers, and we are all students, all the time. And so today, though it is technically my job to offer a charge to you, our graduates, I want to start by explaining how much my generation can learn from yours. I will skip past the things that we will probably never learn, like the proper way to “unfriend” someone or how to talk about using Twitter, with a straight face, and move on to a few qualities that seem to shine out in everything you do, and that the world needs now more than ever.
My generation endured, and sometimes incited, struggles that threatened to tear this nation apart. Those struggles, while accelerating change in many dimensions, often produced more noise than effect, and they left cracks in some of the pillars of community, especially in the idea of responsibility to the larger community beyond the self. When Bill Gates came to campus this spring, he encouraged you, as he said, to “make sure that our brightest minds are working on [humanity’s] most important problems.” But with so many of you already devoting your creativity, time and passion to tackling the world’s most pressing challenges, he spoke here not merely to an audience inclined to follow his advice, but to those already leading the way.
Yet your generation wears its commitment to the greater good quite lightly. You use your skills to help repair a broken world, however, you see nothing remarkable about it; you simply expect it of each other, and of yourselves."
So New York Times? Don't you dare call us selfish or lazy or too-optimistic. Because we can change the world and we bloody well will do it. Because we're not satisfied with just fixing the problems older generations have left us to shoulder, but we strive to make things better. And if you think that's a terrible thing, then get the hell out of our way, because if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Because there are a heck of a lot of us that don't believe in privilege, but in merit, and that everyone deserves a fair shot. And to those of us who have privilege, it's our duty to make sure everyone else can get that. Maybe it's because of where I'm coming from, that I have such a firm belief that it's our call and duty to fix things. But I can tell you this: over 2,500 young men and women were given the charge of true noblise oblige on Friday afternoon in the hot sun on Killian court.
So New York Times? You can call my generation lazy when you have examples of people who invent "an extremely affordable system for diagnosing nearsightedness and farsightedness – using a cell phone" before they graduate from college. Or figure out how to bring electricity to remote villages in Africa. Or design a affordable and easy way of cheaply making pads out of banana leaf fiber so that thousands of girls don't have to stay home from school every month due to their period. And do these things before they turn 25 years old.
And it's not just MIT grads. No, there are people from all walks of life who are just as capable of changing the world. And we do not look or think like those who came before us.
Because yes, we are the oncoming storm.
So, I was surfing around on my Network page earlier today, and came across the ONTD_feminism feed. Specifically, this post about an article on an article in the New York Times basically about how my generation (Generation Y, although, for crying out loud, can you please at least use the term "Millenials"? Do not define us by how we are NOT the generation that proceeded us. It is insulting.) is spoiled, arrogant, and generally going to screw things up.
And you know what? I am sick and tired of hearing that bullshit. Not because it's ablist or classist or whatever the hell because the NYT writers are once again only looking at the "white, privileged, Ivy-Leaguers". But because it isn't true.
You want to know who refuted that very article on Friday afternoon? Susan Hockfield.
Who is Susan Hockfield? Only the goddamn president of MIT. And you want to know how I know she refuted it? Because I was there.
Here the transcript of her charge to new graduates. But here's the refutation of my generation "screwing things up":
"Speaking for the faculty, one of the great pleasures of MIT’s academic community is that we are all teachers, and we are all students, all the time. And so today, though it is technically my job to offer a charge to you, our graduates, I want to start by explaining how much my generation can learn from yours. I will skip past the things that we will probably never learn, like the proper way to “unfriend” someone or how to talk about using Twitter, with a straight face, and move on to a few qualities that seem to shine out in everything you do, and that the world needs now more than ever.
My generation endured, and sometimes incited, struggles that threatened to tear this nation apart. Those struggles, while accelerating change in many dimensions, often produced more noise than effect, and they left cracks in some of the pillars of community, especially in the idea of responsibility to the larger community beyond the self. When Bill Gates came to campus this spring, he encouraged you, as he said, to “make sure that our brightest minds are working on [humanity’s] most important problems.” But with so many of you already devoting your creativity, time and passion to tackling the world’s most pressing challenges, he spoke here not merely to an audience inclined to follow his advice, but to those already leading the way.
Yet your generation wears its commitment to the greater good quite lightly. You use your skills to help repair a broken world, however, you see nothing remarkable about it; you simply expect it of each other, and of yourselves."
So New York Times? Don't you dare call us selfish or lazy or too-optimistic. Because we can change the world and we bloody well will do it. Because we're not satisfied with just fixing the problems older generations have left us to shoulder, but we strive to make things better. And if you think that's a terrible thing, then get the hell out of our way, because if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Because there are a heck of a lot of us that don't believe in privilege, but in merit, and that everyone deserves a fair shot. And to those of us who have privilege, it's our duty to make sure everyone else can get that. Maybe it's because of where I'm coming from, that I have such a firm belief that it's our call and duty to fix things. But I can tell you this: over 2,500 young men and women were given the charge of true noblise oblige on Friday afternoon in the hot sun on Killian court.
So New York Times? You can call my generation lazy when you have examples of people who invent "an extremely affordable system for diagnosing nearsightedness and farsightedness – using a cell phone" before they graduate from college. Or figure out how to bring electricity to remote villages in Africa. Or design a affordable and easy way of cheaply making pads out of banana leaf fiber so that thousands of girls don't have to stay home from school every month due to their period. And do these things before they turn 25 years old.
And it's not just MIT grads. No, there are people from all walks of life who are just as capable of changing the world. And we do not look or think like those who came before us.
Because yes, we are the oncoming storm.
(no subject)
...in other news they have shifted the definitions when I wasn't looking, (or age is catching up) - I thought Y fell between X and Millennial - those of us who aren't old enough to be X but were adult before the millennium, and fairly mature before we encountered the Internet and mobiles and so forth... Ah well.
(no subject)
"Millennial" is generally refers to people born in the early 80s to mid 90s. And everywhere I've looked seems to say that Millennial and Generation Y are equivalent. I just know that a lot of people my age grudgingly accept the term "Millennial" moreso than GenY. (Even Wikipedia says it, and we all know what a bastion of truth Wikipedia is. :P )
(no subject)