Let’s face it: There have always been young people who speak up and try to stir the public into awareness of the issues that they deal with. For the most part, older people just haven’t been listening. But this year, some politicians and journalists have made more of an effort to engage with young people as they speak for themselves rather than merely talking about them as if they’re in another room and can’t be allowed into the public sphere.
In part, this shift reflects the growing political might of younger Americans. Millennials are set to become the largest bloc of eligible voters in U.S. history, though their turnout currently lags behind older generations. That might be changing: Young adult turnout in the 2018 midterm election increased by 188 percent in early voting, compared with the 2014 midterms. Increasingly, lawmakers ignore the voices of the young at their own peril.
But their willingness to pay more attention to younger people may also reflect something else: an acknowledgement of culpability. “The adults know that we’re cleaning up their mess,” as Parkland student Cameron Kasky told Time.
Members of the affected generation may not know exactly how the world they’re inheriting got this way, but they also aren’t waiting around for someone else to offer solutions.
like old friends meeting, or the dawn breaking into the night, a thousand years of darkness and then a flicker of light.
art by james r eads, motion by the glitch
Rihanna for VOGUE Paris
Mae WestYou only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Ted Forbes, “The Art of Photography”The world needs art that matters.
