When I was 12 years old, I spent the night at my grandma’s house watching the “Scrubs” episode about Turk’s risqué dreams of Elliot. In one of those steamy scenes, already awkward to watch with my grandma, she said, “I don’t like to see the blacks with whites.” As a 70-year-old woman born and raised in Texas, it wasn’t surprising. She didn’t say it in malice. It’s a viewpoint that’s the product of a different time with different cultures.
Even at a young age, I was glad my generation wouldn’t be as intolerant. However, evidence suggests millennials are not as tolerant as we presume.
A 2010 Pew Research report found when asked if it’s “all right for blacks and whites to date each other” 93 percent of millennials feel it’s acceptable, compared to 92 percent of Gen X’ers(those born between 1960 and 1980).
This trend holds up across several other race related questions, and the evidence is clear — we are just as racist as our parents and only slightly less racist than the baby boomers.
While millennials may think we’re the post-racial society, we’ve learned none of the lessons that have gotten us to this point.
A 2014 MTV study found only 37 percent of people were raised in a family where race was discussed and 84 percent were taught everyone should be treated the same regardless of race.
This upbringing has led us to believe ignoring race is the solution to racism. We are wrong — ignoring racism will not fix it.
This generation sees racism as a relic of past generations and refuses to acknowledge societal problems that persist today. We ignore that the black to white incarceration ratio is worse than it was in 1960.
I guarantee several people stopped reading just now because “this is a culture problem, not a race problem,” and I am just perpetrating racism. I see this argument constantly, and it’s maddening. Just because we got rid of Jim Crow and colored water fountains and we have a black president doesn’t mean society isn’t racist anymore.
In what must be the most ironic event in history, having a black president has created more barriers to opportunity for African-Americans. A University of Washington study found people were less likely to see a need for racial progress after Obama’s election.
Ask any African-American, and they will say since 2008 there hasn’t been much racial progress. However, people assume there is less racism since Obama is in office.
We think we’re moving in the right direction, but I fear we’re regressing because of recent controversies like Ferguson, Trayvon Martin and the constant Confederate flag debate.
In the four years I’ve attended LSU, I’ve never felt more racial tension than I have this semester. Walking through the Quad, I see no integrated friend groups, and in Free Speech Plaza I see racial separations in the organization’s tabling. If this is the generation that is going to rid America of
racism, then we are failing.
In the MTV study, 58 percent of people said they believe racism will become less of an issue as our generation takes leadership positions. However, one of our nation’s leadership pipelines — college fraternities — contradict this opinion. In March 2015, the University of Oklahoma banned the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity after videos surfaced of their racist chants.
If we want to be the generation to end racism, we can no longer be the generation of colorblindness. This has only led to an American culture where 48 percent of us believe it’s wrong to draw attention to someone’s race, even if it’s positive.
Instead of celebrating our racial differences, we suppress them in favor of homogenizing our culture into bland superficial equality, which we think is more politically correct.
We can’t be the generation where 58 percent of whites believe “reverse racism” is as big of a problem as racism. In case you were wondering, no, Black History Month and BET aren’t racist toward white people. Both celebrate a minority that has been one of the most oppressed groups of people in modern history, as well as the most culturally appropriated.
As millennials, we learn everyone is equal and has the same opportunities. Then we assume this colorblindness gives us the right to decide if something is racist only if it affects us. This is why we call foul on affirmative action for being just as discriminatory toward whites as separate but equal laws were to blacks, and think that isn’t a racist statement.
It’s time we get rid of our self-righteous attitude and realize we are no better than those before us. Maybe then we can start taking responsibility to make our world the one we want to live in.
Jay Cranford is a 21-year-old finance senior from St. Simons Island, Georgia. You can reach him on Twitter @hjcranford.