0:00 – GIGI
It’s Gigi and Nick! You’re listening to Michigan voices.
0:12 – NICK
On today’s show, we’ll investigate the following mystery: What the heck is the deal with Gen Z?
0:18 – GIGI
Let’s talk about it.
0:20 – NICK
I mean, we think we’re great. Older people, sometimes think, maybe we’re not so great. Maybe
we’re overdramatic or entitled, dependant, maybe a little snobby. And yet, weirdly enough, it
feels like there might be something special about Gen Z.
0:42 – NICK
We’re not just annoying to other generations, we’re also these emerging voters, and we’re sort
of becoming a political force to be reckoned with.
0:52 – GIGI
We had a crazy summer. Okay, lots of apocalyptic things going on. We were in quarantine, you
know, relearning how to be social beings, how to be well, how to be alive in a pandemic. And
then boom, right in front of our faces, the morality and purpose of policing is brought into
question.
1:11 – NICK
The country asked: whose lives matter? The rescission of DACA is put to a Supreme Court
vote, the west side of the country is burning in wildfires. This and lots more were going on this
summer.
1:25 – GIGI
Also, this summer, we saw young people all over the country, leading marches, protests,
rewriting the rules to social media, making change. This November, in a really strange but
crucial election, we saw the highest recorded youth voter turnout in the history of modern
politics.
1:44 – NICK
So again, what the heck is the deal with Gen Z?
1:49 – GIGI
Let us talk about it.
1:53 – GIGI
Our show today will be in three parts. In part one, we’ll talk about the many ways of
understanding the context in which Gen Zers have grown up. What sorts of crazy things have
happened during our lifetimes? What does it mean that we’ve grown up along with some insane
technological advancements? Are we actually as cool as we think we are? Or are we naive?
2:14 – NICK
Then in part two, we’ll get some storytelling going. Our Gen Z guests will tell us some Tales
from their own lives that shed light on their current political mindsets.
2:25 – GIGI
Part Three rolls around and we’ll tackle the question of moving forward. What happens now that
Biden is the president-elect? What will become a Generation Z. You’ll find out, stay tuned!
2:39 – NICK
Throughout the show, you’ll hear many voices from Gen Z, and also our Gen X friend Mika,
who’s a political science professor at the University of Michigan.
2:48 – GIGI
Part One: World on Fire.
2:51 – NICK
In part one, we’re going to take a moment to understand Gen Z. For one thing, many of us grew
up watching Disney Channel.
2:58 – GIGI
At this point, we’d love to play a song that we just have no type of copyright for.
3:04 – NICK
Luckily for you guys, though, Gigi and I are both acapella enthusiasts. So here is our royalty free
rendition.
3:17 – GIGI & NICK ♫
singing I don’t want to be like Cinderella, sitting in a dark cold dusty cellar, waiting for
somebody to come and set me free. I don’t want to be like someone waiting for a handsome
prince to come and save me. Oh, I will survive. Unless somebody is on my side. Don’t be no,
no, no one else. I’d rather rescue myself.
3:42 – FAITH
You know, when you like we watch the TV shows that we sort of grew up on. And you sort of
see like, all the main characters be super independent, like, like the Cheetah Girls. They had
their song like Cinderella, like I don’t need a man, I’m independent, I can do whatever I want.
And then sort of like going after their dreams. And I know it sounds super random, but Alex
Russo is like, such a bad bitch. She literally like did whatever she wanted, she was super sassy.
And everyone’s like, why do you act like that? And she was like, This is just who I am. You don’t
think of Disney as being super empowering. But now looking back on those shows, a lot of the
like, female characters were very strong and don’t, they don’t like stick to the status quo, and
they sort of stand up for what they believe in no matter who is against them. And I think growing
up with that sort of mentality and watching that on TV has had such a huge effect on us
because we grew up with the world kind of like on fire, like the world has been on fire our whole
lives. The war on terror and like the recession, police brutality, and then we had Trump.
4:42 – MARIANA
So many things have happened in our lifetime, like most of us are 21. And we have single
handedly seen the first black president. You know, we were eight years old when that
happened. I was 15 years old when gay marriage was made legal. I was 13 when Trayvon
Martin’s killer George Zimmerman was acquitted. And I was like 15, when Mike Brown was
killed in Ferguson, like we grew up with that, like we’ve, we’ve lived through a lot in like our 18 to
21 years of life.
5:11 – KATY
Crisis being normal, is normal. It’s like just the way that you grow up because we, you know,
we’re born, and then 9/11 happens, and then we grew up and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are
happening, and then there’s the recession. And I distinctly remember watching on the news for
years and years, because, you know, since I was little, I would watch the news every night, and
every night the unemployment numbers would tick up, and gas prices would tick up and
evictions and etc. And so, you know, that’s what I’m watching when I’m eight, that’s my idea of
the economy.
5:40 – ABBY
I’ve grown up in a world where ever since I, like almost ever since I was born, my country has
been at war; my brother, like my little brother 100% of his life we’ve been at war. I’ve lived
through, like two major economic recessions, I am looking at a future where I can’t afford to pay
off my loans, have health insurance and like, live somewhere bigger than a shoebox. Also
where I’m looking at my like, my home being destroyed in climate field disasters. And I think
almost every young person in the United States is looking at a future like that, you know, where
our lives will, will be worse than our parents unless something really, really major changes.
6:30 – MIKA
So what really bugs me about Gen Z bashing is that we are complaining about you as sort of, I
don’t know, coddled snowflakes, when, in fact, you face more challenges than many
generations, certainly more than my generations in terms of the competitiveness of getting into
college, getting jobs, doing well, you, your generation were born with 9/11, you’ve seen the
second worst recession in 150 years, and now you are maybe seeing a third one. And you’re
dealing with the worst pandemic in all of our lifetimes.
7:07 – GIGI
Okay, so in many ways, things are a hot mess. They are right now, and they have been for our
whole lives. Although maybe that’s just a matter of perspective. Katy, from Athens, Georgia, will
tell us a little bit about this.
7:21 – KATY
So like, I think I think we are very inclined to see ourselves as at the beginning of an apocalypse
narrative. Probably because of all the YA novels we read about apocalypses, or about
dystopians when we were younger, like we grew up on like the Hunger Games, post-apocalyptic
society, Divergent, post-apocalyptic society, Matched, post-apocalyptic society, Pretties, Uglies,
like all of it, just like, just eat up constantly, Maze Runner, all of it. Just all of these narratives is
like, your world ended! This is the world that followed! And so of course, we’re gonna be like, oh,
shit, well, what’s our world’s gonna end? And it’s like, recession, fascist president, pandemic, it’s
like, well, now, now is when our world is gonna end. Cool, cool cool cool cool cool!
8:09 – GIGI
The world is gonna end. That is the mindset that we’ve grown up on. Mika is gonna give us
some historical insight on this phenomenon.
8:17 – MIKA
In Europe, after the end of the Cold War, like late 90s, early 2000s, we began to see this sort of
new kind of a social movement, it was broader than a social movement, but young folks who
started calling themselves the “Precariat,” taking the Marxist concept of proletariat and taking
the concept of precarity, and combining that into sort of a class term. And, and the idea was that
these folks, young folks, even University educated young folks, immigrants, and interestingly,
older industrial workers whose lives were being changed because of globalization, found
themselves in a situation where the things that they had been able to count on in the past, were
actually no longer available. So this idea of precarity was, was an important political motivation
for for a long time in Europe.
9:11 – MIKA
And then, then it came to the US in 2008. With the Great Recession, increasingly, the same
precarity now applies to young people. I actually wrote an article in around 2007 sort of puzzling
why there is no Precariat in the US. And the argument at that point was that it’s because of the
American dream and the ideology of American dream, makes people think that I can pull myself
up by my bootstraps, in a way that others can. After 2008, it has been harder to have faith in
that, so I think this whole idea of precarity, the uncertainty about future is a hugely important
part of your generation’s lives right now. I have a good salary. I have a nice house. You
probably will as University of Michigan graduates, but it’s certainly far more uncertain. And that
shapes how you see the world. It’s not just on fire, it’s not just at war, which both of which are
true, but it is also very uncertain.
10:12 – NICK
So we grew up in these wild, uncertain times with this dystopian mindset, maybe all these things
have made us into better changemakers.
10:23 – ABBY
The best change making happens when you have a genuine stake in it, when like, you have
something to lose, and a lot to win, like, in a really personal way. And I think that, in a really real
way, young people have so much to lose, and everything to win.
10:44 – LUCY
It sucks that high schoolers have to be on the front lines of this global movement, but it’s our
future and like the people before us just didn’t really decide to step up. So like, we have to kind
of prematurely step into this position of like, we have to fight.
11:00 – ANDREW
I think that young people throughout history have been some of the best at actualizing the
change that they want to see in the world. And I think that, you know, young people sort of come
from a different philosophy, it’s on us to try to change that. We’re, you know, we’re out here,
we’re ready to make change. You know, we’re young, we’re passionate, you know, maybe we’re
naive, but maybe that’s a good thing. All of that combined has led to highest youth voter
turnouts,
11:27 – GIGI
Hmm. Maybe we’re naive, but maybe that’s a good thing. Is that a good thing? Mika has some
thoughts.
11:35 – MIKA
Even if there is naiveté about some things, and there may be, and I can talk about some of the
ways in which I think there is naiveté, sometimes that naivete is helpful, a little bit of kind of
enlightened myopia, I called it in my dissertation, which is understanding that the world is more
complex than this, but I need to believe X, Y and Z to be able to pursue the goals I have. If I just
admit that, nobody’s right, and yes, it’s so complex, and it’s hard to make change, then that can
lead to a kind of paralysis that we don’t want.
12:09 – NICK
Whoa, enlightened myopia? Those are some big words. But what do they mean exactly?
12:16 – GIGI
I’m glad you asked. It’s sort of like selective hearing, I guess, you know, sometimes hearing only
what you want to hear can be a way to protect yourself. Mika saying that being selectively blind.
So seeing only what we want to see, can help us get things done.
12:30 – MIKA
So little bit of naiveté, a little bit of excessive faith in one’s abilities, is not a bad thing. As long as
it comes with some healthy dose of at least it’s crucial moments of healthy dose of skepticism so
that you won’t then be so crushed and disappointed when what you wanted didn’t come true. I
see this in particular, a little bit in some of the incredible enthusiasm that say Bernie generated.
That’s on the one hand is really great to see. It’s on the other hand, it’s not just naivete, but a
kind of narrow mindedness about no compromise that if it’s not Bernie it can’t be anybody else. I
mean, there’s still some people who thought like that in this election, and that’s arguably kind of
a misunderstanding what politics is about. It’s not just the young people, of course, but for the
most part that the naivete that is there is good, because it’s energizing, as long as it’s not so
naive, and so sort of myopic that you will not act if you don’t get what you want.
13:42 – NICK
So Mika is saying we should be productive with our blindness, not dumb. Let’s switch gears
here and talk about another weird thing that we do. Our generation seems to be really into our
phones.
14:02 – ANGEL
Technology, technology is amazing. I mean, some people were like, alright, you know, get off
your phones. But I don’t think people realize, especially like older generation, realize how much,
how impactful that is to what we do. I mean, look, look what we’re doing now, like an interview,
through a computer, I think like, and we’re talking about something like this, like, I think that’s
impactful. And also like me, maybe afterwards like tweeting, like I just had this amazing
interview, I’m able to tell people what we talked about what we did, and things like that. And I
think we have this, this way of sharing instantly, and making sure that people can see and you
can tell a friend, that can tell the friend, that can tell somebody over halfway across the world.
I’m a girl from Philadelphia, and she might be somebody from Africa and that person might be
from Australia, but the fact that we can instantly talk to each other and share our concerns and
stand by something so much bigger than who we are and who anybody is. It’s like amazing.
15:09 – LUCY
Social media is such an empowering way to like, organize, but also to inform, because it can be
like really daunting to like, read a really long CNN article. But if you if your friend posts
something on Instagram, not that you should only get your news from Instagram, or like,
whatever social platform, but I think it makes activism a lot more accessible to people, especially
to teens, where really hasn’t been before. Like there’s breakdowns of policy, and there’s kind of
explanations and people telling their stories. And it makes it so accessible to like, hear those
other perspectives
15:41 – FAITH
Post stuff that you think people are going to be mad about, and like, make them reevaluate what
they believe in. Even if you’re going to lose friends over it.
15:50 – ANGEL
Ask yourself, sometimes. Sometimes you got to ask yourself, like, am I just posting this because
everybody else is posting it? Or does this really mean something to me, because I’ve done it
before, where I’m like, Oh, I’m just going to repost this because… I’m like, no, like, this is
serious. Like, it’s not something you just posted on Instagram, just to post like, post it because
you believe it, post it because you want to see something change within whatever you’re
posting, or you want to somehow be active in whatever’s going on.
16:16 – MIKA
Technology, technology matters, we know about all the negative aspects of social media, which
are real. But the way in which technology has made a speed of information and connection so
much faster throughout the world, is a huge difference. So it is, in fact possible to have not just a
sort of geopolitical international connection to admiring Greta thunberg, for example, but that
you can read her tweet, five seconds after she tweets, it creates a sort of sense of global
engagement that is unprecedented. So that’s definitely one, one thing that is unique for this
generation. Of course, affects us too, my generation, in the sense that we have the same tools
available for us news travels fast and so on. But your generation is able to take advantage of
that in lots of different ways that I think our generation isn’t yet or hasn’t really fully caught on. I
mean, certainly some people have, Trump is pretty good at using Twitter cleverly, for whatever,
whatever one thinks about that.
17:28 – GIGI
Something that’s important to realize, and that a few of our guests have brought up is that the
internet and technology give us access to everything. And that’s not always a good thing.
17:37 – CYDNEY
It’s kind of like constantly being exposed to a plethora of knowledge while also being constantly
exposed to a plethora of trauma. And so that’s like, sort of the task that we have.
17:51 – GIGI
So trauma is on display. Something to think about, you know, as you watch the news, or before
you post on Instagram.
18:04 – GIGI
Part Two storytime. Our guests tell us stories from their own lives that help explain why they feel
the way they feel. First, Abby’s childhood home is being destroyed and climate disasters
18:27 – ABBY
I don’t know if you guys saw the wildfires that were happening this fall. I’m so, I’m originally from
the office in Portland, Oregon. I grew up there and moved to Philly in third grade, but it’s
definitely like, it’s still like, my God-family lives there, it’s still very much my home. And this was
the first year actually that fire, like wildfires have always been a problem in California and in
Oregon, but this was the first year they actually like made it to the Portland suburbs, and
Portland suburbs had to be evacuated. And yeah, they were like threatening all of these places
that were a huge part of my childhood. There’s like the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Hood. And
yeah, just saying my neighborhood, which is kind of like on the edge of Southeast Portland. And
I remember the day that I saw that I was like, I could not work because I was just like crying all
morning. Um, but I am so terrified of, it makes me so sad and so scared thinking about those
places that I like called home the spaces that I grew up in, like disappearing in my lifetime and
being destroyed. And I think that makes me really, like sad more than it makes me angry,
honestly.
19:51 – NICK
Living in LA, Lucy feels the impacts of climate change on your teenage years in very tangible
ways.
19:58 – LUCY
I live in like, the more Metropolitan area of LA, so I don’t have, and we aren’t really hit by the
fires. But for a couple years, I lived in the valley, and I lived right near the mountains. So you
would always see like, it kind of like started to get really bad, like a couple years ago, like you
would always see smoke and kind of have to like, check your phone and like check the air
quality and make sure like, oh, like do I have to like be careful today and like limit how much I go
outside. And like some of my friends who lived further in the valley, or in more kind of rural
areas, they would like I would see them post on social media like everyone stay safe, like we’re
evacuating right now. So like on social media, pretty much every year like around the fall,
winter, everyone’s just posting like, here’s what to do if you have to evacuate and like resources.
And so it kind of like he was like a mini Doomsday every year seeing the wildfires and also like
the summers are super, super hot. Like, I used to go to camp a lot. And before, I could just go to
camp, but like, a couple years ago, when I was in middle school and out of school, like we
would have to stay inside a lot because like it was so hot that it was like legally unsafe for us to
be outside for like an hour or something like that. Like we couldn’t be outside, because like we
get heatstroke. So, yeah, it’s kind of impacted daily life, but I haven’t been super impacted, and I
have to really recognize my privilege in that like, I don’t live in a low income community and I’m
not a person of color. And so those communities in Los Angeles have definitely been affected a
lot more than I am. But I think it’s really important for people in places of privilege to look outside
their bubble and recognize what’s happening across your state, across your country.
21:42 – GIGI
Abby tells us of a young person she met from Kentucky whose community is being ravaged by
the coal industry. The story goes like this a few years ago, in February of 2019. Abby went to a
sit-in at Mitch McConnell’s office in DC they’re protesting a sham vote McConnell was holding
about the Green New Deal. Also at the protest was a group of young people, people Abby’s
age, who had come from Kentucky to do the sit-in.
22:05 – ABBY
I grew up listening to this John Prine song about Muhlenberg County. Wait, it’s like…
22:15 – GIGI
Alright, Nick. That is our cue. You want to sing it?
22:19 – NICK
I’m ready, I’m ready.
22:21 – GIGI
Nick is gonna be John Prine.
22:25 – GIGI
Imagine there sort of some square dancy violins going on in the background here.
22:32 – NICK & GIGI ♫
singing And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County? Down by the Green River
where paradise lay? Well, I’m sorry, my son but you’re too late in asking. Mr. Peabody’s coal
train has hauled it away.
22:48 – ABBY
And the whole song is about how this boy used to go there with his dad to go fishing and hiking
and how and like that was like where they spent time together and how they couldn’t anymore
because the coal mining company had like, torn it all up and taken it away. And I was like,
standing in this in this office. There was like the sit-in going on. And this young person from
Kentucky was like telling the story about how they like, actually grew up in that county. And
were talking about yeah, like all of the strip-mining and other like fossil fuel extraction that was
happening there was causing these like massive floods because of the erosion. And had like,
yeah, it was like threatening their family’s home and how they like might have to move. All these
people in their community had black lung disease, and like weren’t employed anymore, like, you
know, like, forced retirement when they were 50. Everybody they knew had been like, chewed
up and spit out by the coal industry. And like, I don’t know, I remember having this moment of
like, just like the most extreme rage and grief I’d ever felt in my life. And just feeling like so
connected to them in a moment. And like, yeah, I just remember having this thing that was like,
this is it for me, like, I need to do this for the rest of my life. I need to give everything I have to
yeah, to making the Green New Deal a reality and to like fighting, fighting for a world where,
where none of that happens anymore. Yeah, it was like a big I don’t know, I like left and I was
like, okay, like, this is it.
24:19 – NICK
Cydney’s neighborhood in Detroit is being transformed in a way that is very disturbing to her.
24:25 – CYDNEY
Like, for example, my community, my community is being heavily gentrified. I love my
neighbors. I have, I have my next door neighbor is the best neighbor I’ve ever had in my life.
Like, he will always probably be like a friend of our family. He moved in a couple years ago, and
he’s white. And I remember it was so shocking, because I live in a black community as all my
life has always been black. And so like, he was the first person, the first white person to move
into this block, besides the very old lady at the end of the street. He was like, the first like,
millennial white person to move into this block, and since then, our whole, everywhere you go,
like there are probably four or five houses on just this block that have new white families. The
house across the street is up for sale where my one of my best friends growing up lived. So just
sort of like seeing the community become more beautiful, like all these shops they put up, they
just put up new signs, they put up new sidewalks, it’s just a really cute place. Like it’s becoming
a very cute spot in Detroit to just want to be and feel safe. And they’re doing it because they
know that white people are moving here, and that is disturbing to me, because the black
community has been here forever, and there was no developer investment in the community
before. So it’s like, I find that, just like they planted trees in front of our houses, it’s just become a
cuter place. They have community gardens everywhere, which is nice for the people who live
here. The people who own their houses here, for example, like my mom, or like, you know,
some of our neighbors who own their houses, but what about the people who are renting in this
area? Like they’re gonna, they’re gonna be pushed out really soon, if not already, because
property here is going to be super expensive. I see like, the beautification of these communities
that is not for the intention of gentrifying. Investing in black communities, not because white
people are going to be here, that’s something I see changing.
26:15 – GIGI
When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency, Mariana was living in Texas. She was
seventeen. His election and everyday after felt like an attack on her identities.
26:25 – MARIANA
Donald Trump’s election, I’m sure a lot of people can relate, I sat on my couch and cried until
like two in the morning, that day, that election kind of just affirmed to me that like me, my
parents, who we are like, immigrants, Latinx people, we speak Spanish in public, like, those are
things that literally half this country just doesn’t like. I was three months away from voting in
- Like my class, class of 2021 in college, most of us were less than a year away from being
able to vote and we saw in front of our eyes, our country choose someone, who the majority of
the people I am friends with, just absolutely abhorred. Like, we saw a decision being made that
will impact us for the rest of our lives, made without any of our input. And that was just
heartbreaking for us. Like it was awful. It was awful seeing a country of majority white people,
and men, it was awful seeing these demographics vote for someone when I, as a young Latinx
immigrant woman who didn’t have a voice, that really sucked. So all these last four years, like
we were like 2020 like we’re doing it, we’re coming out. And I think the youth turnout vote this
year was like incredible.
27:40 – NICK
And she’s right. In some states youth voters did come out strong in 2020. In Georgia,
specifically an astounding 1 million youth voters made their voice heard at the polls this year.
Even nationally, there was a 10 point spike in the percentage of ballots cast by 18 to 29 year
olds compared to that 2016.
28:00 – GIGI
Katy’s high school in Athens, Georgia clearly showed her some messed up educational and
economic inequity, in a way that’s major really upset at capitalism, and at institutions and
existing systems in general.
28:15 – KATY
Athens, where I’m from, where I am right now, I believe Clark County is, when I was growing up,
I think it was the fifth poorest county in the nation, now I think it’s something like the fourth I
don’t, I don’t have verification on that statistic, but that’s the one that goes around town. And so
you get a lot of really intense income stratification. And Athens is also really diverse, as a city,
as a county. My high school for instance, Clark Central High School in Athens is literally located
on the Fraternity and Sorority Row of the University of Georgia. And so it’s this high school
flanked on either side by these like enormous Georgian mansions, and some of the most
privileged kids in my state. And my school was very, very poor, always lacking for funds, a lot of
the student body was in pretty intense poverty in a real cycle of poverty that’s persisted in
Athens. I was a journalist with my high school news magazine program when I was a
sophomore or a junior, my advisor in that program, “Katy, I want you to do a story about
illiteracy.” He’s like, “I want you to write about literacy at Clark Central.”
29:27 – KATY
And I thought why? What do you…why? Do you want me to write about reading programs, you
know, just like English classes, what do want me to do here? But then he kind of puts me on the
right track, and I delve into it and find out that like, there was a huge literacy problem at my
school that I just didn’t know about. When you get into the income stratification, then if you are
in a high school, then that gets into the kind of educational track stratification. But I, you know, in
that story, I started talking to a bunch of folks, including one teacher who said explicitly like there
are two Clark Central’s, there’s the Clark central where kids are eating like kids are eating hot
cheetos for breakfast because they don’t expire when the power goes out. And then there’s the
Clark central of the Advanced Placement kids who are the children of professors, etc, etc, etc.
And so like every single part of everybody’s experience gets stratified often along the lines of
privilege. Just as a result of like, the straight up demographics of my school, we were fairly
politically involved and aware. Even if people weren’t, you know, explicitly like campaigning for
anything, everybody knew, everybody knew when deportation raids were happening.
30:39 – KATY
Everybody knew that the systems around us were messed up. I hope we do. I hope we do all
get involved. And I hope we do so in favor of socialism. Anyway.
31:04 – GIGI
Part Three: The Rocky Path Ahead
31:10 – NICK
There are some very real concerns about how we’ll move forward from this current moment. Is
this whole thing, the protests, the marches this summer, the political commentary we’ve been
seeing on Instagram, all of that, is it all just temporary? Will it stick around? Mika is worried.
31:34 – MIKA
It is really interesting to see how political position-taking for your generation is becoming more of
a, it’s not a norm, but it’s acceptable. That worry I have, it’s not a major worry, but the worry I
have about that is that it can easily become a fad. So many things, not just in social media, but
you know, throughout society are just fashionable things. I’m from Finland. And you know,
Finland in the 60s and 70s had lots of lefty activism like lots of European and North American
countries, and fall 1972, 25% of University of Helsinki students said that they actively identified
a Stalinist. Now, this is 20 years after Stalin is dead at a point where pretty much most even
lefties admit that Stalin was a horrible dictator. And these are university students. So what’s
going on, it has to be just a fad. We saw something similar in the late 60s, early 70s. In the US,
where much of the anti war sentiment, however justified and however thoughtful and excellent it
was in terms of helping change policy, was also just a cool thing to do. So I worry a little bit that
for some people, the position taking the political identification right now is just the same as you
know, Uggs from last winter, or you know, your Canada Goose coat or whatever, just sort of
fashion or fad markers. It’s not, of course, I don’t want to belittle it. But that’s the worry that for
some people, it’s just like, it’s a cool thing to do.
33:11 – NICK
Could this be just a fad? Honestly, maybe. Cydney, for one, is also worried about this, although
she thinks about it in a little bit of a different way. She’s afraid of these scary things that she
calls “lulls of complacency” that tend to happen in patterns historically,
33:28 – CYDNEY
Historically, there’s like ups and downs, we go through these valleys where there’s like a lot of
oppression, and people standing up and revolting and protesting and blah blah blah, yada,
yada. And then something great happens, like finally black people are able to vote, women are
able to vote blah blah blah, and there are things that seem to happen, or a black president is
elected. And we go through these like, lulls of complacency and bliss and women are now
allowed to wear pants and like women are feeling empowered, and a black man is president,
and so racism is gone, and yada yada and blah, blah, blah. And then we get hit with reality
again, after a couple of years, like oh, racism is not dead, women are still not empowered, black
people are still very oppressed in very systemic, institutional ways that are likely, maybe even
worse, because now we can’t see it, you know, the way that we could see it before.
34:25 – GIGI
So as an example, you could say that the eight years of the Obama administration were one of
these lulls that Cydney’s talking about a black man was president, so racism was solved. But
then 2016 comes around, and the spell is broken once more, the rose colored glasses are
ripped off, and the reality of our nation is revealed. And Cydney? Honestly? She’s grateful it
happened.
34:51 – CYDNEY
So like that’s sort of where I hold sort of an opinion about the whole Trump thing. I feel like we
got almost like an opportunity to be released from the shackles of our lull that we were in, about
the state of oppression and racism in this country, because of Trump, because Trump didn’t
create the racism that he had, he was only merely a vessel of it. And he sort of exposed what
their country truly was. I, I feel grateful that I got to be able to witness that, that reality rather
than being sort of in the state of bliss, where I believe that there was no racism anymore in our
country that we were truly equal.
35:28 – GIGI
The worry is that now that Trump has been voted out of office, and Joe Biden is on his way in,
we’ll settle into another period of blissful ignorance. It’s scary, but it is possible that boom!
Anti-racism? It could be thrown out like an old pair of Filas to make room for new Air Force 1s.
Climate activism? it could be tossed to the side, like a stale Tik Tok trend. As our guests will tell
you, things like this, they just can’t happen.
35:57 – CYDNEY
We aren’t going to be existing in a society that is in a lull, we’re going to be existing in a society
that sees what needs to be changed, and we’re going to be the ones who have to do something
about it. It is our responsibility, it is our obligation as young people to recognize that there is still
so so so much work to be done.
36:21 – MARIANA
Now that Joe Biden has won, and as our president elect, like, I’m not about to get complicit, like
the job is far from over.
36:27 – CYDNEY
We can’t assume that just because now we have, you know, a very, very moderate democrat
president or a very, you know, very, very, very moderate woman, as vice president that we’re
good. Like, everything is good. Now we can go back into a lull, because that’s not, that’s just
certainly certainly not the case.
36:44 – MARIANA
2016 was when I got really fired up. But the reality of it is like, this isn’t where we stop, actually,
this is where we push harder.
36:53 – CYDNEY
We need to be applying 10 times, 20 times more pressure to the people who are in the office
now, than we were applying to Trump.
37:00 – MARIANA
Because now like, we have to push like Joe Biden to actually adopt these progressive policies.
37:06 – CYDNEY
This is the time when we might actually be able to push something through that that’s
meaningful, rather than allowing ourselves to be sort of blinded by some sort of belief that things
are actually changing when they’re not.
37:18 – MARIANA
Now we have someone in the White House, who will maybe kind of give us actually a little bit
time of day, rather than someone in the White House who every day would actively disavow all
my identities.
37:28 – CYDNEY
I’m not saying don’t be excited. We have a woman who went to Howard, my whole family went
to Howard, that’s exciting. An AKA like, a lot of women in my family, for example, are AKAs. You
should be proud to see yourself in that office. I’m just saying that like, Don’t let the pride that you
feel as a woman, cloud your, that umph! that you had this summer that was like we need to do
something about what’s going on. If nothing else, allow the fact that you finally see someone
that you can relate to in the office, push you to apply the kind of pressure that you know, you
have in you, you know.
38:04 – NICK
So what I’m hearing here, Gigi is that we can’t stop now. Now is not the time for a new lull. And
now is certainly not the time to move on to some new fad or fashion. We have to act now.
38:17 – GIGI
Yes, yes, Nick. But the thing is, how can we act? You know, like what is taking action look like?
Cydney starts us off.
38:27 – CYDNEY
I know that right now we’re sort of in a place, especially with COVID going on, and all that we
don’t know how to move forward. That a lot of people feel like they know what’s going on,
they’ve been completely bombarded with knowledge, but they’ve been completely subdued by
the trauma, you know, like completely clouded by this feeling of helplessness. And to you guys,
I say that there are so many ways you can push forth the agenda. That doesn’t mean you know,
you start a nonprofit or you are the person with the with the megaphone in front of everybody
else yelling the chants at a protest that doesn’t, those types of things like the person standing in
front of the protest, if they were by themselves, it will mean nothing. If they were the person who
started nonprofit to do whatever it was that they’re doing in their community, if they didn’t have
people to support it, that would mean nothing. So just getting involved in any way you can
writing letters, calling your Congress people reading, doing the footwork, talking to your racist
uncle talking to your to your bigoted auntie or your cousin or whoever like that those types of
little things, those types of movements in your community, that type of release of complacency.
At the very least, the release of your complacency is an enormous step forward.
39:42 – ANGEL
Growth is important and a person and it’s also important to share your growth. So that way, I
can tell you what I learned and you can tell me what you learned together we’ll grow into
another you know, another beautiful flower that grows into a garden and then into something
you know so much more. And now we’re looking at like a forest full of like beautiful trees and
beautiful minds, I guess.
40:05 – KATY
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Maybe this is just me, but I feel like right now at least, the
number one thing is to care about people and to care about the people around you. And I think
even after this moment, I think we would all be better served, if we think of politics, and if we
think of activism as trying to care for people, and trying to be able to care for our country.
40:28 – FAITH
I’d also say try to put yourself in situations where you’re surrounded by people who are different
from you.
40:33 – MARIANA
Seek out people in your life who are different than you.
40:36 – FAITH
Just because I think as humans, we’re all very similar. We are the same, but we live in
structures that force us to think that we’re different. And I think that when you sort of leave your
comfort zone, you realize there’s a lot more in common, and it sort of humanizes a lot of
different things.
40:51 – MARIANA
Because at the end of the day, even if you’re not impacted by these policies, you know
someone in your life who is.
40:57 – CYDNEY
If you can get enough young people that can honestly say I care about politics, and I care about
what’s going on the world, just simply because I understand that even if it doesn’t directly
involve me, by my identity, involves the people who I care about, and therefore our liberties are
tied up as one, then I think that’s how we can sort of empower our generation to be the change
agents of our society right now. As long as white students, or students who don’t feel impacted
by white supremacy, for example, don’t feel empowered to do something about it, then we’ll just
be out here struggling, because everybody’s not on board.
41:36 – KATY
If we, as a generation decide, this is what we want to do. Then, I think that we can get
something done.
41:43 – MIKA
I really don’t know what’s going to happen with young people. The positive signs are that it is a
global movement. Again, it’s not just Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, and a bunch of Americans,
it’s young people around the world, which is really great. And it’s not just a single election. It’s
broader issues: it’s the pandemic, it’s the precarity, and the uncertainty about future, whether it’s
environmental, or political or economic, that probably I hope is going to keep your generation
active, even as you age and become even more mature and thoughtful.
42:18 – MARIANA
So I have a lot of hope. I think we’re a more accepting generation. I think we’ve been exposed to
a lot more things in such a short amount of time that I can’t even imagine what’s going to
happen in the next 20 to 30 years. And all the change that we’re going to enact. I’m really, I’m
really hopeful.
42:34 – ABBY
Sometimes it feels like, things are so bad, in such a huge systemic way that it feels like yeah, it
won’t ever be fixable. And that, you know, we as individual people, especially as individual
young people, can’t do anything that would fix, can’t make things better. Sometimes I feel like
that. It’s easy to feel very hopeless. And something that really grounds me, that I like sharing
with other people is just like, thinking about all the times in our very recent history where mass
movements of people, mass movements of young people, social movements, have won, have
really changed this country. Thinking about the New Deal, even in the 30s and how organized
workers, organized unions, organized unemployed folks, organized young people, really did
form this massive movement for the New Deal and forced FDR to institute it, right? FDR was not
a trade unionist, just like LBJ was not a civil rights leader.
44:00 – ABBY
If enough of us step up and engage in direct action, social movements can and do win, and they
will win in the United States.
44:30 – NICK
Abby and Lucy are both part of the Sunrise movement.
44:32 – ABBY
So Sunrise is a movement of young people fighting to stop climate change and create millions
of good jobs in the process. We’re fighting for the Green New Deal, which is a plan to make the
entire United States run on renewable energy by 2030, in line with what science and justice
demand. So we’re building a mass movement of young people who are actively engaged in the
fight for a green New Deal, and we’re also trying to elect green New Deal champions in every
level of government.
45:02 – NICK
Abby works for the movement full time in West Philly and Lucy, who’s 15 by the way, is the
treasurer for her branch in LA outside of high school. Check it out on sunrisemovement.org.
45:15 – GIGI
Cydney is a senior at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She has her
own podcast, The Sit Down, check it out on Spotify.
45:28 – NICK
Faith is a junior at the University of Michigan. She’s originally from Philly.
45:32 – GIGI
Angel is a freshman at Temple University. She’s also my neighbor and longtime friend. She is
amazing.
45:40 – NICK
Andrew is the president and founder of students for Biden at the University of Michigan.
45:45 – GIGI
Katy is a lifelong Georgia resident and now a junior at Emory University in Atlanta.
45:52 – NICK
Mariana was born in Colombia, and then she moved to Maryland and then Texas. Now she’s a
senior at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
46:01 – GIGI
Mika is a professor of political science and the director of the Honors Program at the University
of Michigan. He’s also a rock climber, adventure enthusiast and all around really cool dude.
46:13 – GIGI
Nick and I are just two nerds making a pod for the cause.
46:20 – GIGI
This has been democracy unmuted.
46:23 – GIGI & NICK
Thanks for listening, thannnks for listening ♫, thanks for listening!
