COVID Update August 22: There are plenty of people behaving badly right now, but it’s not young people. It’s who we might call “adults.”

What a shameful example we are setting. 1/

Adults make the rules. Adults set the tone. And by our actions we show what matters. 2/

Of course, with COVID, adults believe young people “don’t get it.”
We say:

They think they’re invincible.
They are selfish.
They don’t think about other generations.
They are the source of the spread.

Look who’s talking.

3/

So, who acts like they’re invincible?

Young people or...

A government who says a miracle will happen
People who push herd immunity when they really mean herd “thinning” of Black & Brown communities & older people

So called adults. 4/

So, who is selfish?

Young people or...

People who insist on keeping bars open & making money on young people.
Who insist on opening colleges & making money on young people.
Those who rush to open sports without being able to safely open schools.

So called adults. 5/

So, who doesn’t think about other generations?

Young people or...

The people who are treating the planet like it can be discarded when we die
Those who cut taxes for people w generational wealth & make them go into debt to go to school

So called adults. 6/

Who is the source of the spread?

Young people?

Yes young people are a big source. But most young people w COVID don’t know they have it & we have refused to create enough testing. No testing at schools, at colleges, at bars.
Who failed at that?

So called adults. 7/

Blaming young people as irresponsible is as old as Adam & Eve. (Who had an actual point with Cain so this is a bad example.)

Adults believe we’re wiser. We expect compliance. We expect respect. 8/

I’m 53. The next generation was at 1 point entrusted to us to set an example. COVID cemented our failure.

Our greed. Our selfishness, our racism, our refusal to govern.

As an adult you may not feel like this describes you. But for many young people, it describes us all. 9/

Now as we ask them to sacrifice, they would be right to ask when did we as adults sacrifice for them?

10/

We expect young people to carry our burden but still make us money?

Let’s look at how we handled college openings.

Adults want all of the benefit & none of the responsibility.

We make rules that fail them & make them easy to blame. 11/ https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/1297198518826938369

They are telling us every way they can to keep them safe at school. But we won’t listen. 12/

They tell us every way we can that we are blowing the pivotal years that will harm the planet for them and beyond. But we don’t listen. 13/

They keep telling us about justice and equality. But we don’t listen. 14/

We obsess over our rights and young people remind us we our ignoring our responsibilities. 15/

But we expect them to listen to us. When we say “go to college but don’t go out,” “do as we say not as we do.” 16/

This conversation with @ChelseaClinton, we talked about what we would possibly tell our children about this age. 17/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-bubble-with-andy-slavitt/id1504128553?i=1000488693105

Young people look at us & say: “You elected this clown.” “You are cutting environmental regulations.” “You are disenfranchising people.”

And now we expect them to bail us out.

Some of the things we say are still right: Vote. Exercise your power. Organize for what you want.17/

Bailing us out may not be on the top of their list.

But voting is how they will eventually rid them of the power that rests in our hands. The power we never learned to exercise judiciously. Their numbers can turn this election. 18/

If young people believe that this election can turn things, if we haven’t gotten them so cynical already, they will vote.

And the reason they should is it is how they take the mantle & begin to become the new adults. 19/

When they do, like all of us, they will face a world they need to fix.

But they will have to look hard to find the examples that we saw on how to do it: the Kings, the Alis, the the Lewises, the Mandelas, the Parks, who showed us the world could be changed. 20/

They see the people we applaud: the Zuckerbergs, the Trumps, the Bezoses, the Musks.

They will wonder how people like Tom Cotton’s views got to be uttered out loud without massive opprobrium. 21/

We are going through the pandemic without a sense of control. Imagine being under age and watching us & this whole spectacle.

The country can’t take 2 steps forward in a row & we are blaming them for our lot. They aren’t doing this. We are. 22/

Stop suspending college kids. Stop blaming them. Stop shaming them for our mistakes.

Don’t expect them to listen to us when we won’t listen to each other. Or them.

/end