One take away from the Black GenX discourse of the last few days is how many I know of that generation who were also one generation/within the generation of organized Black liberation movements and, as adults, consciously chose centrism and "I happen to be Black" politics

you can talk about how that may be a natural consequence of being first generation out of legal segregation (I would quibble with it a bit bc segregation actually worsened in the last 40 yrs) but I think it is something to note, and that mindset is encountered in their gen z kids

i have noticed a lot of ppl, 25 & younger, who have very warped understandings of Black history; see Blackness as an aesthetic and not a view of the world; are extremely narrow in their understanding. And I wonder who taught them this...

I think it is interesting that Gen X discourse across race is still about what their parents did, even as Gen X turns 50. Every generation does that--it is what makes generation discourse imprecise and ultimately not that interesting. But it IS interesting how each gen does it

It is of course a turn towards centrism in the wake of the imprisonment of basically anyone involved with Black liberation work. But that piece of the story is very rarely made plain and instead it often becomes about how just "no one was interested in that stuff"

i think it must be very disorienting, to grow up with slogans about how things would change if there was a Black president; to be told that working within the system was the only way; to grow up when it seemed capitalism was the answer and then be in this world, now

I remember the week after election 2008 talking to Boomer Black radicals who were like "nothing will change, in fact it could get worse." It was...stark. BUT throwing this whole thread into chaos, the person who agreed with them was my brilliant Gen X boss