Dear Editor,
After reading Walter Patterson’s opinion,” What will the next generation do when this one’s gone?,” I felt the need to offer some relief for your despair over the Millennial Generation. It seems you are looking at the millennials with one eye closed. The generation you refer to as “these individuals” which you describe as “delicate” are already beginning to be our next leaders. Is it necessary to throw them into the same box, slap a label on it and form your opinion about them based on an article with comments from the few you disagree with?
Do you really want our children and their children to continue in our paths? I was born in 52 right during the civil rights era when Yazoo City along with the rest of the south was doing its best to restrain any or all privileges for black residents. Think about that time period, the KKK, segregated schools, black restricted restaurants, segregated water fountains even in public parks, segregated restrooms, and limited voting rights for those who were brave enough to even try to vote in the 1960s. I won’t go into the earlier generation with unjust lynchings because that topic has been approached enough lately. I assume that walking the 9 miles you wrote about was hard for you, but you were not the only person trying to put one foot in front of the other.
Are these the years you would like the millennials to replicate? Do you really want our society to remain stagnant? Should we never progress?
You should sit and have a conversation with these young people, Walter. They are intelligent in many different ways. You might find it interesting that they see our generation much like you see theirs. They see the America that our generation shaped as greedy, divided, unjust and untrustworthy with a political system based on lies all the way to the White House. They hear and understand that our generation says one thing and does another. Lastly, if there is a world left for them to occupy, they will also have to clean up the mess we made as our legacy to them, which they have already begun to do in our Oceans, in an effort to clean them up.
Each generation has the task of improving what the previous generation started, messed up or left undone. We have left them with a lot to tackle. So, in my humble attempt to answer your question “What will the next generation do when this one’s gone?” I think they will do their best. They will do their best to improve our society, promote equality, govern more fairly, and bring new ideas to the table in the name of progress.
Like every generation before them, they will search for ways to make the American dream possible with consideration for more than just a few. Hopefully, they will promote more peace and less hatred in our country and the world. Anything they do will certainly be an improvement.
Lastly, I would advise you to be nicer to them, Walter, because one day, some of “these individuals” will be the doctors, nurses and care givers that will take care of you. May your new year be filled with less doubt, more hope, peace and love.
Hope Carr
