Millennials, Avocado Toast, and Activism

The media regularly blames millennials for the demise of our country. Young people receive jabs left and right for everything under the sun, from not eating breakfast cereal to eating too much avocado toast!

Headline after headline comes out about millennials supposedly “killing” industries:

Millennials are often accused of being over-sensitive “snowflakes,” and whiney, overzealous “social justice warriors.”

It’s easy to bash millennials these days, and I wholeheartedly agree there are some bad eggs in the bunch, but I want to propose that millennials are doing some really good things.

This article from Washington Post seems to agree:

“I personally refer to millennials as the next ‘Great Generation’ because the degree of generosity that we’re seeing from them is quite impressive,” Case said. “One common theme among all young people, it was true of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers at this age – they’re idealistic. The big difference, when we began looking at millennials, is that they’re turning their idealism into action in a very real way.”

"The report found that 70 percent of millennials spent at least an hour volunteering their time to a cause they cared about, with more than one-third volunteering 11 hours or more. Forty-five percent participated in a company-wide volunteer day. Thirty-two percent used paid time off to volunteer and 16 percent took unpaid time off to volunteer."

This article mirrors my experience with fellow millennials in that they are a generous and caring generation with a bias towards action.

The millennials I know are idealistic because they are compassionate. They see injustice in the world and instead of averting their gaze or sinking into despair, they dream up ways to combat the injustice and make change. They rally others together and create formal groups and organizations to combat racism, sexism, systematic poverty, sex trafficking, and other forms of abuse and marginalization.

I think of millennials as the Justice Generation. I am extremely proud of all we have accomplished, and I am excited about what we can accomplish.

Instead of seeing “over sensitivities,” I see a generation that is in-tune with the suffering of those who have been abused. Instead of seeing “self-centered snowflakes,” I see a generation with the confidence to step forward and make real, positive change. Instead of seeing “social justice warriors” as a bad thing, I see a generation that is willing to stand up for the hurting. Instead of projecting a dark view of the world, this generation fills me with hope.

The Courage Conference is a place where millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers alike can come together to fight against the injustice of abuse in the Church. It is my belief that the millennial generation is going to bring this anti-abuse movement forward, by gleaning the wisdom from and standing on the shoulders of the justice-hearted people in generations before us.

When we all come together as one, we are the hope of the abused and marginalized. Because we talk about hard things, we feel it deeply inside of us, and we have a bias towards action and a motivation of love.

If you are an abuse survivor yourself, or if you care deeply for those who have been abused, join us at The Courage Conference and be in a room of other “social justice warriors” who are on the same mission as you.

-Ashley Easter

World Changing, The Courage ConferenceAshley EasterComment