What will the next generation think about us?

So far, I have been fairly quiet about the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s not to say I haven’t been thinking about it, it’s definitely the opposite. I thought it was best to take some time, gather my thoughts, scour the evidence and collect a view of my own. I think it’s very easy to follow what others are doing, especially on social media, without thinking properly about what it means and thinking about your own actions. We were guilty of this too, posting a black out post on black out Tuesday, fearful that if we didn’t then it would appear that we didn’t care. This is the nature of social media and the quick consumption of news, the idea that brands or people just do things to follow the trend without engaging with the concept. I do think despite that, having an almost entirely blackout feed on that day did portray a really powerful message and certainly raised awareness amongst an audience that perhaps might not have been so exposed to the issues.

Through all the research and thinking I have done, I have had one overwhelming feeling, and I was keen to get my thoughts onto paper. Why is it only with hindsight that we can see terrible events or policies of the past were wrong? Why can we only now see that the Atlantic slave trade or making homosexuality illegal went against values of morality that we consider to be universal? I think it came together best for me, when I discovered about the statues that were being taken down all over the world. 130 years ago people were celebrating the roles that those people had to play in the Atlantic  slave trade or colonisation, and errecting statues to show their gratitude for their good deeds. Even after all this time, in which slavery has become illegal, and there are still systemic problems with race ingrained in our systems. It has taken this long to decide that those people who profited from colonialism and slavery shouldn’t be rewarded with a statue which represents to many a permanent reminder of the past.

But there is a deeper point here, all those years ago, Atlantic slave trade must have been seen as ‘normal’ and part of life. It was endorsed by governments and you can bet that there was little or no education in European schools to explain what was happening in far flung places across the world. In fact, if you think of the eugenics movement with it’s ‘great’ thinkers and scientists of the time, they came up with all sorts of ideas as to why the white race was superior and other races needed to be forcibly civilised. Of course, there were some people who thought it wasn't right to enslave humans and we must credit these early pioneers. But the truth is that most chose to push it to the back of their brains because they couldn’t see it and it didn’t affect them. 

Now in modern times, we think ‘how the hell could people think it was ok to enslave people’ - ‘how could anyone not be completely disgusted by it?’ The point here is that it was so ingrained in society, and endorsed by the government, that it is difficult to blame individuals who didn’t get the opportunity to educate themselves about it for being oblivious. A lot of people simply aren’t curious enough to dig a little deeper, and as a result trust the legal systems and governments instead. It doesn’t seem like it’s really their fault - but then, who’s fault is it?

I have thought about this before when it comes to LGBT rights. How on earth was it illegal for inter-gender relations for so long? How could the doctors who would castrate convicted homosexuals, feel that what they were doing was ok? The answer again lies in the system, and putting trust in the governments. For me the most worrying of it all, when looking at the trends and the patterns of history, is knowing there is bound to be something future generations look back on from now and say -  how could the millennials have done X? I think the best way to avoid this is to think about what X might be and start making changes now. If I would try to predict the future and think about what X could be, I would guess:

Racism

Why didn’t white people stand by their black friends/colleagues/acquaintances when racism was so prevalent? Why didn’t they stand up for black people when people were racist about them in their absence? How did it make sense that black people were so underrepresented at board level in companies? How is it possible so many more black people than white people die in police custody? How did we let more black people die of coronavirus?

Fast Fashion

How did so many people buy clothes from fast fashion brands? The answer is simple: governments have endorsed brands like Zara, Mango and H&M to be on the high street. Just as before, if people don’t choose to educate themselves (I have been guilty of this before), we are putting our trust in the system and the government to hold our moral compass for us. In reality, people are dying in developing countries to keep up with the weekly updating ‘seasons’, and to keep prices of clothing as low as possible. Knowing this, people still buy from fast fashion brands. They can’t see it, doing something will actually affect them, it will increase the price of their clothes

Refugees

How did we just let refugees sit in dangerous camps in terrible conditions in Europe, instead of providing them with food and shelter? Did people forget that they are human beings too? Did anyone stop to think if they are willing to endure those conditions, the conditions must be worse where they came from? Or is it because the rest of the world didn’t do enough to make the political conditions in their country stable. It’s easy to sit inactively and watch from the UK. But the UK wasn’t that different from Syria - what would we do, how would we act if it was the other way round?

The environment

The same must be true. How did we allow huge multinational companies to produce so much plastic, knowing its impacts and convince the world we all needed it. Why did it take so long for the world to be educated about its impacts and where it was all being dumped. How did we allow flying to become so cheap and easy? How did we manage to convince ourselves that we needed to go on regular short trips abroad? Why couldn’t we see the beauty of the place we all live in, especially knowing the negative impacts created from travelling on that same beauty.

These are just predictions, about what the next generation will think about us. Do you want to be the person that is represented as a statue now? Or do you want to be represented in future, when you were the one who did something that really made a difference. 

It’s easy to start making changes now:

Every time you pay for something, you are giving your vote to what you believe is right and wrong.