Why Generation X failed to End Racism during the 1980's

This semester I taught for the first time an Introduction to Sociology class at a community college face to face. This was the first class I taught in the physical classroom since March 2020. Every student including myself wore masks as mandated by the college though social distance was not possible in a full classroom of 26 students.

I was curious as I wanted to learn more on why Generation X (in which I was born in 1965) failed to stop racism as we know it the 1980’s. This was the decade where several television shows protrayed issues pertaining to interracial dating, mixed racial and gender marriages, blended and muliticultural families, and diverse friendships. Despite the newness and opportunities to learn how get along with others on the TV screens, the incidences of racial unrest exploded on the college campuses across the United States during the mid 1980’s. Students of color were being physically attached and verbally assaulted by racist college students. Subsequently, college administrators failed to swiftly stop these ugly events from happening as they had no policies in place to stop hate crimes and racist practices on their campuses.

Furthermore, the racial unrest also carried into the workplace where people of color were being treated unfairly and discriminated againt from applying for competitive positons against their white counterparts. Lawsuits followed and complaints to the EEOC increased. Unfortunately, not every case or complaint won for a variety of reasons.

Students of color protested on college campuses to put an end to racism and to force the administration to put polices and practices in place to promote a safe multicultural environment. It was time to create multicultural and cultural competence trainings for all staff, faculty, and administrators.

Subsequently, this trend followed into the workplace where Human Resources hired speakers trained in teaching employees how to get along and to be sensitive to diverse workers.

While these culturally competent programs took place between people in small groups, no changes were made to the policies and procedures that resulted in institutional racism across all public and private and educational sectors in the US. Generation X folks were not working together collaboratively within their separate groups to dismantle these racist practices that have been in place since the 17th Century. No one called out the few and the powerful white male supremecists who ruled 99% of the corporations and held government positions from the local to the federal levels. The fear of wanting to talk about race prevailed due to discomfort and fragility of the white culture.

Recent research in the 21st Century showed that multicultural programs failed to reach their objectives to create a welcoming and caring work environments across all sectors. The reason is due to employees feeling resentful to attend these mandatory trainings where many did not believe that racisms or other isms for that matter were an issue with them and in their places of employment.

Fast Forward to 2020 during the pandemic. The murder of George Floyd caused an immediate stir across the US and the world. People from all works of life and diverse cultures protested loudly in their communities to demand justice and end to racism. How was this incident different from past incidents in the 1980’s and 1990's?

Back in the late 20th Century, the digital age was nonexistent as people did not have to immediate news on social media. Many societies and communities were homogenous where people from their own cultures did not interact with others who were different from them. Many schools and colleges and universities also had homogenous students with few people from diverse cultures.

Sociologists viewed past racist practices stemming from the structuralist functionalism approach of maintaing social order and stability due to group cohesiveness from the white culture that allowed inequality and racism to prevail against people of color.

What is different or has changed in the 21st Century? The US is now a multicultural society in our workplace, schools, universities, etc. Children and teenagers are used to interacting with each other from diverse cultures and ethnicities. The instant rise of the digital age on social media is rampant and growing by leaps and bounds. People are more connected virtually and around the world. Many members of the Gen’Zs and millenials cultural groups are not afraid to collaborate together to fight racism and demand changes at the various levels of government and corporations to end racism as we know it. The same trend is happening in our K-12 school systems where institutional and individual racism still prevails. However, thanks to millenials who have children their school districts, many have take brave actions to demand changes in policies and practices that are racist in promoting a welcoming environment for their children.

Let’s say thank you to the Gen’Zs and millenials who are working together to stop racism once and for all. As members of Generation X, we can support, participate, and work collaboratively with them.