The story we tell about millennials -- and who we leave out | Reniqua Allen

87,300 views ・ 2019-07-29

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So on the surface,
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Troy is the kind of millennial that think pieces are made of.
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He's arrogant, self-centered
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and convinced that he is smarter than people give him credit for.
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His favorite topics of conversation are girls, sneakers and cars --
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not a surprise for someone who was a teenager just a few years ago.
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But Troy's mannerisms --
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they reveal the patterns of someone who is scared,
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troubled and unsure of the future.
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Now Troy also embodies the many positive qualities
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his generation is known for.
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An entrepreneurial spirit,
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an independent streak
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and a dedication to his parents.
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He believes in hard work
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and has tried gigs in both the licit and underground economies,
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but he hasn't had any luck
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and is just trying to find his way
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and still dances between both worlds.
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When I met Troy a few years ago,
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he had been employed as a golf caddy at a local country club,
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carrying bags for rich men and women
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who often never even acknowledged his existence.
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Before that, he sold sneakers on Facebook.
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He even tried selling candy bars and water bottles,
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but he wasn't making enough money to help his parents out
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or save up for a car any time soon.
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So Troy saw how hard his immigrant mother from Jamaica worked
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and how little she got back in return,
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and he vowed --
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Troy vowed to take a different path.
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So he ended up selling drugs.
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And then he got caught,
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and right now, he's trying to figure out his next steps.
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In a country where money equals power,
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quick money, at least for a while, gives young men and women like him
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a sense of control over their lives,
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though he said he mainly did it because he wanted stability.
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"I wanted a good life," he told me.
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"I got greedy and I got caught."
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Yet the amazing thing about Troy
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is that he still believes in the American dream.
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He still believes that with hard work,
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despite being arrested,
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that he can move on up.
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Now, I don't know if Troy's dreams came true.
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He disappeared from the program for troubled youth that he was involved in
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and slipped through the cracks,
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but on that day that we spoke,
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I could tell that more than anything,
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Troy was happy that someone listened to his dreams
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and asked him about his future.
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So I think about Troy and his optimism
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when I think of the reality that so many young, black millennials face
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when it comes to realizing their dreams.
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I think about all the challenges
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that so many black millennials have to endure
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in a world that tells them they can anything they want to be
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if they work hard,
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but actually doesn't sit down to listen to their dreams
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or hear stories about their struggle.
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And we really need to listen to this generation
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if we hope to have a healthy and civil society going forward,
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because millienials of color,
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they make up a fair chunk of the US and the world population.
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Now when we talk about millennials,
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a group that is often labeled as entitled, lazy, overeducated,
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noncommittal and narcissistic,
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the conversations often swirl around avocado toast,
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overpriced lattes and fancy jobs abroad --
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you probably have heard all these things before.
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But millennials are not a monolith.
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Actress Lena Dunham may be the media's representation
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of this generation,
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but Troy and other voices like his are also part of the story.
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In fact, millennials are the largest and most diverse adult population
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in this country.
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44 percent of all American millennials are nonwhite,
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but often, you wouldn't even know it at all.
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Now sure, there are similarities within this population
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born between 1981 and 1996.
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Perhaps many of us do love avocado toast and lattes --
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I know I do, right?
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But there are also extreme differences,
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often between millennials of color and white millennials.
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In fact, all too often,
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it seems as though we're virtually living in different worlds.
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Now black millennials,
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a group that I have researched for a book I recently wrote,
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are the perfect example of the blind spot that we have
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when it comes to this group.
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For example,
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we have lower rates of homeownership,
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we have higher student debt,
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we get ID'd more at voter registration booths,
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we are incarcerated at higher rates ...
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we make less money,
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we have higher numbers of unemployment --
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even when we do go to college, I should say --
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and we get married at lower rates.
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And honestly, that's really just the beginning.
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Now, none of these struggles are particularly new, right?
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Young black people in America have been fighting,
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really fighting hard to get their stories told for centuries.
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After the Civil War in the 1800s,
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Reconstruction failed to deliver the equality
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that the end of slavery should have heralded,
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so young people moved to the North and the West
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to escape discriminatory Jim Crow policies.
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Then, as segregation raged in much of the country,
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young black people helped spearhead civil rights campaigns
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in the 1950s and 1960s.
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After that, some people embraced black power and then became Black Panthers
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and then the next generation,
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they turned to hip-hop to make sure their voices were heard.
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And then Barack Obama,
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hopeful that he, too, may bring about change.
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And when that failed,
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when we realized we were still brutalized and battered,
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we had to let the world know that our lives still mattered.
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Now, when technology allows more video of our pain and struggle
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to be broadcast to the world,
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we wonder, like, what is next?
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Our country feels more polarized than ever,
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yet we are still being told to pull up our pants,
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be respectable, be less angry,
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smile more and work harder.
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Even the attitudes of millennials themselves are overdue for an update.
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Research done by the Washington Post in 2015 about this supposedly "woke" group
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found that 31 percent of white millennials think that blacks are lazier than whites,
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and 23 percent say they're not as intelligent.
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These are, like, surprising things to me, and shocking.
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And these responses are not that much different
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than generations in the past,
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and it shows that unfortunately,
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this generation is repeating the same old stereotypes
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and tropes of the past.
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Now, a study conducted by David Binder Research and MTV in 2014 --
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it found that 84 percent of young millennials were taught by their families
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that everyone should be equal.
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This is a really great thing, a really positive step.
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But only 37 percent in that group
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actually talked about race with their families.
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So I could understand why things may be confusing to some.
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There are definitely black millennials who are succeeding.
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Marvel's "Black Panther,"
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directed by black millennial Ryan Coogler and showcasing many others,
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broke all sorts of records.
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There's a crop of television shows by creatives like Donald Glover,
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Lena Waithe and Issa Rae.
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Beyoncé is, like, the queen, right?
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She is, like, everything.
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Young black authors are winning awards,
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Serena Williams is still dominating on the tennis court
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despite all her haters,
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and there's a crop of new politicians and activists running for office.
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So I don't want to, like, kill these moments of black joy
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that I too revel in,
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but I want to make it clear
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that these wins are too few and far between
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for a people that's been here for over 400 years.
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Like, that's insane, right?
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And most people still don't really understand the full picture, right?
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Our stories are still misunderstood,
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our bodies are still taken advantage of,
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and our voices?
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Our voices are silenced
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in a world that still shows little concern for our everyday struggles.
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So our stories need to be told
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in a multitude of ways
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by a range of voices
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talking about diverse and nuanced topics,
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and they really need to be listened to.
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And it is not just here in America, right?
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It's all around the world.
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Millennials make up 27 percent of the world's population.
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That's around two billion people.
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And with countries like India, China, Indonesia and Brazil,
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along with the United States,
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accounting for 50 percent of the world's millennials,
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it's clear that the white, often male, heterosexual narrative of the millennial
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is only telling half the story.
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Now, there's many people trying to broaden the palette.
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They're fighting to get their stories told and bust the millennial stereotype.
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Whether it's students in South Africa protesting statues of Cecil Rhodes,
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Michaela Coel making us laugh from the UK,
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or Uche Eze, who's framing views about Nigerian life, online.
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But I want to make it clear --
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I want to make it really clear to everyone
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that just because things look more equal than they did
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in the 20th century,
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doesn't mean that things are equitable at all.
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It doesn't mean our experiences are equitable,
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and it certainly doesn't mean that a post-racial society,
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that thing that we talked about so much,
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ever became close to being a reality.
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I think of Joelle,
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a middle-class 20-something who did everything the "right way,"
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but she couldn't go to her dream school, because it was simply too expensive.
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Or Jalessa,
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who knows she can't be mediocre at her job
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the same way that her white peers can.
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Or Trina, who knows that people judge her unconventional family choices
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in a different way than if she were a white woman.
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Or actor AB,
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who knows that the roles he takes and gets in Hollywood are different
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because of his skin color.
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And then there's Simon.
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So Simon, by all means, would be an example of someone who's made it.
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He's a CFO at a tech company in San Francisco,
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he has a degree from MIT
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and he's worked at some of the hottest tech companies in the world.
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But when I asked Simon if he had achieved the American dream,
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it took him a while to respond.
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While acknowledging that he had a really comfortable life,
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he admitted that under different circumstances,
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he might have chosen a different path.
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Simon really loves photography,
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but that was never a real option for him.
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"My parents weren't able to subsidize me
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through that sort of thing," Simon said.
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"Maybe that's something my children could do."
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So it's these kinds of stories --
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the quieter, more subtle ones --
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that reveal the often unique and untold stories of black millennials
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that show how even dreaming may differ between communities.
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So we really need to listen and hear the stories of this generation,
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now more than ever,
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as the baby boomers age and millennials come to prominence.
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We can talk all we want to about pickling businesses in Brooklyn
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or avocado toast,
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but leaving out the stories and the voices of black millennials,
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large swaths of the population --
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it will only increase divisions.
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So stories of black millennials, brown millennials
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and all millennials of color
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really need to be told,
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and they also need to be listened to.
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We'd be a far better-off country and world.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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