The actions taken by students in New York gathered national attention that simply could not be ignored by the older generations of America. New York City leadership tweeted that they wanted to meet with student leaders to hear their concerns. President Biden announced that the Department of Health and Human Services will dedicate five million COVID rapid tests and five million PCR tests for schools to address health safety concerns and help to keep schools open. A clear step in the right direction.
Generation Z, we have grown up in a world where every aspect of our lives can not only be recorded each day but shared into a torrid stream of consciousness across social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. We are both burdened and fortunate to be the first generation to live in a constant state of information flow. What we saw in New York would have taken weeks, if not months, to spread across our nation just a few decades ago. But today, we are able to share our collective actions and feelings so quickly that the generations that came before us still have a hard time understanding the power a simple video post can have to inspire an entire generation to take collective action to address the issues that we care about.
So much power is carried across the world in the palm of our hands. But with power, comes a growing responsibility to use this technology in ways that will create positive change and enhance our world. It is simply not enough to sit by and stay distracted by TikTok videos while serious issues that touch on our future health and wellbeing are being determined by those who will never have to spend the significant majority of their lives living with the consequences of those policies. We have a responsibility to ourselves to continue to use social media platforms to engage our peers and educate each other on solutions to problems in education, health, criminal justice reform, voting rights, economic justice, protecting our environment, and so much more.
In the shadows of recently celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this past weekend, I am also reminded of the powerful words that Dr. King shared with us throughout his life. Dr. King shared in his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
