Tomorrow will mark the 54th anniversary of the Kent State massacre—54 years since the Ohio National Guard killed Jefferey Glen Miller (20), Allison Beth Krause (19), William Knox Schroeder (19), and Sandra Lee Scheuer (19) during an on-campus protest against continued U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and its expansion into Cambodia.
On May 4, 1970, they gathered on the university’s commons to exercise their constitutional right to assembly and dissent, accompanied by roughly 2000 others. They were met with orders to disperse, tear gas, and ultimately, 67 rounds of ammunition. In the aftermath, protests ensued at colleges across the country, and a student strike caused the closure of more than 450 campuses.
Two years prior, students at Columbia occupied university buildings in protest of the war, as well as segregation—the culmination of a decade of sit-ins and student protests during the civil rights movement. By the time the anti-apartheid protests erupted in the 1980s, the national voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18, and the student movement gained considerable traction, accumulating more political power and demanding their universities divest from any organization that profited from or acted in support of South African apartheid.
The anti-apartheid student movement showed us how capable the youth are of changing the world, as 155 universities divested as a result.
Today, in an act of solidarity with Palestine, students across the globe are occupying university buildings, establishing encampments, and demanding once more that these institutions of higher education divest from genocidal firms and corporations. They are once again being met with police brutality, excessive force, and condemnation from the very government that has sworn to protect their right to do so. They are once again changing the world.
As a mother to a Gen Z child, I have often found myself despairing over this generation—their reliance on technology, a consequence of being born into a fully digital world; their apparent entitlement and tendency towards instant gratification, resultant of the same; their posture, a product of being perpetually bent over their phones. They have more access to substances than any generation prior, more access to everything, really. Just like every generation of youth that has come before them, they have been ridiculed and reproached, their music and their fashion criticized, their sovereignty challenged, their competence questioned. And just like every generation of youth that has come before them, they have rendered themselves ungovernable.
The students who commandeered Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and renamed it “Hind’s Hall,” in honor of 6-year-old Palestinian martyr Hind Rajib, were born into a burning world. The students who beat back riot police with an empty 5 gallon water bottle at Cal Poly Humboldt were born into a dying world. The students who set up tents and occupied the central plaza at UCLA were born into a world where corporate billionaires have done irreparable damage to the climate, where the wage gap has dramatically increased, where, unless they were lucky enough to be born into generational wealth, they will never own a home. They will likely owe their student loans for the duration of their lifetime.
Student protests have historically been on the frontline of major social movements, both because they are young enough to have ideals that haven’t been stifled by the ruling class—hopefulness that hasn’t been stolen by the ravages of time. And because, as wage theft in this country has been left unchecked and unpunished, many of us in the work force are trapped inside the prison that capitalism built, unable to meaningfully participate in protests the way students can. But this generation of students is particularly charged, perhaps more dissident than any other that has come before. They’ve been catalyzed by the conditions into which they were born, radicalized by the information to which they’ve had further access, disenfranchised by their elders’ failure to be good stewards of the land.
Our kids have had enough, and the kids in Palestine are watching. They are sending messages of love and gratitude. They are asking us not to give up on them.
In the fall, my son Isaac will attend Cal Poly Humboldt—a tiny, rural college in Northern California that, despite its size, became California’s epicenter of student civil disobedience. They occupied the quad, blockading its entrance points with dumpsters, furniture, chains, and ropes. They took Siemens Hall and Nelson Hall—the first college in the country to seize a building amidst the student movement for Palestinian liberation and Israeli divestment. Their protest happened to coincide with the road trip Isaac had planned with his dad to visit the campus, but news came on the eve of his trip that campus would be closed, and all tours would be canceled.
When I asked how he felt about the disruption to his plans he replied, “It’s fine. We’ll still drive up. Maybe I’ll even get to participate.” He understood that disruption is a necessary part of social change, that we cannot expect to fight for collective liberation and not be inconvenienced in the process. When he came home from the trip he sat on my bedroom floor and recounted the experience of driving past campus and witnessing the encampment, his excitement at going to a school where it seems people share his value system.
Because I am his mother, I worry about him all the time. I worry when he doesn’t text me back right away. I worry when his phone is dead and I can’t see his location. I worry when he’s late for curfew. I worry when he’s visits his father out of state. I still sometimes check on him in the middle of the night to make sure he’s breathing. When he leaves for college, it will be the first time in 18 years that I have not been a part of his everyday life, and I worry about him being so many miles away.
I worry that I haven’t properly prepared him for life outside the nest.
Knowing that he’ll be surrounded by a youth population willing to fight for liberation, my worries lessen. I take comfort in sending him off to a place where kids will occupy, protest, and push back against riot police. I feel proud that he is willing to do the same.
As parents, we worry. And as elders, we’re often patronizing, skeptical that the kids have what it takes. But it turns out, the kids are alright. The kids have always been alright.
Tomorrow, as we mourn and remember those who lost their lives at Kent State while protesting an unjust war, I hope we’ll draw parallels to the student movement of the moment. I hope we’ll trust the kids to create change, as they have before and will again. I hope we’ll be inspired by their acts of dissent and their unwavering commitment to justice. I hope we’ll follow suit.
Oft. This love letter to the kids is 👌🏼