Opinion Assignment 3

Although I have never thought of my age group as the “Pro-Logo generation that is more likely to but a wristband and ticket to Live Earth than hit the streets in protest,” I can understand where she is coming from—a unique viewpoint that I myself has not ever considered.  I think a lot of my peers don’t exactly know how to protest like those who displayed their opinions during the grassroots demonstrations.  Today’s protestors support social movements in much different ways like Klein has mentioned in her article.  There are wristbands that can be purchased, concerts to attend, merchandise to wear, and money donated through texting.  I don’t think that my generation is not standing idly by when it comes to protesting things, but means of support have changed throughout time; this is what my generation knows how to do in order to fight and act out on topics of today.  Klein argues that benefit concerts are not effective when it comes to supporting a large-scaled movement like Live Earth.  Maybe it doesn’t get the attention from political leaders as much as a sit-in would, but I would say, a concert reaches out to a lot of people who normally wouldn’t choose a side on the issue.  MTV replays things like this over and over for days and days—these efforts aren’t as fruitless as she claims.  These protests are also less dangerous, as Klein points out.  Only in the most radical of situations are people committing violent crimes in order to get their point across.  However all of this, Klein was observant when she basically said my generation, the Pro-Logo” generation, buys into social protest.

I’m going to start with my social movement: Gay Rights.  This movement has already made great strides in becoming the powerful force it is today through means of the media and more people in the world coming out as gay.  Since the Stonewall Riots, the Gay Rights movement has never really been a grassroots demonstration type of movement.  It is more socially acceptable for someone to choose this lifestyle than it was even just a few years ago. Major celebrities have come out publicly; there are more television shows and movies that portray homosexual characters and even Disneyland shows support through their annual Gay Pride Day.  However, the Gay Pride Parade was referred to as a “circus parade” in the article Fractured Resistances: The Debate over Assimilationism among Gays and Lesbians in the United States because it featured homosexuals more as sexual beings than human beings.  This was found ironic because this was the very idea they have always been trying to fight against.  It’s interesting to note that even though there is a large population of people who agree Gays should not be able to marry other gays, there does not seem to be much kind of protest on the supporters of the Gay Rights—besides donating money to gay rights organizations. Maybe Klein was right.

In the article, The ERA is a Moral Issue, the Mormon women were a dominating force in the stalling of the equal rights amendment.  Thousands of women showed up at the IWY conference to vote no on the ballot because God told them to.  They also did not show any violent tendencies—much different than how the other states were handling equality issues.  On the other end of the spectrum, when fighting for equal rights, African Americans following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were told to act peacefully during their demonstrations. However, the reaction to their doings resulted in a lot of violent crimes.  When we read Hendrickson Ladies Before Rosa, we learned that there were many other African American women who committed the same crime as Rosa Parks—refusing to give up her seat for a white woman on a bus.  Tell me when there was a time where small acts of the same rebellion lead up to one person spearheading a giant movement in the fight for equality?

Today, we do not see much of that same rebellion amongst my generation.  As a matter of fact, I feel our generation has slowly stopped caring about these types of issues.  We have constantly been one of the lowest populations of demographics that do not participate in voting come election time.  I feel as if this would hinder a lot of social protests from being successful in the eyes of other politicians and people around the country—if a majority of my peers would protest for change, would it really happen?  It might if they put their efforts into a worldwide, benefit concert, merchandise selling, Bono from U2 campaign. I know I’ve supported the (RED) movement.  Klein just might be on to something here.