Millennial apathy....or is it?

"I didn't know where to go," "I didn't know who to vote for,", "I have classes [too much to do] to figure all that stuff out."

These are just a few of the responses given when a friend of mine ask student athletes if they took time to vote during the primary election on November 4th. Not one person on the team voted!
 

This shocked me; on so many levels. In my experience as a professor I've seen coaches walk athletes to class (and remain there for the duration), switch academic advisors (in my opinion partly to ensure academic success but mostly to insure NCAA compliance) and have enlisted the help of faculty mentors to assist athletes with any and everything possible. While there is a national debate over whether college athletes should get paid or if these privileged individuals are already getting their just reward one thing that most of us can probably agree on is that they deserve a holistic mentoring and educational experience that includes (at some point) talking about their moral and civic obligation to the world in which they live.  I'm not saying the coaches are at fault or should bear the responsibility of having to educate athletes about the electoral process but I can safely assume that (a) the coach-athlete relationship is such that topics outside of sports can be broached and (b) coaches actually care about their athletes beyond the playing field.
 

Note that in my opening I didn't refer to the comments of the student athletes as excuses, rather their responses. I do so with the intention of opening the door to a dialogue that must happen in order to make sure that countless numbers of other students don't respond this way in the future. It’s so easy to point the finger of blame and say that they are adults and should be responsible enough to do what is right, are a part of this lazy-entitled group of youth, so easy to pull the race card (the students were both black and white...but I'll interject my race-bases editorial later), or that socio-economic and generational underpinnings have impacted the way these young people think.
 

For the last three days my Twitter and Instagram have been filled with commentary about voting. I use both of these social media platforms to stay in tuned to what’s going on with my students. With that being said, I find it hard to believe that none of these student athletes got the message, which for many of the folks that I follow was not about who to vote for but the fact that it is your responsibility.  In my opinion, regardless of your race, socio-economic background or other personal narrative, these students were probably given a nudge by someone to go to the polls; which leads me to another thought. Who then is responsible for talking to our students about their civic responsibility? Does this lie solely on the shoulders of academicians who teach history, political science and other humanities courses that focus our role in society or was that the lesson to be provided by the twelfth grade social studies teaches with the hope that he or she empowered students enough to want to vote and be accounted for?
 

According to the Pew Center for Research the Millennial generation has fewer attachments to traditional political institutions, but they connect to personalized networks of friends, colleagues and affinity groups through social and digital media. Half of Millennials now describe themselves as political independents. This research not only supports my claim that social media may be a source of information and education for today’s youth but also raises significant questions about the degree to which they will commit to any form of political involvement and overall trust in the system.
 

There are more than 460,000 NCAA athletes in this country (NCAA.org). If I were to put forth a hypothesis that a percentage of this population votes in a manner that would yield me an error rate of +3% that would mean that approximately 4,400 of these athletes cast their vote in this primary. I don’t know about you but I think 3% is deplorable.  Hypothetically this data can be generalized to an even larger population of students yielding an even greater number of young people who are not accounted for (or accountable for that matter) and who have their lack of responsiveness to yet another midterm election viewed as plain irresponsible.
 

I would be remiss if I didn’t address the fact that our students are adults and have some level of responsibility in this. The Millennials played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009. Maybe this is the way this generation is showing their displeasure with the political system but does that mean you don’t vote? Is that how you send a message to our elected officials? Whether the non-voting students realize it or not, the balance of power in the Senate has shifted and will have an impact on them but like most students I encounter, they’ll probably blame their problems on poor classroom instruction and not politics. At some point, young people have to realize that voting is about more than voting.  It’s about being involved at the grassroots level, reading more than Madame Noire or Bossip.com (nothing wrong with these blogs...my students refer to them as a source of news and information all the time...but I digress), asking the right questions and making the connection between local and national politics. Sure it may be hard for even the brightest of minds to weed through the propaganda, mudslinging and sensationalism associated with politics but it has to be done.
 

With regard to race, I have to touch on this, after all I’m black! I don’t feel like I have a black agenda thing going on (for those of you who may think so) but I’m a black woman, with black children who was educated by black parents and who attended three universities, two of which were HBCUs and who is an educator at an HBCU.  Part of my mission is to educate students, to prepare them to be successful and concerned about a diverse, global, technologically entrenched society and to want to make a difference; not just in their bank accounts, but for the marginalized and voiceless around them.  Do I place emphasis on black students?  Yes!  About 90% of my students are black and I am committed to helping people who look like me.
 

At this point I hope my fellow politicos and fellow academicians are ready to chime in and prove me wrong. That’s exactly what I’d like to read...a thread of responses that say otherwise, but I’m not sure that is the case.
 

While my commentary initially focused on the fact that an entire athletic team made the choice not to vote or found it problematic the issue is larger than one athletic team, it’s about a generation of young people who no longer want to be viewed as apathetic or as individuals who hold onto the race card and slam it down on the table especially when it comes to politics.  It’s time to show the world that you do give a damn about yourself and others in more than just a materialistic way.


Young people (I’m talking to the ones who need to read this but probably won’t)…you owe it to yourself to do your research, find out the facts for yourself and again I say ask the right questions and then and only then if you choose not to vote no one can say that you did it from a point of ignorance or sheer laziness.

I will continue to believe that it takes a village to raise a child and it takes a community of educators to prepare our young people to have the mindset to want to find the answers to the questions that will change their lives.  I’m praying that 2016 yields different results. Millennials RISE UP!