Calling out 1 Bullshit on Gen Z: Racism is Over, Innit

We’ve read hundreds of documents picturing GenZedders as the inhabitants of a futuristic world where race is not a problem anymore.

The image is one of a conscious group of people who would support social causes, diversity and inclusion, and would absolutely ban whoever doesn’t represent these principles.

But.

What’s actually happening in the real world? Are GenZedders anti-racism heroes, or that’s all a utopian mystification?

As in everything in life, the truth lies somewhere in between.

The good news is, reliable studies confirm that GenZedders in the United States are likely to be more sensitive to the unfair treatment of people of colour than older generations such as Generation X and Boomers. Along with Millennials, they are also more accepting of the increasing racial and ethnic diversity in U.S. society.

And yet, racism hasn’t stopped surfacing, even in places attended by a good percentage of Gen Zedders.

Youth culture-centred news website TheTab recently reported that racial harassment is still widespread in university campuses across the UK. As stated by the article: “The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) conducted a survey of 180,000 students finding nearly 29 per cent of black students, 27 percent of Asian students, and 22 percent of other/mixed students had experienced racial harassment while at uni.”

The EHRC study goes on detailing how the majority (⅔) of harassment reports came from students, while a quarter came from academics. Moreover, over two thirds of students and over half of the staff did not report episodes of harassment because they believed no one would have addressed them, or because they were afraid of backlash.

This study casts a gloomy shadow on Gen Z’s racism-free rhetoric, demonstrating how the younger generation is still both enduring and perpetrating racial discrimination, and how the phenomenon is still fear-inducing and partially submerged.

So, we have surveys that promise a world devoid of bigotry on one hand, and alarming episodes of discrimination on the other. What to think?

In our opinion, such opposite reports imply that GenZedders should not be seen as a compact, uniform front against racism, but as a generation who is starting to rethink racial issues in the light of a modern society that is constantly changing.

The fast-paced physical and virtual environment that Gen Z lives in, and the fact that this may be the most racially and ethnically diverse generation yet, may have led, together with other factors, to a difficulty in polarizing their political and social beliefs.

Gen Z is, for example, united on topics such as marijuana legalization and climate change, but they refrain from identifying as liberal or conservative.

Freed from any over-generalizing view on Gen Z and racism, one truth remains: this generation can make a difference. They have history to learn from, they have technological instruments, digital knowledge and new, dynamic sources of information. They’re gaining a group conscience maybe faster than any other generation before, and they don’t want to be stereotyped.

What is left to do is to learn their ways and grow with them, stopping imposing expectations and helping them acknowledging and dealing with social issues through their own means.

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