On Tuesday, November 17, it had only been four days since the Paris terror attacks. It had been four days since the world reeled in horror as they watched men, women, and children climb out windows, over people, and under gunfire out of a crowded concert hall where the majority of the 130 innocent Parisians were slaughtered. All across Paris hundreds more were left injured.
On this Tuesday, I walked from my dorm four blocks to the elementary school where I tutor first graders on reading and writing, just as I do every Tuesday. Of course, this was not every other Tuesday. People around the world including myself wore grim veils for the victims, the flags in the city of Charleston sat heavily at half mast and a discernibly welcome French Flag flew above King Street from the American Theatre.
From the heavy streets, I walked through the doors of the school. The doors of an elementary school shut out more than just the November weather that day.
As I made my way to my assigned classroom I watched small smiles train by in lines of children. Out of the windows, I watched children chasing each other with pattering feet putting all their energy into transferring the esteemed title of being “it.”
When I got into the classroom, I sat down and spent my routine 15 minutes going over my lesson plan for my students that day but I couldn’t shake the unequivocal consequences of Paris from my mind. What global terrors would come in the next few months as a result of these attacks? What global goodness might the world bring?
But then the children came into the classroom and the lessons began. Forty-five minutes passed without a single frown or upset gaze (save a few misspelled words). In those 45 minutes with the children, no questions of the attacks were asked. No questions of death. No questions of good or evil. Were these kids not curious about what happened? Did they not notice the shadow over the world these past few days?
Then the realization hit me. They didn’t understand what was going on. Of course, they didn’t; they were just little children. They were the same age my generation was during the last great global terror attack: 9/11.
Their memory and understanding of the attacks would not be their own, but only a retelling of events in the same way. I cannot begin to understand the complexity of emotion that crashed into our nation on Sept. 11, 2001. They will never watch fresh tears flow from the eyes of the French just as I could not have heard the cries of the towers.
Walking those four somber blocks back to campus, I made the second important realization of that day. The November 13 attacks on Paris were the first globalized acts of terror that my generation has watched, understood, and been able to act upon.
I have never been more ashamed of my generations actions since. Today millennials, when asked, would classify themselves as a generation of activists. We claim that we weep for victims of social injustice. We claim that our protests will make a difference. We claim that our coffee shop charities will end hunger.
When the Twin Towers fell, thousands of people from around the world came to visit the site to show reverence with guileless tears and fraternity. How many members of this generation claim to stand with Paris through a red, white and blue filter on Facebook? How many through a hashtag on Twitter? How many through an old vacation photo on Instagram?
Social media solace is not activism. The point of social media activism is to raise awareness of a protest, of an issue, of a charity. I have not scrolled by a post on any feed of mine that shares an organization claiming to help the families or victims. It is just red after white after blue. There aren't men or women in the Western world who haven't heard of the attacks. Raising awareness that these attacks happened is a pointless pursuit.
As a generation, the millennials have misplaced the use of social media when raising awareness with sincere activism. But the venture is not completely lost. By all means use social media, but use social media with a physical purpose. We have the opportunity to spread real help to regions that past organizations would have taken weeks to do.
So make a difference, be the activists that we claim we are: Advertise a charity, create a GoFundMe, share real stories but do not let us become the first generation to lose the reality of helping victims of global terror.
