I don’t know if anyone else read last week’s Time magazine’s story purportedly written about our generation, the alleged ‘Generation Y’? It makes for an interesting, although predictable, read. Joel Stein’s article is titled “The Me Me Me Generation….And Why They Will Save Us All”…complemented by the obligatory photo of a girl taking the annoyingly styled ‘Selfie’.

Now I’m not about to join the multitude in bashing Mr. Stein, for one thing he is an Adult-Adult ergo he just doesn’t get it. He is not supposed to, he’s a grown-up. An African proverb says that, “He who wears the shoes, knows where it hurts.” In my experience I notice that the older I grow, the less likely I am to truly and fully empathise with teens; not because I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be young and reckless, but because my view of life has so changed with maturity and experience that I sometimes find it very hard to understand why younger people do the things they do. It’s not that I was young but never reckless, or that I am not keen to reason like them, it’s more that I keep looking at their actions from a perspective that by virtue of age is inherently fuller, richer and deeper. (This is why I take my parents’ advice very seriously btw).

I am well aware that my experience-coloured lenses can block my sense of empathy and so I always make a conscious effort to sort of take off my shoes at the door of a younger person’s mind before cautiously entering and consciously submerging myself in their thoughts to really see through their eyes, not my ‘adult-spectacles’. But that takes a conscious and conditioned effort and “…aint nobody got time for that!”

Joel stein certainly hasn’t.

Sometimes, when I think of myself as a teen I am honestly terrified by the level of my reasoning or lack thereof. Lol. I swear, I am honestly concerned by how certain I was of my own infallibility, wisdom and understanding. For instance in secondary school, I was in love with the artist J-Boog of the infamous boy band B2K. Now, whether I dreamt about him, kissed his posters intermittently and fantasised about being his “Gots Ta Be” lover is neither here nor there. But I went a step ahead, as Wendy is wont to do. I had the leaflet from my B2K album tucked neatly between the leaves of my SAT book. Why, you may ask? Good question. I did this to inspire myself to study hard for my SAT exams. You see even at that age, I had a plan. At the time, international stars didn’t make pit stops at the Dark Continent. No no, if I ever wanted to meet J-Boogie and have Chilli-looking babies with endless baby-hair and Remy-quality locks, I would have to go to America…California to be exact.

So, I looked up schools in California. Trust and believe that Stanford and Berkeley were not even on my radar. Palo Alto ke?! I figured, “I need to be right there in the Valley!” Los Angeles Community College here I come! I didn’t really have a plan but as an African girl dreaming big, I figured all I needed to do was to get into the same oxygen-room with the stars and J-Boog would automatically locate his Princess Charming. We were destined to be together you see.

Alas, praise God for my father! He said, “The hell you will!!” to my many 10th-tier universities in LA and shipped me off to a boarding school in England for A-Levels, clearly realising that his daughter was not ready to face the big, bad, real world. I, in true 16 year old form, internally sulked and finally concluded that “Parents just do not understand, y’all!!!” Funny thing, in a few weeks, I was well over B2K and into the Sugababes and Sophie Ellise Bextor. Life huh?

So that’s an example of the folly of youth.

Anyway, so the Times magazine article is interesting and it raised several issues for me. Although I spotted a lot of characteristics I possess in the description of the “Me Me Me generation”, I had to wonder, “Are we really the Me Me Me generation?”

Is this Generation Y solely made up of insular people? People only concerned with themselves and their personal happiness? No collectivism? Weakened religious systems? Materialism, debauchery, moral bankruptcy, normalising the abnormal and exalting limitless fetishes? Does this Generation know where to draw the line? Hell, does this generation know that there is a line?!

No other generation has been so actively interested in a world that doesn’t concern them directly. Perhaps our interest is superficial, okay nevertheless it is an interest. I’ve always found myself in radical universities; although I am rather interested in topical issues, it is never to the point of activism. Yet, I attended the London School of Economics and then the University of California, Berkeley…both schools are hotbeds for political activism.

I will never forget the day a group of student protesters at the LSE accosted me and attempted to persuade me to go along with them to Parliament to protest against a Condoleeza Rice’s visit to the UK. What is my concern with the US Secretary of State visiting London while USA fights an unjustified war in Iraq? I listened patiently and was almost convinced to go out of sheer curiosity and then I asked what we intended to do upon reaching Parliament. Apparently (get this!) we would take off our shoes before the building as this is a sign of disrespect and a lack of support in the Middle East. Now, let me make it plain to the world, “I. AM. NOT. ABOUT. THAT. LIFE.” Riddle me this Batman, it is -8c outside, our words are solidifying before our eyes into mist-letters, and you are talking about taking our shoes off?! Miss me with that!

Maybe it is because I am from a Third World Country (who does the counting?) and understand more than most privileged kids in the West, the nature of true deprivation. Deprivation is poverty and illness and the faces of the suffering Africans on Oxfam ads, to these kids. For me, I understand that true deprivation is much more than not being able to eat. As my favourite maid said to me when I was growing up (the irony of this sentence is not lost on me, don’t worry), “No one in the village dies of hunger.” Deprivation is the lack of opportunity despite the fervent desire for more burning in your bones. Deprivation is dead dreams struggling with live hope, weathered by a cruel yet wise understanding that your tomorrow died yesterday. Deprivation is the cleaner I teach telling me she doesn’t understand basic English despite her avid desire to speak better because her primary school teachers were always on strike, forcing her to go farming when her mates were learning. Deprivation is having the relevant qualifications but no job for 9 years. Deprivation is being bankrupt of dreams, living everyday with anaesthetised hopes. So for me, I came to that school to study, NOT to make political points…the impact of which I was unsure.

And certainly not political points with no shoes on.

Regardless of my personal thoughts on the fruitlessness of that parliamentary journey, that awareness of the world’s limitations and the empathy for the suffering so far removed from their real life that those kids had, those ‘Generation Yers’, is beautiful and so worthy of commendation.

Yes, Joel Stein argues in the Times article that we are a bunch of narcissists. Really, who isn’t at our age? With the the sort of cool technology we have today?! You can’t even help it! When you see the effect some picture filters on the iPhone can give your face?! No one will tell you to take and propagate those utterly gratuitous ‘selfies’!

I think that fundamentally, the problem lies with classifying a whole heterogeneous group as one thing or another. There are too many subgroups within the whole for that to work. I mean for one thing, can we even say that all young people belong to Generation Y? How can my baby sister Oz, who turns 18 on Saturday really be in my generation? I was born in ‘86, baby-girl was birthed in 1995…I reference Michael Jackson, Oz’s Michael Jackson references have Chris Tucker in them. Not.The.Same.Thing.

Finally, I have to say about my generation, if I do indeed belong to Generation Y, I love us. We are demanding, we are entitled, we want everything NOW! Our world is changing so quickly that only the progressive survive. For this generation, impossible is truly just an opinion…and its not ours. Sure we feel entitled to things, but our entitlement comes from our understanding that we DO have a place in the world simply by virtue of the fact that we have something to offer and we are unafraid to work for what we trust is our due. What is the alternative? A generation of apologetic, bumbling individuals? They would get SWALLOWED by today’s world!

The world is moving too fast for generation Y to not adapt, to not want microwave miracles, to not expect more consistently from the world, from our jobs, from ourselves. The fear for our generation is that we are priviledged and spoilt, entitled and sheltered, totally unprepared. The fear is unfounded because I find that for every undeserving yet entitled Generation Yer, there is a determined and entitled Yer who is ready to go over and above to say to the world, “I WAS HERE…”