“OK Boomer” Hits Different When You’re Black
Full disclosure, I’m not a boomer. I’m a Black womxn who is late stage Gen X, which means I’m part of the full-on nihilist sect who wonders what all this mess is for but ultimately doesn’t care cuz we here and whatever. Let’s just try to let each other live and all that shit, but if you don’t, I’ll fuck all this shit up for both of us because ultimately none of this matters.
That means all these generational labels are pretty meaningless other than taking pleasure in mocking them. Although, there is some weight to them, especially when they are used to describe the ways social order has been enforced and maintained over the past few decades. It speaks to the distribution of power and how that affects who is heard and who isn’t. as well as what’s said and how it’s meant. Once you add social context to anything, all meaning changes. We’re talking intersections, people, because that shit makes a difference.
“Ok boomer” is not a slur. It’s not an insult. It is a verbal dismissing of the white supremacist patriarchal capitalist bullshit that consistently blames the people being actively harmed by said bullshit for their harm. “Ok boomer” tells victim-blamers that their opinion isn’t worth shit because they offer nothing of substance to the conversation. “Ok boomer” is the equivalent of saying, “Oh you just going full-on rich white man now. Aiight, imma head out.”
I get why white people hate it. It disrupts the narrative that they are the most important person in the room. It shatters the idea that their identity makes them the authority and openly dismisses anything they think they are adding to the conversation. It reminds them that they don’t hold the answers to contemporary problems and makes them feel unseen and unheard, an unacceptable for state for white people with money and credit. It disturbs their foundational belief in their superiority and they fucking hate that shit.
“Ok boomer” shouldn’t really bother poor white people, especially if they are aware that their socioeconomic status is a reflection on how much the baby boomer economy didn’t help them. Especially if they realize how the current boomer mindset is eugenicist, victim-blaming, poverty-inducing, ableist, fatphobic, nationalist, and all-around garbage. But, because or society encourages and rewards people for oppressing others, people opt-in to the highest level of oppressor they can. That means that while poor, they are still white and will align with white supremacist patriarchal capitalism when they can. Even when it hurts them. Even when they use the entitlements they rally against. Whiteness overrides self-preservation.
“Ok boomer” shouldn’t bother anyone with any understanding of power dynamics, but because people like to align with power, aka white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, they quickly begin attacking any threat to that power. The push back by economically stable white people is understandable — as previously explained, this impacts their core belief in white supremacy. It’s the Black people who attack the phrase who fascinate me. “Ok boomer” doesn’t apply to most Black people. This is not a term that even remotely has anything to do with Black experience. If it’s a negative commentary on respectability politics, let be real — Black people used respectability politics to survive whiteness. It doesn’t always work, in fact, it often doesn’t. If a white person is intent on harming Black people, which often seems like their sole purpose for existing with how that harm is built into every facet of amerikkkan society, then it’s going to happen regardless of how well-dressed or polite you are. It doesn’t matter what school you went to or how well you speak. Black people with generational wealth seem to forget that shit, especially when it comes to the treatment of Black people who don’t follow those rules — and it’s those Black people who the “ok boomer” comment should hit hardest and hopefully disrupt the illusion that somehow their socioeconomic status shields them from racism. Because it doesn’t. None of us are shielded. Some of us happen to have more resources to rebound from it but that doesn’t matter when whiteness has decided to kill you today.
If you are a Black person and find yourself defensive about “ok boomer” you have some serious unpacking to do. We didn’t have access to the entitlements that made the white, wealthy boomer generation what it is today. We didn’t and continue not to have access to the opportunities and wealth that makes the white wealthy boomer population what it is today. So, if this phrase got you feeling some kinda way, you need to take several steps back and reflect on what it is you stand for because “ok boomer” isn’t and has never been about you.
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Originally published at https://talynnkel.com on November 24, 2019.
