nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): NYT, Stop Letting College Students Embarrass Themselves in the Op-Eds Challenge
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): I hesitate to say this Bc white kids are too often treated like kids while we are treated like full-fledged adults but they ARE kids, and their shitty political views aren’t formed enough to be shared with the world, to shape who they’ll become Bc then they get entrenched
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): Like I shudder to think of the social media thrashing I would have gotten back when my political stance on Palestine was terrible but also I was raised by a Republican and had been in almost exclusively Zionist spaces! It took me about a year of serious reflection and reading..
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): To get here. It would have been so bad for my induction into the world of publishing to happen while I was transitioning out of harmful relationships and communities and becoming an adult
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): But now these kids (rightfully so) are getting their public pushback on s huge huge scale which only reinforces their victimhood complexes. It also leads to a deluge of opportunities from right wing and centrist folks and just like that, being shitty becomes your brand
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): once you’re getting paid thousands for speaking opportunities and have some of the “best” publications in the country seeking you out (for clicks and outrage, really) then it becomes harder and harder to backtrack. shitty politics become your community, identity, and livelihood
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): But this girl is what? 20? You have no business in the NYT!!! Please work that shit out on a blog, I beg y’all
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): This girl probably would have been shitty either way but in the digital age, youth doesn’t really exists re: learning and growing. Learning and growing can’t happen when your formative years are spent in the public like this
nylah (@yumcoconutmilk): And I’m so so not saying that young people don’t have anything to say. Some of the best writing is done by young people. But as grown-ass editors, y’all should know when someone is working out their ideas and feelings, completely on the wrong track, not understand the issue
Katie Mack (@AstroKatie): @yumcoconutmilk This is such a good point! Ugh.