Year of Gen Z Leadership
Lamar Danley
Senior, Howard University
January 18, 2023
A LOT OF INDIVIDUALS are coming out of high school and college unable to solve real world problems because you can’t find the answer in a passage or a book. Education doesn’t tell us to think hard anymore—it teaches us that the answer is somewhere close. When in reality, it takes a lot of hard work to find those answers.
Education doesn’t tell us to think hard anymore—it teaches us that the answer is somewhere close. When in reality, it takes a lot of hard work to get those answers.”
Young leaders need more mentorship and a lot more positive feedback. Actually listen to us and help us get our solutions done. Generation Z will say what we want done, and leaders will say, “That’s a great idea. I hope when you become a congressman one day, you’ll implement it.”
Young people aren’t listened to, but we know we have power to change the system. This is about the future of the world. Climate change isn’t being taken seriously. It’s predicted we won’t even have social security when we get older. Does the world care about us? How can we care about ourselves if every day no one seems to care about the problems we have?
SHARE LAMAR’S PERSPECTIVE!
Leaders need to create better pipelines for young people to get into politics. As one example, many internships in Washington, D.C. are unpaid, so people like me—Black people with lower incomes or just young people who need to pay bills—have to decide between taking an internship or surviving. That means employers are only able to pick from a select group of applicants, and those tend to be people who come from money. There needs to be additional perspectives from people like me to really change the atmosphere in politics.
What the pandemic did was expose every fault that we have—not only in our democracy, but also in education, our economy, and our social interactions. We have to be very intentional about how we pivot for our longevity as people, as human beings. If we do 2023 right, and really listen and pay attention to Generation Z and the people who were affected most by the pandemic, we can change the state of not only America but the world.
