The media was pushing the "millenials are snowflakes who have everything handed to them" for years, I wonder how much of that was projection.
I've never liked "snowflake" as a pejorative. I get why it's used as snowflakes don't last long.
But... my answer is that when you get a lot of them and they freeze instead of melting, given enough time and consistently low temperatures, and you'll get a glacier. Glaciers advance and retreat over time, and they can remake whole continents. The evidence is written on the landscape in most of Canada; just between Red Deer and Calgary there's evidence of what the glaciers left behind as they retreated north thousands of years ago. The mountain lakes are more evidence. If you love the beautiful scenery in warpus' Norway thread, thank a glacier - it helped create it.
Pretty good for a humble snowflake.
That is not what the OP claims. He clearly states that anyone who wasn't white had it very difficult, irregardless of beeing a boomer. And imho, the same clearly also goes for women (the 60s and 70s were still deeply patriarchal times), and especially so for handicapped people (inclusive cities was probably not even a thought back then). Not everyone had it easy, but white men who weren't born into poverty did have it easy.
There's no need to preface the patriarchal attitudes of the '60s and '70s as an opinion. I was there, and it's a fact. You know the old "I Love Lucy" shows from the '50s that show women wearing headscarves and dresses when they go out? That's how it was in the '60s. It wasn't until I started school and got partway through Grade 1 that I was able to ditch those. I always found them uncomfortable (headscarves made it hard to hear, they irritated my skin, and dresses in the climate we had then - fall/winter was generally colder then - were recipes for freezing). It wasn't until the mid-late '70s that I convinced my grandmother that it was okay for her to wear pants, so she switched to pants and blouses or pantsuits. She tried to convince her older sister to do the same, but my great-aunt never did - I'm not sure if it was a genuine preference for her to be cold in winter or if it was her husband's preference.
That was a very patriarchal household my great-aunt lived in, and she was expected to do what her husband and son told her to do. My grandfather blamed me for some of the independence both my grandmother and me showed - I was influenced by people I met in the theatre, who couldn't wrap their minds around the stuff I was taught was 'proper' and he didn't like having his opinions contradicted. In my grandfather's view, both my grandmother and me were supposed to agree with him, no matter what.
I guess it's a good thing that he approved of science, since he once praised me to his friends that I wasn't like other girls, running around and getting into trouble. I was sitting quietly on the couch with my nose in a paleontology book at the time.
As for inclusive cities for the handicapped (I prefer the term disabled, as I have greater or lesser degrees of ability in various areas)... it's still a problem. Calgary spent $$$$$$$$ on a new library, and then put elevator buttons out of reach of people in wheelchairs. Some places have ramps at the wrong angle. A couple of summers ago they repaved the front parking lot here, which meant we had to enter and exit the building through the back door, and the manager said, "There's a ramp so you won't have a problem." Well, I had major problems. That ramp was too steep, and not safe for anyone using a walker or wheelchair. So I was stranded inside this building for 6 weeks.
Some cities - one was in the news recently - spend money on upgrading this and improving that, and omit ramps and curved curbs or curbs with dips in them so people with mobility issues can access it. So we're still overlooked and the excuse given is that "it was cheaper."
I'm still waiting for an explanation from Elections Canada as to why I'm not allowed to cast a secret ballot like everyone else who does special ballots. Disabled people who do this are assumed to be incapable of reading and writing and have to allow the EC workers to read the list of candidates to us and we have to tell them who we want to vote for so they can write it for us. Try to square that with the fact that we're expected to sign a paper agreeing to let them do this, or we can't vote.
It's a violation of our rights, for those who do want to vote in secret. I realize that some people can't read due to blindness or other impairment and can't write due to paralysis or arthritis, or other issue. I've no objection to them being read to and having the EC worker write for them; there are provisions in the Elections Act for this. But as I pointed out in my complaint to Elections Canada, those of who can read and write should be allowed to do so - because otherwise the government is taking away one of the ways in which we are still independent and treating us as not deserving of respect.
The terminology used for disabled voters needs to change, though. Back in the '80s it was "Incapacitated Elector" and that's how I was described in 2019, when I insisted on voting at the Returning Office for the provincial election. I have several physical disabilities, none of which mean I am incapacitated to the point where I need someone to mark a ballot for me, and I am perfectly capable of understanding the issues and choosing whom I want to vote for.
Modern attitudes toward the disabled are all over the map. While there are situations such as I've described, there are other politicians and authorities who do have a good grasp of what's needed. I wish I could say the current Minister of Social Services here is one with a good grasp, but she never misses an opportunity to stick her nose in the air and tell us to be grateful for what we have even though it's been explained to her over and over that it's inadequate. At least she said yesterday that Red Deer can keep the homeless shelters we already have.
The fact that Biden is even older than Trump at 77 is honestly worrying. Who would've thought the 21st century was one of gerontocrats, eh?
Thankfully we're not like that here. While a PM in his 30s and 40s is considered young, 50 and up is considered normal. And our senators are mandated to retire at age 75.
I don't relate to any single north american generation. None of these categories apply to me, because I grew up in multiple places and as such for instance don't relate to 80s cartoons much, since I did not get to watch north american cartoons while growing up.
I don't relate to them, either, and I was born here.
Not all boomers are the same, I don't get this need to lump them all into one thing and yell at them. The problem people you want to yell at are those pulling the strings at the time, which is a tiny subset of all boomers. Most people are just born into whatever life and deal with whatever they're given, not really being able to affect the world at large much.
