What did you do when history was made? Did you dance in the street? Cry tears of pure emotion? Join the jelly of the month club? Well?

When’s the last time you did anything?

We are, for lack of words, a generation of pansies. Birthed into the best social situations the world has ever known, raised jointly by the education system and TV and fully synced to more information than we could ever desire, we’ve really got it made. Food makes us fat, drugs make us better and lawyers ensure, God forbid, that no one can afford to insult us. What more could we want?

Forty years ago, at the age of 17, my mother worked part-time, against my grandfather’s wishes, so she could graduate from college and get married, all before she could buy a beer.

My father came of age during the late 1960s, an era of debates and protests and guys blowing their feet off in defiance of a far-off war they had no stake in.
Our grandparents fought, scraped and tore their way to equality and the very right to live.
The generations before them were immigrants, poor minorities or blue collar laborers, each with next to no rights at all.

We are Americans. We’re the movers and the shakers of the past 200 years, baby, and we danced like disco would never die. At least we did.

One generation later, the turntables have stopped to make room for high-speed downloads, the dollar went to pasture, we made a super collider with the potential to destroy the Earth and we witnessed the two deadliest attacks on United States soil since World War II. What’s that? Forget about the Murrah bombing so soon? With all that’s happening, we’ve got reason enough for action.

Our new president has called us to change. But we’re not changing. We’re not doing anything at all.

We’re even largely apathetic for something as small-scale as campus issues. A practical lesson in student leadership is a lesson in bureaucracy. Everyone has ideas but no one has the time, ergo the buck is passed. Those organizations which accomplish anything ride on the backs of the dedicated few who assume all the responsibility. The protests of our forefathers have turned into a mumbling acceptance of faceless policies. How are people protesting the smoking bans? If dining services hadn’t made an attempt to spruce up brunch on their own, would people do anything but whine? Does anyone even care what they eat for dinner tonight? Or are all people content to mindlessly utter, “I dunno, whatever you want?”

In order to change, we need to want something different. When we’ve found something, we need the will to fight for it. Get up. Get angry. Fight the urge to be passive aggressive. Lick that stamp, pave that highway, run across that quad naked if you think it’ll do anything. But do something.

We don’t need a president to make history. Every day is history.

Lewis Baker is a psychology senior from Oklahoma City. He can be reached at [email protected].