By Lola Renegade | Atlanta, GA | June 25, 2026

Too many Black Millennials and Gen Zers are partying, twerking, and shopping us back into slavery all while being distracted by an endless parade of entertainment, celebrity culture, social media validation, consumerism, and moments of performative outrage when another Black man or woman is gunned down by the police. Seemingly, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are long forgotten.

And it’s not just them. Many older African Americans are also sleepwalking through one of the most consequential political, economic, and social moments in modern American history. They are so afraid of white folks they will not embrace messages of liberation. Those that are doing nothing now did not do anything earlier in their lives. Once an activist, always an activist.

While our ancestors risked their lives to learn to read, register to vote, own property, attend school, challenge segregation, and secure opportunities for future generations, many of our young are being encouraged to invest their time, attention, and resources elsewhere. Social media algorithms reward spectacle over substance. Celebrity culture celebrates consumption over joining those of us who continue the fight. Influencers teach them how to go viral but rarely how to build institutions, organize communities, create businesses,  acquire political power, or defend democracy.

At the very moment when voting rights are under attack, economic inequality is widening, public education is being politicized, healthcare remains unevenly accessible, and democratic institutions face mounting challenges, millions are being sold a different vision of success. They are encouraged to pursue likes, followers, luxury brands, designer labels, sports betting, slave chains around their necks, expensive vacations, strip clubs, and temporary fame. They are taught to consume, react, and entertain rather than take on and disrupt the negative forces shaping all of our futures.

Too many African Americans of all ages have become spectators in a struggle that demands participants. While powerful interests debate voting rights, criminal justice reform, economic opportunity, public education, and the future of democracy itself, voter turnout remains inconsistent, particularly in local elections where decisions affecting schools, housing, policing, economic development, healthcare, and public safety are actually made. So many of our young people know the lyrics to every trending song but cannot name their city council member, county commissioner, state representative, state senator, school board member, or congressional representative.  They know who is dating whom, who is feuding with whom, and who released the latest album, yet remain uninformed about legislation that directly affects our communities, our children, and our economic futures.

This conversation must also include the influence of portions of modern rap culture. Not all hip-hop is destructive. Hip-hop has produced extraordinary artists, scholars, entrepreneurs, activists, storytellers, and visionaries who have illuminated the Black experience with honesty, creativity, and brilliance. However, it is equally true that some of the most celebrated figures in popular culture built their brands glorifying drug dealing, violence, misogyny, hyper-materialism, and self-destruction. Many proudly recount how they sold drugs in Black neighborhoods to anyone willing to buy them, helping fuel addiction, family instability, incarceration, and despair in communities already struggling under the weight of poverty, discrimination, and disinvestment. The very activities that damaged neighborhoods became the foundation of entertainment empires worth millions and billions of dollars. Meanwhile, the communities left behind continue to bear the social and economic consequences. They helped the colonizers destroy our families and communities. 

The irony is painful. Previous generations marched so that we could vote. They risked their lives so that we could attend integrated schools, go through the front doors of establishments, sit in whatever seats were available, use any bathrooms, and stay in any hotel. They endured beatings, arrests, police dogs, fire hoses, bombings, economic retaliation, imprisonment, and even death so that future generations would have opportunities they never enjoyed.

Yet too often our younger generations behave as though freedom is permanent, democracy is on auto-renewal and is self-sustaining, and that progress is inevitable. Many consume the sacrifices of our ancestors without investing in the future of our descendants. They enjoy rights they did not earn while failing to protect them for those who will come after them. They spend billions of dollars each year on entertainment and consumption while too many schools struggle, too many worthy Black-founded nonprofits close for lack of funding, too many neighborhoods decline, too many young people lack mentors, and too many families remain economically vulnerable.

There is nothing wrong with partying and enjoying the life you have built. There is nothing wrong with enjoying music, fashion, sports, nightlife, or entertainment. Black joy has always been a form of resistance and survival. Our music, humor, creativity, and culture have sustained us through slavery, segregation, Jim and Jane Crow, discrimination, and injustice. The danger arises when entertainment becomes your primary identity, when consumption replaces solid citizenship, when celebrity replaces leadership, and when distraction becomes a substitute for civic engagement.

History has never been changed by those who were merely entertained by it. History is changed by those willing to organize, vote, build institutions, create businesses, educate children, mentor youth, challenge injustice, and make sacrifices for causes greater than themselves. Frederick Douglass did not free himself and speak out against slavery through entertainment. Harriet Tubman did not lead enslaved people to freedom through social media influence or how many likes she received from the plantations’ cottonfields. The Freedom Riders did not board buses headed into danger because it was convenient. All of them acted because history called and they unselfishly answered.

The question before Black Millennials and Generation Z is not whether they deserve to party. The question is whether they will party and still answer history’s call. The question is whether they can enjoy life while remaining committed to protecting democracy, strengthening communities, building wealth, educating children, supporting institutions, and defending freedoms won through the sacrifices of those who came before them.

One day, future generations will read about what all of us did with the freedom we inherited. They will not ask how many followers were accumulated, how many luxury vehicles owned, how many concerts attended, how many viral videos created, how many nights spent in clubs, or how many designer labels filled closets.

They will ask whether we strengthened democracy or weakened it. They will ask whether we expanded opportunity or merely consumed it. They will ask whether we invested in future generations or focused exclusively on ourselves.

Perhaps the most haunting and powerful question they will ask is, “What were you all doing when democracy was whipped beyond recognition, burned on a cross, and hung on a tree?”