PHILADELPHIA – If you were wondering why so many people dislike millennials today, look no further than the Orwellian-sounding “Youth Council” of the Democratic Party.
When Sarah Audelo, Millennial Vote Director for Hillary for America, took the podium, she began her remarks with a bunch of rules, a tactic that has become typical of snowflakes on college campuses protesting everyone’s free speech except their own.
“I open this space, perhaps, with a couple of ground rules,” she said. The first two rules were about working beyond the election and recognizing that everyone came for “good reasons.” But the third rule was, well, typical millennial.
“One of the ground rules that I do in a lot of my trainings, maybe you all have heard this before. I love it, but it is ‘don’t yuck my yum,'” she said “For some of us, there are some things that are very yummy and it hurts when people ‘yuck’ on us. So for example, if one issue is my core issue and it’s not yours, that’s cool, it’s my core issue, don’t yuck my yum, that’s cool.”
The phrase “yuck my yum” basically means not to tell someone that what they like is bad simply because you don’t like it. It can sometimes refer to food (quite literally, don’t tell me my food is gross), but also to sexuality.
Audelo went on to talk about the “space” she wanted to create for millennials in the room, something that didn’t need to be said and came off as insolent and not very inclusive. It reminded me of campus protesters who barred allies from helping with their cause simply because they were not black or of the LGBT community.
“This is the Youth Council space and so I see lots of allies in the room, and you’re certainly welcome to be here and I’m excited that you’re here [but] um, we really want to use this space to create a space for millennials, for our 36 and unders, to talk about the issues that we’re facing, and so if you’re maybe not under the age of 36 and under, maybe let’s just have a conversation afterwards?” Audelo said. “Again, we totally want to hear from you, but because as folks who are 36 and under we so rarely get our own space, we very rarely get an opportunity to discuss the issues that are important to us, we’re going to reserve this space for our 36 and unders. Is that okay with folks?”
There was some applause from the audience, of which one-third may have been older than 36.
As a note, the Democratic Women’s Caucus didn’t say anything like this to keep men out. The Black Caucus doesn’t say this to keep white people out. But … millennials.
One interesting thing Audelo mentioned was that the Hillary Clinton campaign is offering paid positions for students on campus to mobilize for Clinton. “My team is going to be very mad at me” for saying that, she said.
Audelo wasn’t the only speaker at the council meeting that proved why millennials get a bad rap. Pennsylvania State Rep. Brian Sims told those in the audience, about half of whom were still in high school, that “I know that you’re smarter than your parents.”
You know all those times when you were younger (or when your child was a teenager) and they insisted they were smarter? He’s telling them they were right. They’re not.
“Remind them that you have more access to information on your 18th birthday than your parents did until they were 37 years old,” Sims said. “Now just having access to information isn’t enough, it’s what you do with that information that matters.”
So in other words, you’re smarter than your parents just because you have access to Google at an earlier age. Our parents have life experience that has taught them what life is really like, how things really work and that it’s more than just having access to Wikipedia, but whatever.
“Statistically, if you are under the age of 35,” he went on, “statistically, if you are a woman in the United States, statistically, if you are a person of color in the United States you are significantly more empathetic than the straight, white, moral majority in this country. And it’s time that we all behave that way because we’re not born this way. Nobody is born more empathetic. This is what happens when you grow up around a straight, white patriarchy.”
That’s why people hate Millennials.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
