MSNBC: Wynton Marsalis on making a difference
Source: MSNBC
My daddy thought — no, he expected — that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He was correct in his belief because he had lived in an America of continual social progress depression followed by prosperity, segregation by integration, and so on. And though I haven't quite pinpointed it, somewhere between my daddy's youth and mine, generational aspirations for a richer democracy changed to aspirations for a richer me — more wealth and more leisure time for a lower quality of work. And our political process? We didn't keep an eye on how our tax dollars were being squandered or how our interests were being poorly served by our elected officials.
When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change? Perhaps the demoralizing murders of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King scared the civic-minded young people of the 1960s right out of their idealism into despair and then, to in difference. Perhaps it was the 1980s when the opportunity inherent in the American Dream was distorted from the land of "we" to the land of "to hell with anybody else but me." Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.
In any case, the result of this social inactivity is that generations are now named simply for the last letters of the alphabet (Generation X, Generation Y, and so forth). And these alphabet-named people are distinguished by their ability to manipulate new technology, buy new things with money they have not earned and be obsessed with the trivial lives of celebrities.
My message to young people is this, that what happened in New Orleans, what is happening around the world, is a signal opportunity to actually start to participate. Throughout the history of America, young people have been a part of change. Its time to seize the day.
This is a great interview - don't miss it.
