Lack of interest, support is disease of the lost generation

This month, I decided to write on a topic that has bothered me deeply since the beginning of my college career at Winston-Salem State University. That topic is why we have we let ourselves become the lost generation that many adults speak poorly of today? It appears that we are so obsessed with having fun that we don’t care about our school work or our communities. I’m aware that everyone wants to have fun, but the thing that many students have not yet realized is that there is a time and place for everything. It seems that we have forgotten that we are first and foremost attending the university for educational purposes. We are content as long as we are doing enough work to get by in class, thinking that “we’re good” as long as we’re passing. Once, I actually heard a student say he’d rather hang out on the corner with friends than go to a class that he or his parents paid good money for him to attend. Something else that I have a hard time understanding is what keeps a person going back and forth to the same smoky club every week? Is it the prospect of being shot or trampled or beaten up over something that didn’t even concern the majority of the people there? Or maybe we just love to dance and party so much that everything else can fall by the wayside, including school and our grades. Another thing that has bothered me about students on this campus is that we stand for nothing. I used to dispute the accusation by some adults that we are, indeed, the lost generation, but it’s not a lie; we are lost. For example, in last month’s edition of The News Argus, I wrote a column that dealt with fines over at Wilson Hall. It was intended to shed light on a situation that maybe the students weren’t aware of, but apparently they are and just don’t care. I’m sure that many students agreed with the column in private and complained about it for a few minutes, but they overall remained as complacent. It’s quite sad in my opinion. Mobilizing the students on this campus for any “uplifting,” nonentertaining cause is like trying to draw blood from a cactus. For those who do not believe me, I urge you to try to form a campus organization based on academics, self-actualization or the like and see what kind of turnout you get. Or better yet, ask someone who has tried or has organized such a group and see what they have to say about it.No one seems to realize that one student can be crushed and silenced, but the multitude can have a voice. Apparently, there is no multitude at the university, therefore, if there is no backing of the student body at the university, I will not put my neck on the line for people who do not care. We will sit around and complain nonstop about the university doing this or not doing that, but complain is all we’ll do. Also, there are monthly activities and lectures for the students to enjoy, but the seats are usually empty or hardly filled at all. We take advantage of hardly anything related to academics or scholarships or even the pursuit of something other than what will entertain us for the time being. The excuse that I’ve heard the most, and that I find the most hard to believe is “I didn’t see the sign.” We don’t miss those club advertisements though. Likewise, if a student really wants to know what’s happening on-campus, he can always check the postings in the Thompson Center or visit the SGA office. Also, we have a newspaper in which we are able to voice our concerns or opinions about the university, yet we hardly pick it up. Both the SGA office and the newspaper are there for us so why aren’t we using them? If Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. King and a host of other great black leaders were alive today, could we honestly say that we’ve tried our best to be the students that we know we could be? Could we look these men in the eye, leaders who devoted and, in some instances, gave their lives so that we might have a better future, and say that we haven’t forgotten their message? I’m unsure as to why we have become so lax and uncaring about the world around us, but I would like to assert that we are living at a time in which the clock will be turned back on us if we don’t become more aware of what’s going on around us. If we stand for nothing while in college, we’ll stand for nothing if and when we graduate. We are the future of our people (supposedly the cream of the crop), but if we do not get involved in more than clubs, gossip, the latest fashions, etc., we will become the detriment of our race instead of the hope of it.