An Open Letter to the Class of 2021
On the Occasion of Your Graduation
As you prepare to graduate and go on to better things, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect a little on our experience together, the impact that you had upon me, and the promise for a better world that I’m desperately hoping that you keep safe for another generation.
Your four years in high school have been marked by some of the worst political chaos and dysfunction modernity has seen. And to top it all off, we’ve plunged into the worst pandemic in 100 years, and we have found ourselves stunningly incapable of rising to the challenge of controlling, mitigating, and defeating this virus. The adults in your life are probably wonderful people, all of them, but we have all failed you. We have created the conditions for conflict and disorder, and we haven’t taken the necessary steps to stop this slide into polarization. Many of us have ignored science and expertise, and instead retreated into our bubbles and echo chambers where truth has ceased to have meaning. We have again allowed fear, selfishness, and greed to dominate. In short, the world we have left you falls short of what you deserve. We have created so many of the systems, the practices, the understandings, and the unthinking reflexes that created the pandemic. That murdered George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and so many…
