Boomer Privilege

I tagged this post “Mexico” but it could be anywhere.

I was in San Miguel de Allende, a gorgeous town in the central highlands about three hours north of Mexico City. A lot of gringos (white Canadians and Americans) live there and they and wealthy Mexicans have gentrified the city. Generally, the gringos we saw there are boomers, the worst generation.

A short note on the term “boomer”: I was born in 1963, so I’m technically a boomer, but to me a boomer is someone whose parents were young adults during WWII (mine were too young) and had kids during the post-war boom. I’ve always felt that I was being force-fed boomer music and culture, especially the notion that boomers were somehow the most politically enlightened generation to ever grace the planet. Their resistance to the Vietnam War and support of the Civil RIghts Movement were both emphasized in the boomer mythology that clogged popular media in the 70’s, 80’s and beyond.

This is the generation for whom college came easily and cheaply, a privilege they worked hard to deny later generations, as well as for whom jobs were easy to get as long as you were white and male. So they could consider themselves a great generation without ever having to endure personal sacrifice, and the fact that many of them have become MAGAts as they aged is evidence that they’re as reactionary as the generations that preceded them.

Anyway, back to San Miguel de Allende (SMA). There’s an “organic market” there on Saturdays, and I went to check it out. There were food and native craft vendors, and a ton of boomers. There was also a couple of singers playing the most boomer possible 60’s music (early CSNY, early Dylan, etc). Nothing wrong with that music, but I don’t have the desire to hear “Hard Rain” ever again.

Most of the boomers there had canes or other walking assistance because SMA has existed since the 1500s and the central part of the town is at least 150 years old, so the sidewalks are narrow and uneven. Lots of gringos break bones here regularly, and it’s a testament to the “forever young” mentality of the boomer that they chose to retire here in denial of the obvious fact that they wouldn’t be physically able to walk around the town as they aged.

At the center of the market, there were a lot of food vendors and some tables for people to sit and eat their food. The boomers, in true boomer fashion, occupied all the tables even when they were done eating, and they put their tote bags in empty spots to reserve those spots for their friends. Then they watched the two other boomers playing boomer music. There were rainbow tie-dye hoodies, tote bags with slogans, and oblivious folks taking for-fucking-ever to make a choice at the vendors as lines grew behind them.

In short, they had recreated the experience that one can have in any big blue city in the US on a weekend. An overpriced “farmers market” with the music they like, in a town where they’ve priced all the young people out of the housing market.

This is a group of people who really believe their press and are secure in their generational superiority. They also dominate the upper reaches of the Democratic Party, and those “institutionalists” are as hard to dislodge as a boomer sitting at a table for two hours listening to songs they’ve heard thousands of times over the past 60 years. They know they’re better than the young upstarts, and the notion that they should move their ancient asses and let someone else sit at the table is an insult as well as ageism.