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In reply to the discussion: On DU's population aging, and change to DU... [View all]intheflow
(28,408 posts)Despite the fact that he was born 5 years before when Wikipedia says the Boomers started, the truth is that the "silent generation" is so named because they ignored a lot of inequality and injustice in the name of upward mobility. (White flight to the 'burbs is one manifestation of this, the beginning of the Great Migration is another.) I always think of the SG as the generation of the nuclear family, being adults in the 1950s.
That was not Bernie's experience. He was among of the first wave of white activists who acted in solidarity for civil rights. He protested Vietnam. Those movements (in white people) are Boomer actions, which to my mind, makes Bernie a Boomer.
Disclosure: I am a Boomer according to Wikipedia, but due to family circumstances, I was unable to enter the workforce until the mid-1980s, giving me a very Gen X worldview. I do not consider myself a Boomer in any way, shape or form except for the loosely accepted age brackets that have been interpreted as absolute generational markers.