If you mention the name Tipper Gore to anyone in Generation X, you will probably be met with a sigh and dramatically rolled eyes. We all vividly remember the years of the Parent’s Music Resource Council and all the hearings and articles and fretting adults did about lyrics. We thought it was stupid over reaction then and we think it’s a stupid over reaction now.

But after we roll our eyes we might say “Those stickers on albums, though. Those let you know where the good music was. You know. Not the mainstream stuff.”

Every generation had it’s counter-culture but I like to think GenX honed counter-culture and the accompanying sneering disregard for everything to a fine art. GenX knew how to hate shit. We were like Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice.

At the same time, however, we were probably watching “Beverly Hills 90210”. We were elitist but we knew sometimes popular stuff was popular for good reason.

You are wondering when I’m going to get to the feminism, aren’t you? It’s coming.

Remember last week when I was challenging myself to get real about my intersectional feminist principles and admit that I need to pay attention to the Dem 2020 candidate that has the biggest share of Black support? And how that candidate is not my personal choice, Elizabeth Warren? It’s Joe Biden?

Yeah, so my GenX-fuck-the-establishment tendency is kicking in like crazy at the idea that I should vote for Joe Bide. Even knowing I would be doing in in support of a voting bloc who needs their choices elevated more than I need my choices elevated. I want to scream “Fuck you I do what I want!” and stomp my GenX feet and vote for Warren anyway. Because she is just that good. She’s like Keanu Reeves in My Own Private Idaho.

I don’t want Joe Biden. He’s like Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Only…they’re both still Keanu Reeves.

Warren and Biden are both Democrats who will give me what I most want in the world of politics: liberal Supreme Court Justices and a good faith attempts to provide health care, education, housing, and food for all Americans. I can be all sneery and condescending about Biden but I also have to acknowledge his strengths, one of which is appealing to Black voters.

Joe Biden doesn’t come with the warning label of the music of my youth to let me know the good stuff is there. He’s about as mainstream a candidate as you can get. But if I know anything after years of being the person who defaults to hating things, I know this: just because something isn’t to my (snooty, elitist) taste doesn’t mean it’s bad. Sometimes other people know better than me and I have to listen.