Originally Posted: Jan. 24, 2020
Raised in the Houston area, Darian Taylor, will graduate in May with a double major in public policy and communications. Regardless of what job he lands next, he intends to make time to replicate his work at SMU by doing community-organizing. READ MORE
OK, this boomer decided — as another nasty election cycle tempts me to cower under my bed until 2021 — to instead seek out the opinion of someone who’s about to cast his first vote in a presidential primary.
What young person would want to wade into this pigsty? I asked Darian Taylor, a senior at Southern Methodist University. With a smile that lit up the room, he responded, “Yes, that’s me.”
This 21-year-old African American, elected student body president of the predominantly white SMU, is hopeful but not naïve, about the state of affairs in both Dallas and Washington.
Politics can be awful, he acknowledges. But Taylor, on the leading edge of Gen Z and whose first political memory was Barack Obama’s inauguration, said he believes our stridently polarized state of affairs is due for a change.
“People my age don’t know anything better, but we know how bad it is right now,” he told me as we sat in the Texana Room of Fondren Library this week. “The pendulum will move back toward a climate of cooperation, and my generation is the one that will swing it that way.”
Taylor hasn’t just gotten an education at SMU; he’s broken down walls within the school and between its students and local communities “that don’t have the privilege we have.”
As SMU student president, he’s also often the only African American present in boardrooms with donors and administrators. “I realized how important it is to have my opinion at that table, and how long have we gone without a person of color at this table?” he said.
K.C. Mmeje, vice president for student affairs, says he knew the first time he met Taylor that he would leave an indelible mark on SMU. He ticked off a list of Taylor’s assets — strong sense of character, work ethic, maturity and passion for serving others — then summed it up thusly: “I want to be like him when I grow up.”