I respect your fear and concern as valid to you, but I also grew up in the 1990s and I don't personally recall them being carefree at all.
Between the Murrah Federal Building being attacked by domestic terrorists, a group of extremists in Waco creating a standoff that ended in a conflagration that killed so many innocent children and women, the first attack on the WTC by Osama bin Laden's newly established al Qaeda, the first Gulf War, the regular bombings in Northern Ireland, the sarin attack on Tokyo's subway system that was "guaranteed to be heading to the USA next," the cold-blooded murder of several American physicians by the self-named "Army of God," the Atlanta Olympic bombings by another domestic terrorist from the "Army of God," and many others that I'm sure I'm forgetting, as a teen and young adult it was quite intimidating and flat-out scary at times. Now, as an adult, I realize that I've never been more safe living in my cocoon of privilege and am quite aware that I'm far more likely to be killed in a car accident driving into work than I am to be killed in a modern version of the scary events I remember from the 1990s.
And right now I'm personally inspired and excited by the civil rights protests by members of Black Lives Matter and others, and while I do not like some of the most extreme actions of a very small segment of its membership, I am in full support of their primary efforts and goals and am proud to watch them develop.