We Fight To Win
We Fight To Win
Inequality and the Politics of Youth Activism
Hava Rachel Gordon compares the struggles and successes of two very different youth movements: a mostly white, middle-class youth activist network in Portland, Oregon, and a working-class network of minority youth in Oakland, California. She examines how these young activists navigate schools, families, community organizations, and the mainstream media, and employ a variety of strategies to make their voices heard on some of today's most pressing issuesùwar, school funding, the environmental crisis, the prison industrial complex, standardized testing, corporate accountability, and educational reform. We Fight to Win is one of the first books to focus on adolescence and political action and deftly explore the ways that the politics of youth activism are structured by age inequality as well as race, class, and gender.
This book provides much insight into youth activism. We Fight to Win is written in lively prose and demonstrates that many youth are determined to engage inactivism to live out their convictions, even when adults attempt to stand in their way. I highly recommend it.
Gordon successfully broadens our understanding of the salience of age as it is ordered by race, class, and gender to the formation of political consciousness, political action, civic engagement and participation in social movements. She makes visible the rich dimensions involved in understanding how youth come to participate in the public sphere and in social movement, but also how forces conspire to preclude such participation.
Well researched, the book challenges readers to rethink the involvement and engagement of youth in society. Highly recommended.
