It ain’t easy being a kid these days. For the first time in generations, today’s teens have worse prospects ahead of them than their parents did, and the pressure to toe the line and be a success is heavier than ever . . . and so is the temptation to just give up. But there are things in the world worth fighting for!
This scrapbook-style collection of essays, excerpts, explanations, and images pushes back against a culture that relentlessly demands that kids give up their best ideals, abandon their hopes, forget their ethical objections to dominant life, soothe their rage, and accept their fates. From dealing with the cops to dealing with your peers, from school and community to drugs and sex, from race and class to money and mental health, Stay Solid! provides essential support for radically inclined teens who believe that it’s possible for all of us to hang on to our values and build a life we believe in.
Compiled and edited by radical urbanist and educator Matt Hern, with the assistance of the youth community at Vancouver’s Purple Thistle Center, Stay Solid! is for kids everywhere, and for anyone who considers themselves an ally—parents, teachers, neighbors, friends, relatives, and beyond.
Contributors include Noam Chomsky, Patricia Hill Collins, The Guerilla Girls, Derrick Jensen, Grace Llewellyn, Margaret Killjoy, Dan Savage, Astra Taylor, and more.
Table of Content
* Forward
* Introduction, by Matt Hern
*Section 1 *
1. Family (parenting)
Contributors include: Phillip Larkin, Ivan Coyote, Eldon Hay, Walker Banerd, Kelsey Savage, Laura Maybe, John Dewey
2. School
Contributors include: Carla Bergman, Gustavo Esteva, Grace Llewellyn
3. Community
Contributors include: Benito Wamburo, Chris Mercogliano, Fly, Liz Lichtman, Matt Hern
4. Money (careers, work etc.)
Contributors include: Aly de la Cruz, Starla, Geoff Mann, Astra Taylor, Hari Alluri, Anna Hunter
5. Things you are good at (skills)
Contributors include: Nigel Boeur, Wendell Berry, Lynda Berry, Dishwasher Pete
*Section 2*
6. Sex
Contributors include: Dan Savage, Maggie Hallowell, Leroy Wan, Meredith Lum,
7. Drugs
Contributors TBD
8. Pop culture
Contributors TBD
9. Relationships (friends, romance)
Contributors TBD
10. Travel
Contributors include: Cole Robertson, Gabe Martin, Mikeal, Elise Bouer, Bianca Bockman, Eylem Korkmaz, Dan Bushnell
*Section 3 *
11. Class
Contributors TBD
12. Race
Contributors TBD
13. Gender/sexuality
Contributors include: Sunera Thobani, Tania Willard, Cynthia Dewi Oka
14. Dis/ability = Cecily
Contributors include: Carmen Papalia, Sunaura Taylor, Marcus Youssef
15. Indigenous struggles
Contributors TBD
16. Eco disaster
Contributors include: Paul Watson, Derrick Jensen, Vandana Shiva, Ben West, Will Allen
* Section 4 *
17. Identity/Immigration
Contributors include: Alexandra Henao, Fara Mclaren, Raul Arboleda, Arman Zamani
18. Cops /courts
Contributors include: Jaggi Singh, Ashanti Alston, Arlin French, Harsha Walia
19. Mental health
Contributors TBD
20. Your body
Contributors include: Patricia Hill Collins, Karine Silverwoman
*OUTRO : Getting old/er*
Contributors include Noam Chomsky, Peter Prontzos, Tasnim Nathoo
Biographies
About the author
Matt Hern lives and works in East Vancouver with his partner and daughters. He founded, and for nine years has directed the Purple Thistle Centre, an all-ages youth-run community center for arts and activism. Among his other projects is a youth exchange program with an isolated town in northern Canada designed to bring native and non-native kids together to live, work, and travel.His books and writing have been published on all six continents and translated into ten languages. He writes features and articles for a wide variety of publications, and continues to lecture globally.He is the author of Field Day (New Star, 2003), Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better (New Star, 2007), and Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future, and is the editor of Deschooling Our Lives (New Society, 1996), and Everywhere, All the Time (AK Press, 2008).Matt holds a Ph D in Urban Studies and lectures at SFU and UBC in Urban Studies and Education departments and is on faculty at the Institute for Social Ecology and Prescott College in Arizona. He remains active in a number of movements in Vancouver, is a food security activist, avid gardener and unrepentant sports fan. For more info, be sure to visit his website: www.mightymatthern.com.
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