It's Your World- If You Don't Like It, Change It: Activism for Teenagers

Richie's Picks: IT'S YOUR WORLD--IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, CHANGE IT: ACTIVISM FOR TEENAGERS by Mikki Halpin, Simon Pulse, September 2004, paperback ISBN: 0-689-87448-0

"We can change the world,
Rearrange the world,
It's dying--
To get better."
--Graham Nash, "Chicago"

"Every year in America, more than four million companion animals are needlessly put to death in shelters."

"A full-time working woman [in America] earns only seventy-three cents for every dollar earned by a man."

"On average, an American high school student hears twenty-five anti-gay remarks every day."

Don't like something that's going on? Then change it!

I was joyed to help ferry our budding tenth grade activist and a group of her peers out to the rugged ocean coast recently to take part in a Clean Up Day. There is nothing as a parent that I'd like more than to see my kids grow up to be people who are trying to make this place better. Katie is now the same age I was when I participated in a high school clean up project on the first Earth Day.

And I was living back there on the East coast when, on a summer Southampton morning in 1976, I wandered into Neil's house. Arthur was already there, and our favorite radio station, WPKN, was cranked up on the stereo. But when I walked in that morning, Arthur was all teary-eyed as he began blubbering over and over to me, "They just can't do that! They just can't do that!"

It took twenty minutes of listening to 'PKN before they repeated the announcement that had unhinged my friend: The Board of Trustees of the University of Bridgeport had decided to take active control of "our" radio station and turn it into an NPR affiliate.

"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear."
--Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"

Because I was (am, and forever shall remain) an activist/troublemaker/pain-in-the-butt, I told Arthur that he needed to immediately write letters in protest. And to this day I still cannot understand the response by Arthur which was to do absolutely nothing but moan and mourn. No matter what I said, I could not get him to write even one simple letter.

But I did.

I wrote to Congressman Otis Pike and told him that WPKN was a unique and vital source of alternative news and commentary for his constituents, and that the source was about to be silenced.

A few days later the announcements of the impending change at the station ceased without fanfare or explanation. I then received a written response from Congressman Pike which included a copy of the letter sent to him by the head of the FCC who, at the Congressman's request, had inquired of the University what was going on with the radio station and was told that, oh no, nothing was going on.

"Just give me the warm power of the sun,
Give me the steady flow of a waterfall,
Give me the spirit of living things
As they return to clay.
Just give me the restless power of the wind
Give me the comforting glow of a wood fire
But please take all your atomic poison power away."
--John Hall, "Power"

A year later, as an antinuclear activist, I had the opportunity to visit the WPKN studio to speak on the air about solar energy and conservation technologies. I brought along the letters that Congressman Pike had sent me, and was treated like a prince by the station manager when he saw that letter. He told me that he had never learned why the Trustees had abandoned their plans as abruptly as they had adopted them.

And thus I learned that one young person can make all the difference.

"And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin' "
--Bob Dylan

"Right now in the United States, twenty-six percent of the population is under eighteen. That's more than seventy million people. Imagine what it would be like if you and everyone around you got to tell the world what you think. Don't wait until you're old enough to vote to take action. Starting today, starting right now, you can make your voice heard on the issues that matter to you."

IT'S YOUR WORLD--IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, CHANGE IT is both a blueprint for creating massive numbers of teen pains-in-the-butt and a resource manual that provides the information teens need to go out and change the world. The book is compiled in a teen-friendly format with dozens of success stories penned by teen activists set on the outside edge of the right hand pages, side by side with the nuts and bolts (and websites) that provide the necessary tools for kids to instigate their own changes at their homes, in their schools, and out in the real world.

"My body's nobody's body but mine.
You run your own body let me run mine."
--Peter Alsop, "My Body"

The book is divided into sections on Helping Animals, Fighting Racism, Saving the Environment, Ending War, Fighting the Spread of HIV/AIDS, Stopping School Violence and Bullying, Defending Women's Rights, Protecting Civil Rights and Civil Liberty, and Promoting Tolerance Toward Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth. There are annotated book lists, organization lists, and piles of ideas that can be utilized immediately.

"And I know that you were younger once
'Cuz you sure are older now
And when I've got something to say, Sir
I'm gonna say it now"
--Phil Ochs --"I'm Gonna Say it Now"

I don't expect that a large percentage of the book's young readers will grow up to be the nutjob that I've long become: A long-haired fanatic who'd happily tell preschoolers why he didn't eat "dead, chopped up animals," who always conned his own kids into choosing subjects like Ruby Bridges, Gandhi, and Rachel Carson when they had to do a report for school, who still stands his ground on drying clothes on a line in the sun and refuses to own a dryer, who has stood with a sign on a hundred street corners actively and vocally supporting peace, Project Billboard, alternative energy, gay marriage, Choice, gun control, affirmative action, school libraries, No Name Calling, a Skateboard Park for our community's kids, and probably has a decades-long FBI file to prove it all. (The book tells you how to obtain a copy of that file through the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, I'll be submitting my request shortly.)

"You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one"
--John Lennon, "Imagine"

When I was a passionate listener thirty years ago, WPKN's format was predominantly a mix of alternative news and commentaries written by the DJs and randomly interspersed amidst the music. I "met" such musicians as Bruce Cockburn, Dan Hicks, Doc Watson, and Peggy Seeger through 'PKN. I learned about Zimbabwe and Central America. The station's format was my inspiration for including song lyrics within my essays and book reviews.

IT'S YOUR WORLD--IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, CHANGE IT, ACTIVISM FOR TEENAGERS will be music to the ears of teens who are disturbed about the state of affairs that confront them in their lives, and are under the mistaken impression that there is nothing they can do about it. And since "Being a Teen" is more often than not synonymous with "Being Disturbed," this book theoretically has quite a large potential audience.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com ( )