Class and race privilege is a constant topic for our generation. The gulf between rich and poor has been widening for decades. And, as journalist Farai Chideya has documented in The Color of Our Future, we're about twice as racially diverse as young people a generation ago. Growing up today is a whole different ball game racially and culturally. Stanford and UC Berkeley are majority people of color now. Chicano punk rock is a major subgenre. So is Filipino hip-hop.

One of the most promising traits of many young people today is our awareness of how race, class, gender, and sexuality interlock. All those years of anti-oppression workshops are bearing fruit. Bitter old arguments about who is most oppressed have subsided, and everyone is talking about how to build coalitions: laborers and environmentalists, blacks and Asians, transgendered Jews and straight Muslims. We're learning to create solid alliances and friendships across the great divides-the more unlikely, the better.

Young visionaries bring different styles, strengths, and strategies from those of decades past. We've been bred on hip-hop aesthetics and pop culture irony. Like a good DJ, we tend to incorporate insights and lessons from diverse sources and previous decades: personal healing (because 'people need to deal with their own shit first'); organizational development (because 'the charismatic leader model is dead'); business and management skills (because 'the movement needs to be sustainable').

This new political activism is accompanied by new cultural and spiritual currents as well: From veganism to poetry slams, from raves to gay-straight alliances in high schools, young people are reshaping the boundaries of American life. The DIY (do-it-yourself) ethic in punk and hip-hop music-and the declining cost of technology-has contributed to the sense that anyone can become a visionary (anyone who can afford a computer, at least, or who doesn't have to work three jobs to get by) by creating a Web site, a zine, a CD, or a movie, or by starting an organization or a company.

Young visionaries, like those of earlier generations, tend to be involved with the arts, media, and activism. Do these fields attract more visionary people? Or is it just easier to recognize a visionary artist than a visionary farmer, engineer, parent, or assembly line worker? I wonder what would happen if glossymagazines featured extraordinary child care providers, sidewalk vendors, and middle managers alongside authors and recording stars. We need more visionaries in all fields, especially the least obvious ones. We have a glut of visionary writers and actors. We need more visionary J.D.'s, R.N.'s, and M.B.A.'s!