Slack This

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In a matter of months in 1990 and 1991, our generation mobilized broad opposition to the massacre of the Iraqi people. In 1992, after a Simi Valley jury acquitted the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King, we were among the first to take to the streets in organized mass protest. And Gen Xers have been key players in efforts to save the life of death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Generation X feminists revitalized the women's movement by staging Take Back the Night marches, establishing campus-based rape-crisis hot lines, and defending women's clinics from far-right terrorists. And don't forget: It was the daring theatrics of Gen X activists in ACT UP that put the AIDS epidemic on the policy agenda as a health care crisis.

Our politics far outstrip the classic 1960s agenda of civil rights, women's rights, and peace. Our most committed activists not only oppose white supremacy, male supremacy, and economic exploitation; we also passionately support queer liberation, the rights of people with disabilities, community control of police, human rights for immigrants, and sustainable ecological development. We use technological innovations to raise our voices above the mass media din, and we eagerly embrace cultural celebration and spiritual renewal.

And allsigns point to increasing militancy. Recent political attacks on immigrants and affirmative-action programs have radicalized a whole new group of California youth; in New York, the Giuliani-Pataki attack on social services has elicited mass protest from young people, swelling our ranks with new faces and ideas.[run in]

As bad as times are right now, things would be much worse without Gen X activists and organizers. If you compare our track record with the accomplishments of the baby boomers since the 1970s, it's hard to see why everyone is calling us slackers.

From Third Force (Sept./Oct. 1996).

Subscriptions: $22/yr. (6 issues) available from Center for Third World Organizing, 1218 E. 21st. St., Oakland, CA 94606.

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