{"id":1608,"date":"2009-04-24T12:20:24","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T17:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2009-04-24T12:20:24","modified_gmt":"2009-04-24T17:20:24","slug":"generation-next-the-big-complicated-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/04\/24\/generation-next-the-big-complicated-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"GENERATION NEXT: The Big, Complicated Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/tbn3.google.com\/images?q=tbn:fLuLdgNmn_xqVM:http:\/\/pics4.city-data.com\/cpicc\/cfiles31324.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>New Orleans has become a pilgrimage of sorts for the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s youth. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to realize in a big way while researching my new book, <em>Do Greaters: The Kids These Days and How They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Changing the World.<\/em> Turns out that for Americans, in general, but especially for folks under 35, New Orleans has become the new rite of passage in our understanding of good works.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s generally great for the folks who head there. They learn about the complexity of infrastructure, maybe gain a few construction or landscaping skills, meet some new friends, maybe even get a tan. But what is the effect on the native residents of New Orleans?<\/p>\n<p>This is a question I asked in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/cs\/articles?article=the_trouble_with_outside_activists\">a column over at The American Prospect<\/a> not too long ago: &#8220;Like Juan Ponce DeLeon&#8217;s mythological fountain of youth, the Lower 9th Ward has become upper-middle-class America&#8217;s source of feel-good absolution&#8230;.But the darker side of all of this well-intentioned activism is that it has created a revolving door of services and support in a parish that is in dire need of a strategic plan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/cs\/articles?article=outside_activism_recnsidered\">being answered by a series of homegrown activists.<\/a> Some of their answers are chilling, like this one, from Timolynn Sams, executive director of Neighborhoods Partnership Network (NPN), New Orleans native: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We&#8217;ve become this laboratory, but we are not guinea pigs. We want to be part of the science, but as the scientists, not the experiment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>It brings up all sorts of difficult ethical questions. When are our well-intentioned attempts to help more selfish than selfless? What can folks with big hearts, a little extra money, and a lot of energy do to help rebuild New Orleans? Should we urge all the eager post-college grads to head to Detroit and Cincinnati instead? Or will that just engender the same problems?<\/p>\n<p>Food for thought. Would love to hear your ideas\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Orleans has become a pilgrimage of sorts for the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s youth. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to realize in a big way while researching my new book, Do Greaters: The Kids These Days and How They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Changing the World. Turns out that for Americans, in general, but especially for folks under 35, New Orleans has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1910,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21102],"tags":[46,100],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generation-next","tag-activism","tag-youth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}