{"product_id":"do-it-anyway-isbn-9780807000472","title":"Do It Anyway","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf you care about social change but hate feel-good platitudes, \u003ci\u003eDo It Anyway \u003c\/i\u003eis the book for you. Courtney Martin’s rich profiles of the new generation of activists dig deep, to ask the questions that really matter: How do you create a meaningful life? Can one person even begin to make a difference in our hugely complex, globalized world?\u003c\/p\u003eIntroduction \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I Am Hungry for One Good Thing I Can Do” \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRachel Corrie, peace activist, Olympia, Washington\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An Altar Boy with a Gun \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRaul Diaz, prison reentry social worker, Los Angeles\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Recovery Mission \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMaricela Guzman, veterans’ activist, Los Angeles\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Boxer \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eEmily Abt, filmmaker, New York City\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It Ain’t Easy Being Green \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNia Martin-Robinson, environmental justice advocate,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWashington, D.C., via Detroit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClass Action \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTyrone Boucher, radical philanthropist, Philadelphia\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePower Becomes Her \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRosario Dawson, actor and activist, Los Angeles\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003evia New York City\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Born to Teach \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eDena Simmons, eighth grade teacher, Bronx, New York\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eGood Failure\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Further Resources\u003cp\u003e“Courtney Martin’s portraits of eight young activists reveal people who are flawed, scared, and human—which makes them all the more \u003cb\u003einspiring\u003c\/b\u003e. An elegant, effortless read that confirms what we already know: young people continue to change the world.”\u003cbr\u003e —Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, authors of \u003ci\u003eManifesta \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Grassroots\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eDo It Anyway \u003c\/i\u003easks the most difficult question possible: \u003cb\u003ehow can I make my life meaningful?\u003c\/b\u003e The answers are varied, transformational, and necessary for us all.”\u003cbr\u003e —Jane Fonda\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Courtney Martin is \u003cb\u003eone of our most insightful culture critics and one of our finest young writers\u003c\/b\u003e. She’s written a lively, compelling, and very important book for people of every generation who want to be fully alive \u003ci\u003ein\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eto\u003c\/i\u003e the world. Take in what she says and you may find yourself turning to that impossible cause you care about and ‘doing it anyway.’” \u003cbr\u003e —Parker J. Palmer, author of \u003ci\u003eLet Your Life Speak\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Unlike a lot of authors, Courtney Martin isn’t trying to sell you activism and why you should (yawn) get involved. Instead, \u003cb\u003eshe goes deep into the stories and lived experience\u003c\/b\u003e of eight individuals. \u003ci\u003eDo It Anyway\u003c\/i\u003e is a treasure and deeply affecting.” \u003cbr\u003e —Billy Wimsatt, author of \u003ci\u003eBomb the Suburbs\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePlease Don't  Bomb the Suburbs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Put this on your must  read list! Courtney Martin, of Feministing and Perfect Girls, Starving  Daughters fame, has just launched a new book. Do It Anyway: The New Generation  of Activists profiles the work of eight activists, doing what they can to make  this world a better place.”\u003cbr\u003e- \u003ci\u003eThe Real Deal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCourtney E. Martin\u003c\/b\u003e is a senior correspondent for the\u003ci\u003e American Prospect\u003c\/i\u003e and an editor of Feministing.com. A 2002 recipient of the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, she is the author of \u003ci\u003ePerfect Girls, Starving Daughters\u003c\/i\u003e and coauthor of \u003ci\u003eThe Naked Truth\u003c\/i\u003e. Her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eMother Jones, Newsday, \u003c\/i\u003ethe \u003ci\u003eChristian Science Monitor, \u003c\/i\u003eand on Huffington Post and Alternet, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.\u003c\/p\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eSave the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Where were you the first time you heard those three little\u003cbr\u003e words?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It’s a phrase that has slipped off the tongues of hippie parents\u003cbr\u003e and well-intentioned teachers with a sort of cruel ease for the\u003cbr\u003e last three decades. In Evangelical churches and Jewish summer\u003cbr\u003e camps, on \u003ci\u003e3-2-1 Contact \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDora the Explorer\u003c\/i\u003e, even on MTV, we\u003cbr\u003e (America’s youth) have been charged with the vaguest and most\u003cbr\u003e ethically dangerous of responsibilities: save the world. But what\u003cbr\u003e does it really mean? What has it ever really meant—when uttered\u003cbr\u003e by moms and ministers, by zany aunts and debate coaches—to\u003cbr\u003e save the whole wildly complex, horrifically hypocritical, overwhelmingly\u003cbr\u003e beautiful world?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I for one had no idea, but that didn’t stop me from internalizing\u003cbr\u003e the message. I swallowed those three little words—a trio\u003cbr\u003e of radioactive seeds. They looked innocent enough when poured\u003cbr\u003e into my palm, but when swallowed, they buried themselves\u003cbr\u003e deep in my gut and started to grow. South African novelist J. M.\u003cbr\u003e Coetzee wrote, “All creatures come into the world bringing with\u003cbr\u003e them the memory of justice.” Shortly thereafter, if all is right, the\u003cbr\u003e world breeds in us an outrage over injustice.\u003cbr\u003e At first I engaged my outrage like a true-blue white girl from\u003cbr\u003e the suburbs. I sent letters to the managers of Arby’s and Wendy’s\u003cbr\u003e in my hometown, begging them to stop using Styrofoam cups\u003cbr\u003e in their establishments for the good of our Mother Earth. No\u003cbr\u003e response.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I volunteered in an assisted living facility, screaming the\u003cbr\u003e letter-number combinations for a comatose game of bingo.\u003cbr\u003e Though the residents attempted to adjust their hearing aids, my\u003cbr\u003e voice was too high to register. They screamed, “What? What did\u003cbr\u003e that girl say?” to one another, but everyone just shrugged and\u003cbr\u003e smiled at me sympathetically.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I worked at the local soup kitchen, dragging wet rags across\u003cbr\u003e Formica tables with my eyes diverted straight down, hoping\u003cbr\u003e none of the homeless people would actually speak to me. I was\u003cbr\u003e frightened by the ones that smelled, but even more frightened\u003cbr\u003e by the ones that didn’t smell. The ones that looked like me and\u003cbr\u003e my mom. The ones that I’d seen walking around downtown and\u003cbr\u003e never even known I was supposed to save. I couldn’t name it yet,\u003cbr\u003e but it was the first experience that called the conventional wisdom\u003cbr\u003e at the time—that there were savers and those to be saved,\u003cbr\u003e and that these were immutable categories—into question.\u003cbr\u003e When Sally Struthers commercials came on, featuring little\u003cbr\u003e African babies with distended bellies and flies hovering around\u003cbr\u003e their eyes, I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I took\u003cbr\u003e it personally. After all, I had been charged with saving the world,\u003cbr\u003e as had my friends and little bike-riding neighbors. The adults in\u003cbr\u003e our lives had drawn a line directly between the suffering of the\u003cbr\u003e world—the African babies, the growing hole in the ozone layer,\u003cbr\u003e the homeless guy who lay listlessly on the bench outside the\u003cbr\u003e library—and our own nascent sense of purpose.\u003cbr\u003e Once, agitated with one epiphany or another, I decided I\u003cbr\u003e would march around my neighborhood—middle class, suburban,\u003cbr\u003e white—and ask people for money for “the poor.” I found an old\u003cbr\u003e glass jar in my playhouse, cleaned it fastidiously, and headed into\u003cbr\u003e the suburban wilderness for my first experience of fund-raising.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It went pretty well, actually. I was cute at the time—frizzy\u003cbr\u003e hair permanently set in a side ponytail, big blue-green eyes with\u003cbr\u003e dark, thick eyelashes, and a pair of magenta Converse high-tops\u003cbr\u003e (it was the eighties). I think that the smiling neighbors, pried\u003cbr\u003e from their daily dose of Oprah, took one look at me, heard my\u003cbr\u003e half-formed rationale, and sympathized with the familiar ache in\u003cbr\u003e my heart. They dropped quarters, sometimes even dollars, into\u003cbr\u003e my jar and sent me on my way.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I rounded the block, growing more and more excited about\u003cbr\u003e the efficiency of my tactic. By the time I returned to my playhouse,\u003cbr\u003e I had over ten dollars. But as I sat on the wooden planks,\u003cbr\u003e my legs splayed, and pushed the coins around with my fingertips,\u003cbr\u003e a bad feeling started to creep over me. I realized that I had no\u003cbr\u003e idea who “the poor” really were.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I didn’t know if I had met them before. There were kids at my\u003cbr\u003e school with less trendy clothes than all the others, but did this\u003cbr\u003e really mean they were poor or just that their parents were strict\u003cbr\u003e or stingy? There were those little babies with the bloated bellies\u003cbr\u003e on the commercial, but would ten dollars really help them?\u003cbr\u003e It seemed like they needed much more. I could find some of\u003cbr\u003e the homeless guys near the library, but they might spend the\u003cbr\u003e money on drugs (by age eight, I’d already heard this warning\u003cbr\u003e many times). And how would I choose which people to give the\u003cbr\u003e money to anyway? Who was the most deserving? How could you\u003cbr\u003e predict that they’d use it for good? What if you gave money to\u003cbr\u003e someone and they were insulted—angry that you assumed they\u003cbr\u003e needed it?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The questions washed over me like a tidal wave, and suddenly\u003cbr\u003e everything about my initial intention—so pure, so heartfelt—\u003cbr\u003e was murky. I piled the money back into the jar and stared at it\u003cbr\u003e disapprovingly. There is, perhaps, nothing more paralyzing than\u003cbr\u003e a good intention suddenly proven naive. I decided to bury the jar\u003cbr\u003e in the shadow of my playhouse until I knew what to do with it.\u003cbr\u003e If you go to 1718 North Tejon Street in Colorado Springs, you’ll\u003cbr\u003e find that it’s still buried there, along with my childhood illusions\u003cbr\u003e that “saving the world” is a simple or pure prospect.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299783823589,"sku":"NP9780807000472","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807000472.jpg?v=1767725414","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/do-it-anyway-isbn-9780807000472","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}