ABSTRACT
In 1982 I was a teenager in a southern California high school. In being a liberal kid who worried about the future, the political environment did not look so good. Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, and corporations kept getting massive tax breaks and greater deregulation. The rest of us were treated to less funding for education, cuts to public housing, attacks on unions, etc. While these policies were furthering economic disparities and enormous public debt, most of my white, middle-class classmates seemed oblivious to these ominous patterns. Discussions about growing inequalities were almost nonexistent as were references to progressive solutions to this problem. When the topics of poverty, racism, or sexism were broached, one routinely heard some cliché on the virtues of capitalism, reverse discrimination, or that “we can’t do anything about it.” Moreover, with media outlets and many adults gushing over Reagan, the Moral Majority, and Lee Iacocca, the few progressives in school felt alienated, stifled, and marginalized.
