Regularly on school days, Placer High School students flood out of their open campus’s unlocked gates to invade downtown Auburn, California, for lunch. The town’s students, 37% of whom are of color, contrast with Auburn’s adult population, which is 85% white.
A recipe for racialized, anti-youth panic? Apparently not. The sushi, vegetarian, Mongolian, and smoothie shops nearest the school calmly offer the long lines of chattering students specials tailored to teenage budgets.
The “teenager” was invented as a corporate marketing target by 1940s teen business entrepreneur Eugene Gilbert. However, from the 1970s forward, the label was repurposed by political “moral entrepreneurs” to describe a fearsome minority—reckless, hormonal, impulsive, crime-prone risk-takers fueling numerous social panics.
That “teenager” of legend no longer exists, if it ever did. Defying alarmist headlines, younger Millennial and Generation Z teenagers rarely commit crimes, have babies, engage in violence, drop out of school, or flounder in college. America’s calcified grown-up institutions—the media, interest groups, political leaders, etc.—remain distinctly uncomfortable with the “new teen” and unable to adapt to dynamic new realities. Placer’s youth revolution remains a secret, just as in communities across the country.
National predictions in the mid-90s filled California headlines with dire warnings that the growing teenage population, particularly Black and Brown teens, threatened a “new wave of mayhem” led by “superpredators” and massive social disruption. What actually happened? Virtually every cherished, disparaging myth adults hold about adolescents is being demolished.
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