Bendygirl has given me access to her account to post this. I really wanted to let people know about this, because I and others at Howard Univeristy were really surprised by the display of disprespect by the Edwards campaign on our campus this week.
I don't normally (ever) give out my access to anyone, but my friend has never blogged before and I didn't want this to wait another 24 hours to be said.
UPDATED:
If you look at my recent diary you'll see that I posted the info about the event. My friend was helping the Edwards campaign put together the event at Howard. When he walked away from the day he was discouraged. I haven't seen him this discouraged since we both worked for Dean in DC in 03/04.
I suggested that he contact the campaign, explain his issues and see what kind of response they make. He heard nothing outside of the initial e-mail about getting back to him.
I'm rather discouraged that instead of asking my friend to discuss what happened there is a focus on the diary being "weird" or "strange" or that Edwards isn't a racist. I don't care. What I care about is how this was presented as a town hall event and it ended up being a Republicanly staged event.
I'm not a republican. My friend and I are both life long Dems and our friend from the DC young Dems are right now feeling absolutely betrayed by this candidate, and worse, he and the Young Dem feel used.
Edwards got a photo-op. All candidates do. But this is just not how a Democrat does stuff, this is how a Republican does.
UPDATED 2
Changeagent is my friend who was present at the event and help with the logistics of it. He's on line answering questions now.
UPDATED 3:
Changeagent posted in comments:
Understand, that I am not accusing Mr. Edwards of racism. While race did serve to unmask this and help make it very cleat what the event was about, this wasn't racism. This was just blatant disrespect. I don't believe Mr. Edwards is a racist and am certain that he is not. However, for him to allow his staff to pull a stunt like this rings very loudly of a potentially badly managed campaign.
Everyone that was there saw the staff run behind the first tear seating and point to the one who was to be given what became the last question, and many people heard the young lady leave the building screaming into the phone to her friend.
John Edwards finds a blackdrop at Howard University
When I first heard that you, former Senator and presidential
candidate, John Edwards, had planned a visit to my university, Howard University this week, well, words can't describe my excitement. Not only am I a student at Howard, a registered Democrat, and very tuned into local and national politics, but I've been debated lately which candidate I most want to support. I have been struggling between Obama's message and that of my belief in the Edwards message since the campaign cycle kicked into gear.
Going into the event on Wednesday, I was leaning strongly towards you.
I loved your use of the "two America's" analogy during the 2004 presidential campaign and strongly believe that your message is one that most Americans can relate to regardless of political party affiliation. Your message of inclusion, equality, justice, and fairness connects with me both in my head and my heart.
As we waited for the event to begin, there was such an amazing excitement in the air. Students slipped into the auditorium, eager to hear what you, Senator Edwards had to share with us and also answer our questions.
The excitement only increased when you arrived and proclaimed that you were there for a town hall meeting to discuss plans for putting our great country back on track.
You announced that you wanted to have a conversation about health care, education, job creation, and diplomacy. As you spoke of what our priorities as Americans are and how you have that same vision. I felt tremendous pride to be there at this moment, a registered Democrat, but even more proud to be a Howard University Bison, your host!.
As the program moved into the question and answer phase of the "town hall meeting", both my excitement about the potential impact of the your message and the campaign in general began to fade.
Here I sat in a "town hall meeting" with a candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination, on the campus of the most
prestigious black institution of higher education in the world, with an audience filled primarily of Howard University students, and out of the 4 questions that were taken, inside of 25 minutes, only one question was taken from a Howard University student, and that one is a maybe. 4 questions?
First question: environment - taken from a young presumably Caucasian women.
Second question: education – taken from a young presumably Caucasian male.
Third Question: Viacom vs. Youtube – taken from a presumably
African-American Howard University Student.
Forth Question – taken from a young presumably Caucasian female.
Event ended, thank you good bye!
What? Good Bye? What happened to the Town Hall?
You and your staff had the nerve to come to Howard University
proclaiming that you wanted to have a town hall meeting with Howard students as a part of a campus tour, but what you really wanted was a blackdrop for some promotional video footage.
How dare you, Mr. Edwards, come to my university, Howard University, be welcomed by our University President, introduced by the president of the Howard University College Democrats and then stack the audience with non-Howard Caucasian students. I'm not a Republican. When I
attend a Town Hall, I expect a Town Hall, not a staged Republican event.
As I lingered around after the event trying to digest what had just happened to me and my fellow alums and classmates, I had the privilege of hearing that Mr. Edwards campaign needed some footage of "young folks" for a fundraising media package and since several of the other local non-historically black institutions were already on spring break, they decided to come to Howard.
Of course, I would have preferred if you'd have left home those "young folks" that you seem to have really wanted on video. It was this shrieked comment that really helped to frame this for me "I got a call from the campaign yesterday and they asked me to come and they asked us to ask questions" the young Caucasian woman shrieked into her cell phone as she left the building. My building. My classmates building. But I doubt it was her building.
So, on Wednesday March 14th at Howard University, you, Presidential candidate John Edwards, did indeed bring together portions of the two America's. The problem is that you heard one of them but didn't have the decency to listen to the other one. In case you and your staff haven't figured it out yet, I'm part of the group that didn't get to speak, the one you used as a blackdrop.
With that said, I would like to extend an invitation for you to return to Howard University for a real town hall meeting to engage in a real conversation about transformational change in this country. If you see it in your heart and mind to correct this mistake and give audience to the voices you so blatantly denied on Wednesday, we would be glad to have you.
I do believe in your message and the values that you say you hold so dear, but if you aren’t willing to hear my voice and the voices of my peers now as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, how can I believe that you will hear our voices as the president of this great land.
In the spirit of democratic unity, An agent of transformational change.
4th UPDATE:
As I stated earlier, I understand the intensity of my observations. I also ask you to understand the intensity of my emotions in regards to this incident.
Was this racism on the part of John Edwards, I don't think so.
Was this a badly organized event, yes.
The problem is that as a candidate for president you have to be better than this.
You cannot afford to surround yourself with staff or advisors who only see their bottom line and not the people they supposedly are attempting to connect with and hopefully represent.
As a friend stated to me today, "this was messy" and I as a loyal democrat expect better.
John Edwards’ staff were contacted and notified of the concerns about this event and the response was we would like to chat. If you need three or four days to respond to this, that alarms me.
If you have further detailed questions about the event, I am willing to answer them.
Please understand that I have signed onto no other campaign and have no other intentions than to voice a major concern and hopefully push a response from the campaign.
Thank you all for giving this your attention. I ask you to email the campaign or call your contacts and ask them to respond and more importantly make sure this level of insensitivity doesn't happen again.
Update 5:
Changeagent e-mailed the campaign contacts he had but the response was "we should talk". I believe that these issues should be talked about to work through these campaign issues now and make all of the campaigns better, stronger and will be better and stronger against the Right Wing machine.
Now, I'm off to bed. I'm doing taxes in my old neighborhood in the morning.