As some of you know, I have applied for a Pepsi Challenge grant to diversify the blogosphere and help progressives to build relationships with communities of color. I have been attending Netroots Nation for three years and have observed that our inability to get out the vote in communities of color stems from our failure to hear those communities speak. How can we hear them? They have no voice in our world because they don't have access to the tools we use to communicate with one another.
I know this is the case because I have spent the past two decades of my life working in just such a community. I would like to share with you the difficulties I have faced organizing this campaign because of accessibility issues I face living out here in mountainous, rural northern New Mexico. But first, a word from NN CEO, Raven Brooks:
"The key to winning the Pepsi Refresh grant is accumulating daily voters. Netroots Nation has agreed to help us organize to win this grant.
Here is the deal. I have been trying to forge a relationship between two organizations that have effectively motivated their respective memberships to champion the civil rights of all Americans: Netroots Nation (whom you know), and Communities Joined in Action (whom you don't).
Communities Joined in Action is a national alliance of community health coalitions working to make great health care a possibility for people living in America's most blighted and inaccessible neighborhoods. CJA realizes that health care is a civil rights issue. The coalitions that make up its membership bring together all parties with a stake in health care in the communities they serve in order to figure out how to realign resources to serve people who otherwise never see the inside of a doctor's office. These people are respected leaders in their communities. They are often people who climbed mountains to earn their professional credentials: MDs, RNs, PhDs, MSWs, etc. They have the wherewithal to use online organizing tools to their benefit but have never encountered those tools.
Ironically, my efforts to pull this campaign together have been hindered by the digital divide. First of all, I have never tried to do anything remotely like this in the past. If not for the assistance of Raven, Mary, Karen, Adam B., and others associated with Netroots Nation, the campaign would have been a joke. It requires a strategy unlike any other I have ever implemented. I've become acquainted with tools I never even knew existed, and with campaign strategies I've never encountered.
The internet itself has proven a barrier. I live and work in a county the size of Massachusetts with 10,000 foot peaks, poorly maintained roads and 40,000 people. Sometimes I have to travel to places that have no internet access. It sure is hard to promote teacherken's diary or to send the link to a listserve when i am brushing aside a foot and a half of snow looking for the car keys I just dropped and when there is no wireless or even cell service to allow me to access his link.
And when we do get diaries up, even high profile bloggers like Patriot Daily News Clearhinghouse and teacherken find it difficult to make their voices heard. It is difficult for those who have never experienced the digital curtain to understand its importance.
Most of us who have easy internet access only think about it when we can't stream a particular movie. For us, access to web communications seems like a recreational matter. But when the information highway by-passes your entire community, you become completely cut off from economic opportunity and from participation in Civic Dialogue. Your community loses its voice.
"The key to winning the Pepsi Refresh grant is accumulating daily voters. Netroots Nation has agreed to help us organize to win this grant. Sign up at this link to receive an email once a day providing you links to vote. Once the contest is over, win or lose, the email list will be deleted and your email won't be shared with anyone. So please help us recruit all the daily voters you can, and we can do this."
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
What does this mean for progressives who are easily able to locate an on-ramp? It means that when the time comes to Get Out the Vote in communities of color, we can't. We are not addressing the issues that are important to those communities. We are not using words that are meaningful. We have no relationship to their constituents or their leaders.
We are running in circles because we are only speaking to people of color who are speaking to us. In our language. About our issues.
We are engaged in an imaginary dialogue with a mirror.
If we want to Get Out the Vote among people of color and among those who are not benefitting from our current economy, we have to stop crooning at ourselves. The time to build relationships is NOW!
Please help me to bring non-blogging coalition leaders in communities of color to Netroots Nation in 2012. Help us to help you by voting every single day, once by internet and once by mobile, for our Pepsi Challenge grant.
"The key to winning the Pepsi Refresh grant is accumulating daily voters. Netroots Nation has agreed to help us organize to win this grant. Sign up at this link to receive an email once a day providing you links to vote. Once the contest is over, win or lose, the email list will be deleted and your email won't be shared with anyone. So please help us recruit all the daily voters you can, and we can do this."
Thank you!