for NN12 in Providence.
Let me back up.
While I had a few Black classmates in high school and one in my original college class, I grew up white middle class with little exposure to people all that different that myself. Well, okay, at least when it came to race and socio-economics. Our lower middle class kids were largely Italian.
It was not until I was in the Marine Corps in the mid-1960s that I really got to know people whose background and experience were very different than my own. Doing so broadened my world, deepened my sensitivity, made me a more complete person.
Too much of the blogosphere has been like that white middle class environment in which I have grown up.
Far too much of Yearly Kos aka Netroots Nation has also been so.
But you still have a chance to make a difference, and that is to help with the Pepsi challenge that could help bring a more diverse group from New Mexico to Providence.
Lauren, aka TheFatLadySings is trying to win the the Pepsi Refresh grant to help bring those people.
And you can help.
Netroots Nation has officially signed on to this effort:
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.
To explore more the people Lauren would like to bring, visit Communities Joined in Action
If you want to see the specifics on the proposal, what it will mean if it wins, visit Lifting the Digital Curtain
If I still have not persuaded you, listen to Lauren in the video from that website, which I embed here:
We need your help.
Please
1. Recommend this diary to give it more visibility
2. Tweet the diary to your networks
3. Pass on the link through email and social media
4. If you have not done so already, make sure to vote every day.
Thanks in advance for what you do.
Peace.