Afro-Netizen

Upload Real Change: What Activists Must Learn From the Obama Campaign

By Roberto Lovato
Courtesy of ColorLines Magazine

WHILE CRISSCROSSING CRACKED STREETS to knock on the rickety doors of rundown row houses in Philadelphia’s 14th Ward, Liza Sabater also found herself crossing the overlapping lines of political and technological history late last spring as she canvassed for Barack Obama’s campaign.

“I got to spend some time with these Puerto Rican mechanics—guys most people wouldn’t expect to have Internet access,” said Sabater, an Afro-Puerto Rican technologist who blogs at culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham. “But there—among the wrenches and jacks—were their cell phones and handheld devices they use to surf the Web.”

Sabater, who helps nonprofits use technology to further their missions, canvassed in Philadelphia with her two sons and coordinated work in the 14th Ward with three Latino volunteers from the Obama campaign. She saw in the mechanics’ mobile devices proof of her belief that “the ‘digital divide’ is a crock when we realize that laptops and desktops aren’t the only ways to access the Web.” But was the Obama campaign reaching these mechanics on their cells?

As they write future narratives of Obama’s astounding rise, historians will likely foreground how skillfully the “change” candidate maneuvered around the racial, geopolitical and economic terrain of our crises-ridden time. Lost in the background of most of these narratives will be how Obama, the former community organizer, took what he learned about mobilizing working- and middle-class residents on Chicago’s South Side and combined it with the stuff that actually wins elections: money, organizing and technology.

Obama’s campaign for the White House deployed in unparalleled ways Web. 2.0 tools—the set of technological developments that turned the World Wide Web into the ubiquitous, mobile, wireless and interactive Web we use today. As this issue of ColorLines went to production in late August, Obama’s Web site, Mybarackobama.com, was as interactive as any online social networking site. More than 10 million people had signed up at the site, and the campaign had raised millions of dollars. The Web site was the centerpiece of an online and offline political strategy that defeated the Clintons—one of the most powerful Democratic political dynasties—and, in the process, Obama took community organizing to new territory as he redefined the practice of electoral politics in the United States. Whatever the election results, Obama’s campaign demonstrated that it’s possible—and necessary—to go online and move people to action offline.

Sabater, who was born in New York’s El Barrio neighborhood and raised in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, was one of the many who responded to the campaign’s appeal. She is still fascinated by how Obama’s team fused state-of-the-art media and technology with the community organizing that the candidate learned in poor communities. Yet while she thinks community-based organizations can learn from the online organizing methods innovated by the Obama campaign, she also sees reason for concern in the cracked streets of Philadelphia.

Sabater noted, for example, that although her fellow Obama campaign volunteers were by definition “Latinos,” it was a poor decision on the part of the campaign to send three middle-class Chicanos from the west coast to a predominantly working-class, Spanish-speaking, Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“When my colleagues told me ‘we don’t speak Spanish’ and couldn’t interact with the people, I saw the interface problem,” said Sabater, adding, “I saw the disconnect between the online and offline strategies, both of which are focused on middle-class people. Nobody’s reaching out and targeting these working-class communities of color with technology. They don’t think that the mechanics and maids use technology or vote.” The Obama campaign fell through the cultural cracks in the street, while members in the community fell through the technological cracks of the campaign’s Web strategy.

They weren’t the first to use the media in this way, but he came along at that precise moment when the technology had matured, when the audience of media users had reached critical mass.“The (Obama) campaign created a fantastic interface for people to join the campaign,” Sabater said. “But it didn’t do as well in reaching people who don’t have laptops and whose technology is primarily their cell phones. There’s an age and class and race gap.”

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Roberto Lovato is a writer with New America Media based in New York City.

What would a McCain-Palin "Hail Mary" TV ad look like?

Hat tip (H/T) to Marc Maron & Sam Seder of Air America Radio's Maron v. Seder Show for this hilarious and easily believable parody peeking into the skull of the Maverick & Co.

Obama camp fights the prospect of voter complacency with viral humor

Subtle, it's not. That said, this kitchy, unpolished web video is in fact produced by the Obama campaign to remind complacent voters to avoid doing what lurks in the battered, collective psyche of Democrats who are still licking their wounds from Al Gore's (electoral) "loss" in 2000.

So, enjoy this cringe-inducing video and think of it on November 5th with a dismissive smirk or an incredulous gape.

NAACP's new president wastes no time reaching out to the Black netroots

On only his second day on the job as the NAACP's new president, 35-year old Benjamin Todd Jealous convened a conference call where members of the Black press and some Black bloggers were given the opportunity to ask him questions about the NAACP's response to Hurricane Ike as well as its new online voter registration drive called Upload to Uplift.

Veteran journalists and neophyte bloggers were afforded the same access and respect -- a perhaps prescient dynamic of which other venerable Black institutions should take notice.

Mr. Jealous, a Generation X'er and himself a fifth-generous NAACP member, follows the brief tenure of Corporate America refugee Bruce Gordon whose outgoing memo to the NAACP's bloated board of directors was leaked first to Afro-Netizen earlier this year.

It is true that over the years, Afro-Netizen has been critical of the NAACP and its waning primacy in the lives of African Americans on a national level. However, as the proud grandson of a former national board member for 12 years (Dr. Maurice F. Rabb, Sr.), I am neither prepared to -- nor want to -- eulogize this historic civil rights organization. I recognize, however, that when some people read "historic" they think "relic". This is as much a problem of perception that Mr. Jealous will have to strategically address as it is an organizational one that is not likely to change overnight -- or in an election cycle.

After all, change is on the lips of many Americans these days. But as an organizational productivity consultant (my day job) as well as from my perspective as a former, long-serving board member of a 115-year old family business, I know quite well that indeed most people fear change -- and organizations tend to loathe it. It goes without saying that old, traditional and highly hierarchical organizations loathe change that much more -- even when they know it's inevitable.

That said, I am confident that Mr. Jealous' vision and activist credentials will help put the NAACP on a path towards fully leveraging 21st Century assets and tactics while honoring the long, proud traditions that represent the best of what our community has accomplished when we have kept our eyes on the prize and marched steadfastly towards social justice.

Dear Corporate Media: Do your job!

Wonder why in "the world's oldest democracy", Americans receive such awful "news" coverage?

Could it be due to the fact that corporate media in this country represents the vast majority of what Americans consume via TV, radio, publishing and newspapers -- and that corporate media are owned by a half dozen conglomerates?

And because of this corporate strangle-hold on public airwaves, the electorate and society-at-large are woefully uninformed and misinformed.

Democracy does not meaning the freedom to choose which TV channel to watch -- particularly if most of them are owned by the same corporations. Democracy is not solely about "freedom to . . .", nor is it about freedom of consumption. Democracy must also incorporate certain "freedoms from". Freedom from media hegemony, for instance, directly relates to the quality and practicality of our First Amendment rights. The former prevents the latter.

How can Americans truly have freedom of expression in this all-consuming media age when there is less and less local ownership of our TV and radio stations and newspapers and the population of the owners of these outlets in no way resembles demography of the United States?

Simply put, there can be no true democracy without media justice.

So, as we build a media justice movement that can impact Congress and the administration of whoever wins office on November 4, click here to check out the good work of our friends at Brave New Films (since we're not going to see good, consistent reporting on this by the mainstream news media any time soon).

Olbermann's "special comment" on "9/11™"

Is NBC News' Washington Bureau chief the answer to the network's Olbermann "problem"?

Fact #1: MSNBC's rise in ratings is overwhelmingly due to the meteoric success of Keith Olbermann deftly skewering right-wingers, their surrogates and minions.

Fact #2: NBC (and pseudo-objective/quasi-crypto-conservative Tom Brokaw, in particular) aren't in love with the tone and authencity of the Olbermann/Chris Matthews duo as election news co-anchors and have "reassigned them" to other duties.

Fact #3: NBC loves money more than it loves shutting out token on-air liberal or progressive personalities (as evinced by a simultaneous pay bump for Olbermann).

Fact #4: It appears NBC News is using the successor to the late Tim Russert, NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker, to hedge against the prospect of Fact #3 becoming untrue if Olbermann (and now -- gratefully -- Rachel Maddow) fans somehow die off or turn into raving Bill O'Reilly fans in the foreseeable future.

Fact #5: The now ubiquitous Mark Whitaker actually said this -- in public, no less! . . .

I have always been under the impression that the three major networks along with the big cable "news" channels have some bearing on what drives (their own) news cycles.

But what do I know? I suppose I'm like Gov. Palin in that I'm not part of the "media elite" -- not having ever been on any of the Sunday morning political TV shows.

I guess if we want to know whose in charge of the news cycle these days, we really should ask John McCain since he's been on "Meet the Press" almost as much as the late Tim Russert.

Laura Flanders of GRITtv & Chris Rabb of Afro-Netizen interview guests at the 2008 NCMR

Author, activist and media personality Laura Flanders co-hosts live coverage of the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform with colleague and netroots activist, Chris Rabb of Afro-Netizen, for the progressive non-profit network, Free Speech TV.

This next interview is with writer, activist and media consultant, Roberto Lovato.

Next president should launch the Digital New Deal

By Helen De Michiel
Guest Contributor

When more than 3 million voters under age 30 turned out for recent caucuses and primaries, they staked a claim as a major force shaping this historic presidential election. Because so many leave college with, on average, $20,000 in debt during a recession economy and are entering a job market with fewer opportunities to earn a decent living, energized young Americans are yearning to help solve America's problems, address the mounting issues of income disparity, and contribute to the health and well-being of their communities. At the same time, a call for enhanced national public service is part of the presidential candidates' campaign platforms.

Thus, this is a singular moment in which to demand a larger and bolder vision to propel all Americans, across generations, fully into the 21st century. It's time for a Digital New Deal.

Even though we inhabit a technologically saturated environment, America is not keeping pace in its capacity as a technological world leader. In the array of studies comparing Internet infrastructures across nations, the highest America ranks in any of them is 4th - in network readiness to compete globally - but 24th among industrialized nations in broadband penetration to U.S. households. These rankings show that America has a ways to go to remain competitive in the dynamic global economy, not to mention protecting itself from cyber-terrorism and other Internet high jinks.

Our next president can help reconstruct America's fragmented and relatively weak public communications infrastructure by using the most effective tool our youth wield - the power and depth of their digital fluency.

This eager, highly knowledgeable, connected and multitasking first generation of digital natives - "millennials" coming of age now who have used computers and the Internet since childhood - can be put to work in a WPA-inspired Digital New Deal to build out a networked national public commons that bolsters our international competitiveness.

Free of commercial data-mining and the ultra-marketing of social networks like MySpace and Facebook, this new online public sphere would evolve into a robust multitude of open channels and spaces where people could safely share ideas, experiment with innovative design, and debate issues and policies. The talents and organizing skills of the millennial generation, whose numbers now exceed their Baby Boomer parents, can be harnessed to connect citizens across online communities and amplify America's independent media voices and visions globally. As a benefit, these Digital New Deal-makers will earn a living wage, be able to retire college debt and develop a lifelong commitment to the public good.

What will this work look like? Youth-driven teams will design tools, social networks and online environments that bolster and stimulate community-building and citizen participation. They would work with information technology specialists to democratize the next generation of broadband access. And they can creatively partner with nonprofits, public schools and communities to build technological and networking capacity that will help us address challenges such as climate change, lack of health care and economic hardship.

The Digital New Deal will also foster a much-needed intergenerational knowledge exchange. Professional development goes both ways - young people showing their elders how to take advantage of Web 2.0 while public sector leaders and educators pass on the experience and wisdom they have gained working as organization builders. The expertise and enthusiasm of millennials and Boomers are complementary and can transform America's public communications sphere - if we make this knowledge exchange a priority.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt put millions of Americans to work designing, building and repairing our country's roads, parks, buildings and schools, they were beautifully constructed for generations to use and enjoy. The construction of a widely accessible broadband digital network now ranks as equally important with that of President Roosevelt's public works infrastructure expansion in the last century.

Like other moments in American history when far-reaching public works initiatives were implemented, there will be cynicism and disdain along with relentless fear-mongering to bring down this "activist" government program. But the benefits of a Digital New Deal are vast and cannot be underestimated.

Creative potential will be unleashed through new media and social networking pathways in ways we have never experienced, influencing where we live and how we work. Young people will be able to acquire entrepreneurial and leadership skills needed for a 21st century workforce, and the public sector will be recharged and better prepared to handle problems of our time.

As the economy falters and technological innovation slows, the Digital New Deal can translate into trillions of dollars for a U.S. economy wired for the online demands of the 21st century. It will create new skill sets and jobs for people who are now struggling, and bring new participants into the information economy. Without a large-scale public sector agenda, private enterprise will simply not provide this on its own.

Imagine after the 2008 election, a swarm of arts and culture leaders, public interest and policy advocates, energetic young software developers, philanthropists, media reformers and forward-thinking politicians banding together in a broad coalition to construct this Digital New Deal. How this investment in our future would be implemented- including public and private partnerships - is a debate well worth having.

 

Helen De Michiel is the national co-director of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), based in San Francisco.

   

Long-time social activist in Chicago, Father Pfleger, defends Rev. Jeremiah Wright in FOX News interview