Friday digest-open thread 5/9/08
Welcome to another weekend. Everyday Democracy was mentioned on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" program Thursday! Katherine Cramer Walsh, author of Talking About Race: Community Dialogues and the Politics of Difference, suggested Everyday Democracy to a college professor who called in asking how she could add social context and discussion of personal experiences to a class on the biology of race. "The first thing I'd suggest is that you get in touch with an organization called Everyday Democracy," Walsh said, noting that her studies of community dialogues led by Everyday Democracy formed the basis for her book. She went on to say that Everyday Democracy offers assistance with curriculum and facilitation for such dialogues and that "outside help might be great if you have folks who are practiced in leading discussions about race."
Here's a link to the program. Walsh's interview begins at the 30:20 mark, but the entire 47-minute broadcast is worth a listen. Via the show, we also learned about the new Exploring Race blog from Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice, who writes at the site, "We have a moment in history to have a national discussion about race. We should seize it and try to mine it for what it's worth. I want this to be a safe place where people of all races can explore their views and biases, openly and honestly."
And we need as many of those places - online and in our communities - as possible. As the Democratic presidential primary season winds down, it appears that Barack Obama will be the first African American presidential nominee of a major party, guaranteeing that race will continue to be a major theme in the 2008 elections. But in a PBS "News Hour" show this week, commentators agreed that - so far, anyway - the media has not risen to the challenge of addressing race in a meaningful way. "You know, when you look at a lot of the reporting coming out of the primaries in the Democratic race, and you see the number of times that we break things down by racial categories in determining how people voted, we are, in some ways, abetting what I would regard as a fairly narrow and superficial discussion about race," said Keith Woods of The Poynter Institute.
"So, you see a full vocabulary for talking about white Americans in this debate, from blue-collar, a euphemism for white blue-collar workers. We talk about lunch-bucket Democrats. We talk about the soccer mom and the NASCAR dad, all of which are euphemisms in the national discourse for white Americans," Woods added. "And then we talk about black people, as though they are all the same, with pretty much all the same views. And Latinos and Asians haven't fared much better. And we don't talk at all about Native Americans." Read the transcript or access audio or streaming video here. Woods has a follow-up essay on the Poynter website, too.
Several friends of Everyday Democracy are mentioned in an article in the May-June issue of Utne Reader, which has "Re-imagining the American Dream" as its theme. In "Tear Down the White Picket Fence," Hannah Lobel writes about how a new civic ethic is encouraging people to move beyond partisan gridlock. A snip:
Whoever moves into the White House next year needs to nurture this civic reflex both within and beyond the under-30 set. And to help, a number of groups are already gearing up for the day after the election.
The November 5th Coalition, an informal group of civic engagement experts, is pitching national service programs that focus on developing leadership and problem-solving skills. Not the kind of service programs, says Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement and a coalition member, “where you just have a bunch of people drafted to paint buildings or something.” They’re also promoting national and local forums that bring together diverse groups to tackle the vexing issues that haunt politicians and communities, such as health care and education reform.
In Bridgeport, Connecticut, for example, “community conversations” about the down-and-out industrial town’s schools not only led to improvements—smaller classes, more-involved parents, fewer poor-performing schools—but also laid the groundwork for a thriving culture of civic participation that has stretched beyond school halls, the think tank Public Agenda notes in a 2007 report.
“Civic participation,” says Melanie Campbell, executive director of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, “is about engaging in a process that helps to improve your individual life, your family, your community, your nation, and your world.”
Isn't it thrilling to see dialogues on race and growing civic engagement mentioned nearly every day in the national media? And then there's the Associated Press story from earlier this week reporting that voter registration is soaring this year, with big gains reported "for blacks, women and young people. Rural and city. South and North. Overall, the AP found that nearly one in 65 adult Americans signed up to vote in just the first three months of the year" and that registrations are up a whopping 64 percent from the same period in 2004.
Do you want to learn how to harness all this energy to help create lasting change in your community? Sure you do. That's why you ought to consider attending Everyday Democracy's national meeting June 12-14 in Denver (the early bird registration deadline has been extended to May 22) and/or the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation's 2008 conference Oct. 3-5 in Austin, Texas. (NCDD's early registration deadline is May 16.)Take these opportunities to meet and network with others who share your passion for making democracy work for everyone, every day.
