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How Do We Keep Obama's Youth Mobilized?
Barack Obama's campaign politicized and organized more youth than any campaign has in recent history. The American Prospect asked Sally Kohn, director of the Movement Vision Lab, and Kevin Simowitz, a Generation Change Fellow, to suggest one way of incorporating these youth into the progressive movement.
originally published at The American Prospect.
This is Sally's response:
Stand Them on the Shoulders of Progressive Giants
Obama's youth must learn that a progressive movement already exists. We must not assume, with the arrogance that often plagues our generation, that our engagement marks the start of something new. Instead, we must understand how the historic election of a progressive, African American president stands on the shoulders of the past. Decades of conservative domination and savage capitalism are giving way to the common good and a positive role for government. The civil-rights movement, the women's rights movement, and the labor movement all helped lay the groundwork for today.This election offered youth a lesson on how movements are built. While Facebook and text messaging certainly shaped the outcome, Obama's margin of victory came through on-the-ground organizing -- the face-to-face, door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor organizing strategies that built the progressive movement, which Obama himself honed as a young man. Youth interested in social change and politics should connect to community-organizing groups in their regions and learn these skills.
And today's youth should teach the progressive movement something, too. Their generational experience of race is not, for the most part, about overt racism, nor is it about a naïve claim of colorblindness. Growing up in a multicultural America with increasingly complex identities, more young leaders understand that achieving racial justice means acknowledging our differences alongside our interconnectedness, practicing rigorous inclusion and carefully ensuring that our policies in the future work for those most harmed in the past. With their influence, the progressive movement has the potential to not only look more like the nation it hopes to represent but also advance bold policy change that truly helps everyone.
--Sally Kohn, director of the Movement Vision Lab at the Center for Community Change and regular contributor to AlterNet and The Huffington Post.
This is Kevin's response:
Let Them Unplug, Hit the Streets
With an entire generation of youth voters and activists poised to define themselves as Obama Democrats, stretching the progressive movement beyond the pinnacle election moment will depend on getting youth to consider the way this election was won: door-to-door and conversation-to-conversation. Our new progressive moment can capture the hope that change is possible by recognizing the "slow and respectful work" of organizing (as Bob Moses once described it) as essential to making that change.Progressive organizations must design strategies and campaigns that engage young people in meaningful and strategic ways. One of the Obama campaign's great successes was its ability to get youth knocking on doors and making phone calls. The Obama campaign taught youth the seminal lesson of community organizing: It's all about relationships. A progressive movement that touches the Obama campaign's youth will continue to value personal stories and the opportunity to connect with others across divisive lines. Rather than complaining about what it is not, the new progressive movement has a chance to dream what can be and work together to realize those dreams.
Organizing youth is about more than compiling a list of e-mail addresses or Facebook messages. Young people have earned the right to be treated as more than an emergency fire brigade, called upon only in moments of desperate need. Should a new progressive moment structure itself around the belief that actively organizing youth is fundamental to its cause and provide concrete steps for youth to get involved, we have no reason to doubt that youth will answer the call and do their part to help make change.
--Kevin Simowitz, fellow at the Center for Community Change with Generation Change's Virginia Organizing Project.
