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Diversity is fundamentally about voices. That's why Paul's program that I wrote about last week was called "Chicago Voices." The point of the program was not to bring more people of color bloggers and women and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds so that they could be checked off of a diversity list. "Oh good, there are 30 African Americans here instead of 10 in a crowd of 1,500." That's not the point. The point of diversity is to hear different voices. Voice comes from experience, and power helps project and include voices.
The experience of a 2nd Generation Mexican-American man living in a small town is very fundamentally different than the one of a working class-white mother living in a metropolitan city, and both are very different from an African American woman working as a professional progressive political consultant in the South. Many of the Chicago Voices project participants were also using whatever platform they have -- whether it's a small local blog or partnerships with larger blogs -- to project the values and the ideas that come directly from their experience. Nezua is a perfect example of someone who is using the Internet and blogs as a platform for elevating the issues of his people, who are being oppressed in the current immigration battle. The way that experience helps different political activists see the world, including the problems but also the solutions, is valuable. Without them, we can't see the full picture of our progressive movement.
And it's not even about them being at the convention, though that was critical. What would have been much better, would have been if more people like them, who come from fundamentally diverse backgrounds and experiences, were actively sought out to be in the leadership grouping that put on YearlyKos. Gina introduced the committee members on Saturday night, and the group didn't look very diverse to me. I am not at all in any way diminishing the contribution these people made, and I am not placing any blame here. I just want to point out that leadership matters. A cross-racial, cross-gender, cross-class, cross-regional coalition planning that event would have made it an event that was more relevant to all of those people, and those people are the winning progressive coalition. The folks who are active on the DailyKos blog do not represent the long-term progressive coalition, because our coalition is not 92% white. That's the Republicans.
I am completely exhausted and must sleep, but I wanted to get this out there, and I want to say that I do have a vision for how I think we can address this issue that we've been grappling with, which I will begin laying out this week. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have gone to the conference, because it took me working really, really hard through those four days (and of course, playing hard, too - thanks Living Liberally), to get there, but I do know where I think things should go. So I want people to know I'm not just talking about problems, I am talking about solutions, as well, and really hoping to open up a good and productive dialogue.
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